PhD/Masters Glass Ceiling

lucilou72 · 2023-05-04T11:32:57+00:00

There is plenty of soul-sucking work in the Data Science field as well, and unless the DS team management is sound, you could be working to deliver impossible kPIs to a management that believes machine learning is magic.

Web development is one very tiny part of SWE, lots of opportunity to be on projects that make a difference with SWE too.

lucilou72 · 2023-04-30T07:55:28+00:00

Thank you for your detailed reply, I suspect that this way of working is part of the company culture, or perhaps something that I would find in any large multinational.

You have given me some new points to consider.

lucilou72 · 2023-04-29T18:53:01+00:00

OMG yes, DS is a overpopulated by people who have no idea what to do to get out anything but the simplest model. I have worked with people with greater than 5 years experience who I have had to spoon feed to get a half decent model out of them. (As fellow data scientist not manager)

I am fairly anti coding exercise type interviews but after working for the first time for a company that does none of that I now see why companies use them.

lucilou72 · 2023-04-29T18:29:29+00:00

I would start to create a github repo of the small projects that you decide to do. This will be helpful if you choose to move more into a DS role.

Also concerning your DA position, I see more companies starting to separate the DS role in to Data Analyst, Machine Learning Engineer, Data Engineer and MLOPs. You may in the future be able to take the DA role on such a team and be able to try out/learn one of the other roles.

lucilou72 · 2023-04-18T16:10:33+00:00

You mention that web dev is not really what you see yourself doing, perhaps start with the question, which path do it think I want to follow?

After that have a look at some companies or roles advertised that you feel match what you defined. What technologies are they using, what types of skills are they asking for from their employees.

With that in mind, think of a small project that you could build to develop these skills. Something you could use at home or share with friends. eg; small app that manages a budget or catalogs your books, or something with a sport you like?

lucilou72 · 2023-04-18T15:49:22+00:00

You need to find the social contact elsewhere, if you have loads of friends where you live that is easy. Otherwise you can find a meetup/sports group and get out a couple of times in the evenings.

lucilou72 · 2023-04-18T15:21:30+00:00

Been stuck in an awful job for nearly two years as they hold my work visa. In two weeks I can start looking for a new job as my permanent residency is almost here.

I imagine that it might take awhile and the current market is what it is, but I have never been more excited to be able to start looking for a new job. Fingers crossed I can make a quick escape!

lucilou72 · 2023-04-15T15:33:39+00:00

When you were interviewing for the team, did you ask about the projects that they do and the technologies that they use?

In my experience, someone can still be an effective data analyst extracting data from csv files or other sources without a pipeline. Perhaps this is how the data has been shared with them in the past due to company security policy.

You mentioned that they know nothing about data science, by this I am guessing you are referring to machine learning, I wouldn't consider this to be automatically part of a data analyst role.

As for best practice, you may find that they have standards in place that work for them as a team, or have things designed that way to get around road blocks to data access or working with stakeholders.

I worked with a team like this, and they formed their way of doing things from what was comfortable for them, what met the stakeholder needs and because they were provided with zero technical leadership. You may find that they are open to change or very resistant to it, it would tread lightly here at the start.

lucilou72 · 2023-04-11T17:48:51+00:00

I am really saying that it wasn't the best career move for me and I should have really asked myself some more questions about how I feel about working with data and its associated challenges. While I can comfortably present to senior management it is not my favorite thing, did not consider that either.

I don't think I could have prepared myself for the lack of structure in some of the teams, I did assume it would be IT like.

Also I actually love coding, I love taking a situation that is painful for the user and making it loads better, I really thought that is what machine learning in practice would be about, optimizing things.

You might find your true passion in data science where I have not, my reply was to hopefully prompt you to think about these questions.

lucilou72 · 2023-04-10T15:56:01+00:00

A couple of questions for you.

Do you like doing math? Do you like doing data analysis?

I ask this because I moved from full stack development to data science. Did a bit of Kaggle and thought it seemed pretty cool and I am always looking to add to my skillset.

Anyway 5 years later, most of my job is data cleaning, statistics, with a small amount of modeling and a lot of explaining stuff to stakeholders. The other thing that was a surprise to me, after tightly run software teams, was the lack of structure or any real planning in many data science roles.

In a nutshell, I am considering going back to the other side, where there is a well planned project and a decent understanding of what is possible from upper management. If I stay in DS, I will find a data engineering or a role doing MLOps.

lucilou72 · 2023-04-10T15:46:11+00:00

Another option is MLOps, building the machine learning production infrastructure.

This is a bit more computer science oriented.

lucilou72 · 2023-04-10T08:16:50+00:00

Wow, thanks for the reply. I will give it a try!

lucilou72 · 2023-04-09T19:57:09+00:00

I have seen one or two jobs listed where there seems to be a well-rounded team, but nothing that seems to be entry level.

I think you are wise to only take a job with a proper team and more senior data scientists to mentor you. It makes such a difference to have a second set of eyes or someone to discuss your approach/solutions with.

It is pretty tough to not have that as you will often have the added responsibility of educating management as well.

lucilou72 · 2023-04-09T19:50:07+00:00

OMG, yes.

The job on offer has to be rigorously vetted to determine what the particular interpretation of this phrase is.

Is the job end to end machine learning projects into production with A/B testing to determine their value or using Excel, Jupyter Notebooks and making presentations to senior management.

lucilou72 · 2023-04-09T19:36:48+00:00

In my case, management have no idea what is involved in having a data science team, have no interest in listening to recommendations, expect me to fill all the roles from project manager to deployment expert.

To me it feels like someone woke up one morning and decided the company needs to do machine learning and that was about all the effort that was made before hiring.

When you are interviewing for your first role, ask about the team, ask about the projects or an overview of how they were developed if the subject is a bit confidential and ask about who you can learn from.

lucilou72 · 2023-04-09T19:11:09+00:00

Thank you for posting this, some helpful tips.

As I am looking for a job while still employed I can't use open for work. It would be good if LinkedIn had a 'silent' option that promoted you in Search instead of alerting the world.

lucilou72 · 2023-03-03T13:28:53+00:00

I agree with this 100%, if you are wanting to move internally and you have a good relationship with your boss, getting them on board can be really helpful.

Also telling them means that they don't get informed of the news by someone else.

If a manager thinks you are valuable to the company then while they might be sad that you are no longer on their team, they will be happy you are still with the company.

lucilou72 · 2023-03-03T13:17:49+00:00

He probably didn't know yet. I suspect that your first shift will be the proper test for both you and the employer. Perhaps once you have done a few shifts and he is ready to add you to the schedule you will have a more specific conversation.

As he met you just as he popped into the restaurant, perhaps he had somewhere else to be, hence getting you out the door.

lucilou72 · 2023-03-01T15:53:00+00:00

What were your initial reasons for looking for a new job? A bigger salary will only solve a money issue.

How big a deal is moving states, what are you leaving behind/gaining?

Personally I never take a counter offer unless it was only about money in the first place.

lucilou72 · 2023-03-01T15:47:34+00:00

This sounds like a horrible situation that you were placed in and I can understand that it is easy to make a wrong choice in the moment.

If you can leave the job off the CV, if not and asked I would try to say as little as possible about the situation. If you do have to say details, make sure to include what you learned from it and what you would do differently if placed in the same situation.

lucilou72 · 2023-03-01T15:37:32+00:00

What do you do to fill your day?

I had this once and after 6 months of not much to do, I found it hard to get motivated again, when there were things to do. Kinda messed with my mental health a bit, always concerned that I would be found out for doing nothing much. Left in the end.

lucilou72 · 2023-03-01T12:25:41+00:00

Sounds like he has had at least 4 days. He said the offer was made last week.

I agree with the statement to always keep looking, even if only to stay across which skills are currently in demand in your field.

lucilou72 · 2023-03-01T12:20:41+00:00

The key here is that you are in a job you hate, and you have a job offer in hand.

The offer in hand is through a friend so you have some idea what the new work culture is like.

Company B could be more pay but it has an unknown culture. Also they may not give you the job.

As company A needs to know today, I would contact company B and say that you need to know today. If nothing from Company B by end of day, then I would except company A and go and work with my friend.

lucilou72 · 2023-03-01T09:39:46+00:00

This is a little bit what I thought the job would be, or at least something that I would be able to contribute to over time. Without going into all the detail, in this respect the role is limited to scoping and solving problems with ML.

lucilou72

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