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Ask HN: I realise data science is not for me and feel depressed

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Re: Ask HN: I realise data science is not for me and feel depressed

#101

Post by Ajef »

2143 wrote: post #84
Ajef wrote: post #78

I think some of the other posts have covered advice regarding the transition to SWE very well. You write you are: > in the process of receving EU passport This threw me off somewhat. Does this mean you're an EU member state citizen currently living in Russia and applied for a passport in your home country? I'm not sure I understand what you mean otherwise. Aquiring citizenship (for a passport) is either very expensiv…

From what I understand: There are countries in Europe that are not a member of the European Union. Eg: UK, Switzerland, Norway. From what the OP said, they are from Russia, and studying in another eastern European country. (Russians (as well as plenty of non-Russians) have a tendency to go to Europe/UK/USA/Canada etc for higher studies I think.) Russia is not a member of EU. The eastern-European country the OP is stu…

> By the way, I see unconfirmed reports that Ukraine has just been made a EU member. Like, today

This does not happen overnight. Also it would be all over official news outlets and the website of the european union.

[Edit] The absurdity of that statement has triggered me a bit to be honest. It seems so unrealistic for me as a German that the EU as an organization is capable of such a reaction due to to it's structuring and the process involved, that even suggesting it on something like hn without some sort of source with current event being what they are seems like either trolling or an attempt at propaganda. I do understand however if your comment was made out of lack of knowledge of what the EU is. The world is a complicated place and we all live in our bubbles.

Re: Ask HN: I realise data science is not for me and feel depressed

#102

Post by darksaints »

Agreed with the current top-level comment: finish your degree. You'd be surprised at how easy it is to move around early in your career. I have a degree in supply chain management and started as a supply chain analyst, but now I am a data engineer and operations researcher.

I too have worked as a Data Scientist but grew bored of it. You can get 95% of the way there on most DS problems by throwing a linear algorithm (favorites being GLMs and GAMs) or Random Forest variant at the data you have, and maybe doing some hyperparameter optimization with k-folds or similar. I've found the data engineering aspect of data science to be far more beneficial...you'll get far more out of thoughtful feature engineering than you will out of algorithm or hyperparameter tweaks. Leave those to the PhDs.

The second thing I would point out is that if you really do love Math and solving hard problems, you may want to start looking into Operations Research (aka Mathematical Optimization). There are tons of really cool problems to work on that will actually stretch your imagination. And unlike Data Science, where a quality resume reads like "I increased accuracy by 23%", a good Operations Research resume reads like "I saved my employer $300M dollars a year". Those are real numbers from a previous job, BTW...even incredibly efficient companies have lots of low hanging fruit where massively impactful decisions are still being made using human intuition or other suboptimal heuristics. Again, finish your degree, but if it is someone you'd like to look into, there are ways to find jobs that will get you adjacent to and perhaps directly working on Operations Research problems.

Re: Ask HN: I realise data science is not for me and feel depressed

#103

Post by princeb »

goodpoint wrote: post #66
vkk8 wrote: post #30

Data science is an oversold profession. When studying it, you learn really cool things; Bayesian models, reinforcement learning, AI, all the trendy stuff. In reality, most of the data scientists end up spending almost all of their time interacting with horribly designed, decade(s) old databases and the analysis part of their job is mostly just plotting the mean as a function of time and doing logistic regression over…

Spot on. "Data science" and "Machine learning" are indeed hyped up terms. Most of the work is basics statistics, some SQL and poking at a ML library until you get the output you wanted. Unsurprisingly, the day to day work can be very underwhelming.

i spent some time in "data science", back when it was just called "research", in a corporate environment.

95% of your value as a "data scientist" is figuring out how to squeeze diamonds from tons and tons of steaming piles of sh*t, and that kind of work is basically just filtering, collating, collecting, organizing from disparate data sets with different fields, data types, formats, some of them with varying degrees of accuracy. it's not fun, but very few other people are doing it, and the result is valuable to a lot of people, so it pays well.

Re: Ask HN: I realise data science is not for me and feel depressed

#105

Post by faangiq »

Start leeting and learning algo/DS. Should be no problem to get an entry level job in 3-6 months. In 1-2 years switch jobs and you’ll be doing well. Btw I should add that you’re making the right decision DS is a bad career for reasons I won’t get into here.

Re: Ask HN: I realise data science is not for me and feel depressed

#106

Post by btbuildem »

I work with data scientists, SWEs and various flavours of engineers.

My advice would be to finish your degree. You're close and it's worth it.

After that, branch out into some specific domain that interests you. It will give you an incredible edge over all vanilla DS / SWE people. Plus, it'll make work interesting.

Pure SWE after a while will give you the same feeling as you're experiencing now. You're just building web apps for some startup dweebs, or shuffling endless Java classes in some grey corp.

So yeah. DS skills will come in handy, so will SWE skills. Great to get that base in your education. But long-term, find an interesting niche and get good at it. Just not anything super-obscure as not to limit your options too much.

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: I realise data science is not for me and feel depressed

#107

Post by penciltwirler »

I feel ya, I was a data engineer at my previous job, and I hated it. In the end, it boils down to the fact that data scientists simply use the tools, while the SWEs build them. Trust your instincts, and follow what you are passionate about, instead of chasing hype/hotness in tech.

Re: Ask HN: I realise data science is not for me and feel depressed

#108

Post by phendrenad2 »

Do not transition to SWE thinking it will be more "interesting" or "fun". Although it appears to the outside that SWE is more interesting/fun, that's only true at junior levels, when no one expects anything out of you. If you want to progress in your career, you will have to transition to a senior engineer (needs to get things done with the least creativity possible) or management (spends all day in meetings). Every career path leads to this, even data science.

Re: Ask HN: I realise data science is not for me and feel depressed

#109

Post by marcus_holmes »

orzig wrote: post #48
marcus_holmes wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the opposite experience, almost. I've hired and trained lots of people with CS degrees who think they know everything and barely know the basics. I massively prefer people who flunked university and just got a job writing code because they could. University no longer trains people to think, instead it's about jumping through hoops and dealing with pointless administrative bullshit [0]. source: I have a Master'…

To provide a third vote: My midsized company barely considers people without degrees, even if they have extensive technical work experience. Example: I had to battle hard to get somebody considered for an entry-level non-technical role, and they ended up being rapidly promoted within engineering once they got past the recruiting screens.

I feel your pain. I've fought against this before.

I think it's because of the salary level - like HR/management cannot get their heads around paying someone who doesn't have a degree the kind of salary that developers get these days.

Re: Ask HN: I realise data science is not for me and feel depressed

#110

Post by marcus_holmes »

sarusso wrote: post #53
marcus_holmes wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the opposite experience, almost. I've hired and trained lots of people with CS degrees who think they know everything and barely know the basics. I massively prefer people who flunked university and just got a job writing code because they could. University no longer trains people to think, instead it's about jumping through hoops and dealing with pointless administrative bullshit [0]. source: I have a Master'…

Wow. Pretty strong opinions here. Completing a degree means you can commit and deliver, IMO. Instead, leaving for writing code just because you can tells me that you took the short path, and that your missing basics (the real ones, which teaches you University) will knock at your door some day. My 2 cents.

I don't want developers who continue doing something even when it's blatantly the wrong thing to be doing.

Flunking out of university is not the "short path". It's the hard path. Getting a degree is not difficult, or even hard work. It's the easy choice - the thing everyone expects you to do.

I don't want people who follow orders and do what they're told. I want people who are prepared to make hard decisions, take the less-travelled path, do what they feel is right and not just what everyone else tells them is right.

I want someone who can actually code, and not someone who has a certificate that says they can code.

My 2 cents.

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