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Data Science Is America’s Hottest Job

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Re: Data Science Is America’s Hottest Job

#111

Post by [deleted] »

gaius wrote: post #11
mercwear wrote: post #6

Unfortunately a lot of the "Data Scientist" I meet are nothing more than excel / sheets gurus. Most of them have never written a line of code or syntax that is more complex than a nested vlookup. I hope the tide changes here and I think it will, but this has been my experience so far.

Unfortunately a lot of the "Data Scientist" I meet are nothing more than excel / sheets gurus. Most of them have never written a line of code or syntax that is more complex than a nested vlookup. Those kinds of jobs are advertised as “data science” jobs. In fact any job that involves data manipulation at all is getting re-branded as “data science”. Partly this is employers doing a bait-and-switch to attract better ca…

[deleted]

Re: Data Science Is America’s Hottest Job

#112

Post by nycthbris »

kitanata wrote: post #87
hellofunk wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of the skills necessary to succeed in data science, the ability to program is actually the least important. Perhaps you were over-emphasising your software skills at the expense of really demonstrating proper understanding of the science of data analysis. A data science position is not going to require your experience in low-level game programming, for example. In fact, being able to program at all is secondary, sinc…

This right here is a perfect example of why this position is gatekeeped so much. Having a PhD doesn’t automatically mean you think like a scientist of a mathematician, and having a bachelor’s degree and 15 years of experience writing code and then putting in the effort to read Elements of Statistical Learning, compeleting several online courses in machine learning and data science, studying probability, combinatorics…

I think you are seriously underestimating the value of first hand experience conducting scientific research. It beats into you a mindset you can't get anywhere else. There are no books or manuals or docs to read and master it. There's only the scientific method. You start with a question, conduct experiments, analyze results, adjust your hypothesis, and repeat the process. You get very comfortable with saying "I don't know". You right at the border of the unknown and trying to navigate further.

Companies are using a PhD as a proxy for having research experience because it's the the only qualification like it out there. It's a poor proxy because not all PhDs are created equal.

Re: Data Science Is America’s Hottest Job

#113

Post by drharby »

cup-of-tea wrote: post #65
kitanata wrote: post #41

I recently quit a gig and spent a few months looking for a data science/machine learning gig. I was surprised just how gatekeeped these positions were. Everyone wanted a PhD or a masters degree. I have 15 years of experience in software. I’ve done everything to low level game programming and graphics programming to web development, to AI (but not as a specific position title). The gatekeeping in this field surprised…

You're right, it's not that hard. A lot of the gatekeeping is because the departments are run by nontechnical people who just don't understand your skill set. They also need to guard the bullshit and not let anyone realise it's just really shoddy programming at the end of the day.

I love the sarcasm, but id advise you to mark it as such.

Hn readers are very literal on the whole.

Re: Data Science Is America’s Hottest Job

#114

Post by gervase »

kitanata wrote: post #87
hellofunk wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of the skills necessary to succeed in data science, the ability to program is actually the least important. Perhaps you were over-emphasising your software skills at the expense of really demonstrating proper understanding of the science of data analysis. A data science position is not going to require your experience in low-level game programming, for example. In fact, being able to program at all is secondary, sinc…

This right here is a perfect example of why this position is gatekeeped so much. Having a PhD doesn’t automatically mean you think like a scientist of a mathematician, and having a bachelor’s degree and 15 years of experience writing code and then putting in the effort to read Elements of Statistical Learning, compeleting several online courses in machine learning and data science, studying probability, combinatorics…

Of course it's possible that there are competent data scientists without graduate degrees; the parent was simply suggesting possible reasons why you might have been passed over for those positions, such as positioning your previous positions as more engineering-focused and less research-focused. I doubt the intent was to "gatekeep" you, but to give you suggestions on how to improve your search in the future.

This is a grossly defensive overreaction to the parent reply.

Re: Data Science Is America’s Hottest Job

#115

Post by peatmoss »

brational wrote: post #96
peatmoss wrote: post #15

I have a love / hate relationship with bucketing a whole lot of formerly separate disciplines into the data science label. In my case, I'm a reasonably solid R / Python programmer (who occasionally dabbles in racket, clojure, and others). I've got the sort of applied statistical training of someone who took a quant-heavy course load in a PhD program. I've even (by title) been a data scientist a couple times now. Havi…

To be fair though, can't you say the same about the title "software engineer". Without further qualifiers such a title can run quite the gamut of skill-sets.

I see more segmentation in software roles: front-end, back-end, full-stack, embedded, devops, realtime systems are all labels that get you in roughly the right place.

Beyond that, there are labels that refer to specific technologies that get you even closer: Rails, Elixir, Django, React, QT, C#/Winforms, Verilog.

There really aren’t the equivalent shorthand filters in data science.

Re: Data Science Is America’s Hottest Job

#116

Post by nilkn »

nycthbris wrote: post #112
kitanata wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This right here is a perfect example of why this position is gatekeeped so much. Having a PhD doesn’t automatically mean you think like a scientist of a mathematician, and having a bachelor’s degree and 15 years of experience writing code and then putting in the effort to read Elements of Statistical Learning, compeleting several online courses in machine learning and data science, studying probability, combinatorics…

I think you are seriously underestimating the value of first hand experience conducting scientific research. It beats into you a mindset you can't get anywhere else. There are no books or manuals or docs to read and master it. There's only the scientific method. You start with a question, conduct experiments, analyze results, adjust your hypothesis, and repeat the process. You get very comfortable with saying "I don'…

What sorts of positions are we actually talking about here? How many companies actually need a research lab? I don't think anyone contests that a PhD is very useful if your job is to actually write and publish papers, attend conferences, present at conferences, etc. But many data scientists and machine learning engineers working in industry don't do any of that, and many companies have no need to have anyone on staff doing any of that either.

Re: Data Science Is America’s Hottest Job

#117

Post by kei929 »

erw1 wrote: post #100
kitanata wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This right here is a perfect example of why this position is gatekeeped so much. Having a PhD doesn’t automatically mean you think like a scientist of a mathematician, and having a bachelor’s degree and 15 years of experience writing code and then putting in the effort to read Elements of Statistical Learning, compeleting several online courses in machine learning and data science, studying probability, combinatorics…

What value does an advanced degree, in your opinion, bring to a data science position then? To hear you say it, it brings no value.

Prestige and artificially pumping salaries. It’s all about brand building.

I don’t have an advanced degree, just a bachelors of math from 1995, and have been breadboarding (and more), and coding since the 80s

I can follow along with ML and have implemented toys with the ML algorithms in a couple days.

It’s bourgeois intellectualism. Like a law firm only hiring from Harvard

ML is automated schema design. And the current methodology has known limits of applicability

This is “Mongo DB”, “devops” like hype all over again.

Re: Data Science Is America’s Hottest Job

#118

Post by nu-world-odor »

kitanata wrote: post #41

I recently quit a gig and spent a few months looking for a data science/machine learning gig. I was surprised just how gatekeeped these positions were. Everyone wanted a PhD or a masters degree. I have 15 years of experience in software. I’ve done everything to low level game programming and graphics programming to web development, to AI (but not as a specific position title). The gatekeeping in this field surprised…

yeah every IT conference now has ML/data track to train the legions so they won't need to create positions for PHD candidates...

Re: Data Science Is America’s Hottest Job

#119

Post by mikert5671 »

gaius wrote: post #19
minimaxir wrote: post #9

Recently I wrote a tweetstorm of my not-so-great experience hunting for a data science job last summer: https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/951117788835278848 Despite data science being a hot job, the sheer, growing number of MOOCs available will cause the high amount gatekeeping from many prospective employers to get even worse. I am very happy as a data scientist now, and yes, it's more complicated than doing Exce…

sheer, growing number of MOOCs available will cause the high amount gatekeeping from many prospective employers I did a MOOC, nothing wrong with them. A lot of it turned out to be just revising things I had originally learned in my BEng or MSc, but I learned some things too. And a bit of revision never hurt. I don’t think I had done much calculus “in anger” since graduating for example, so that was rusty. In 5 years…

"In ten years all programming will be either outsourced or automated..."

-everyone in the 90s

Re: Data Science Is America’s Hottest Job

#120

Post by bufordtwain »

kitanata wrote: post #87
hellofunk wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of the skills necessary to succeed in data science, the ability to program is actually the least important. Perhaps you were over-emphasising your software skills at the expense of really demonstrating proper understanding of the science of data analysis. A data science position is not going to require your experience in low-level game programming, for example. In fact, being able to program at all is secondary, sinc…

This right here is a perfect example of why this position is gatekeeped so much. Having a PhD doesn’t automatically mean you think like a scientist of a mathematician, and having a bachelor’s degree and 15 years of experience writing code and then putting in the effort to read Elements of Statistical Learning, compeleting several online courses in machine learning and data science, studying probability, combinatorics…

Sure. Unjust as it may seem though, requiring a PhD in science is a free and simple way for employers to narrow down the field of candidates to those who are good at data science. It's the data science equivalent of requiring a CS degree when looking for a programmer. It's natural for employers to use that tool.
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