Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork • Hacker News Board

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#121

Post by ABCLAW » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 10:14 PM UTC

Baeocystin wrote: post #113

bsder wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you look at hockey, it is mostly white. That doesn't mean being white gives you an advantage in playing hockey. It just means way more white people enjoy hockey compared to black people. I suspect it's more that playing hockey implies a certain socioeconomic stratum (hockey is an expensive sport).

You can play a pickup game of hockey with something to thwack around as a puck, a stick, and some skates, all of which are dirt cheap. I think it's kind of a stretch to make any socioeconomic predictions when the much simpler correlate is that hockey is cheap and easy to play (and thus will have a larger talent pool to draw from) when you live where local ponds freeze over in the winter, and those parts of the countr…

Did you grow up with any competitive-level hockey players?

The sport is a VERY large time and finance drain on a family.

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#122

Post by lacampbell » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 10:17 PM UTC

zzaacchh wrote: post #76

My company uses Upwork (as a services buyers) for hundreds of contracted hours per week, and have been for many years. We’ve never required any contractor to use screen recording for hourly work — that is optional — and have never heard of anyone using a webcam. We’ve also never disputed a single hour of work that a contractor has billed, nor have we heard any of the dozens of contractors we’ve hired mention this as…

You registered in 2012 and thought you'd use your first ever post - 9 years later - to defend Upwork?

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#123

Post by dmcbrayer » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 10:20 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #106

cambalache wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with some things you said others not so much. By the way, being this the Internet, I am not trying to push any weird racial stuff here, I am only trying to argue for the position you can operationalize the race concept based on arbitrary but objective genetical clusters in the human population. This can be useful for myriad things: Anthropology, population genetics, hereditary disease, diet requirements desig…

I don't have enough time to give you the response you deserve for the time you've taken, but I do appreciate your insight and will think on it. As all parts of culture, the concept of white privilege is extremely vague, and I imagine white Milwaukee trailer park residents would be a bit offended to be lectured about their privilege. Hence why I would prefer we spend our time focusing more on socioeconomic factors of…

+1 to both of you for having a polite and coherent discussion about such a divisive topic. I enjoyed reading it.

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#124

Post by bofadeez » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 10:24 PM UTC

pdkl95 wrote: post #28

> the dataset contained ... demographic attributes like race ... to predict actual work performance Regardless of the original intent, that's a request to launder a protected class into an opaque "work performance" metric. Also, while they are not on the unfortunately short list of protected classes, using demographics like age is probably going to create similar discrimination problems. If you want to know about job…

Comments like this make me cringe so hard. People like you are why evolutionary biologists have to do their work in secrecy. You're basically a Luddite with respect to psychometric/statistical tech available now via identical twin studies. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5068715/ (nobody will reply, everyone will downvote. this is a result of their cortex being overwhelmed.)

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#125

Post by cryptonector » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 10:29 PM UTC

s/Data scientists shouldn't/No one should/

No?

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#126

Post by bofadeez » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 10:34 PM UTC

opwieurposiu wrote: post #46

pdkl95 wrote: post #28

> the dataset contained ... demographic attributes like race ... to predict actual work performance Regardless of the original intent, that's a request to launder a protected class into an opaque "work performance" metric. Also, while they are not on the unfortunately short list of protected classes, using demographics like age is probably going to create similar discrimination problems. If you want to know about job…

If you think it is not possible for race be related to job performance you must not have watched much NBA basketball.

It's a politically-motivated, Luddite-like mentality with respect to the technology available via psychometric analysis on identical twins.

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#127

Post by bofadeez » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 10:36 PM UTC

opwieurposiu wrote: post #46

pdkl95 wrote: post #28

> the dataset contained ... demographic attributes like race ... to predict actual work performance Regardless of the original intent, that's a request to launder a protected class into an opaque "work performance" metric. Also, while they are not on the unfortunately short list of protected classes, using demographics like age is probably going to create similar discrimination problems. If you want to know about job…

If you think it is not possible for race be related to job performance you must not have watched much NBA basketball.

"According to twin studies, the Big Five personality traits have substantial heritable components explaining 40–60% of the variance" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5068715/

Trait conscientiousness and IQ predict job performance. Stop being Luddites with this technology.

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#128

Post by bofadeez » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 10:55 PM UTC

closetohome wrote: post #117

hihi123 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not the lesson. Upwork the platform scammed him, not the 'unethical' clients. The clients were looking to settle the bill.

I mean, the clients may be unethical too. But more in a not-hiring-minorities kind of way than a scamming-their-contractors kind of way.

That's a pretty wild assumption. They clearly were willing to pay.

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#129

Post by agentofoblivion » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 11:06 PM UTC

What does this have to do with Data Scientists? So you didn’t read up on how to log time, made unnecessary mistakes, and an inflexible collective of likely underpaid service reps didn’t care enough to go beyond the letter of the law. That’s hardly a scam. That’s you not knowing what you’re signing up for and then being upset when you didn’t get the outcome you wanted. Hardly deserves front page news.

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#130

Post by JamesBarney » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 11:14 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #64

jammygit wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any tips for freelancers who are recent engineering grads? I have some portfolio items, but I still can’t claim more than 1 year experience

Spend a year working for a consulting company, to learn the ropes. If I were a business looking to have a freelancer build something for me, 'a fresh grad, with less than a year work experience, who has never done this sort of thing before' is not who I'd hire. I have 9 years experience, and if I were to to go into freelancing (The kind where you solve problems for businesses, as opposed to the kind where you're a 9-…

> I have 9 years experience, and if I were to to go into freelancing (The kind where you solve problems for businesses, as opposed to the kind where you're a 9-5 1099 contractor), the first thing I would do is to take a job at a consulting firm, and spend my time there learning. Figure out what works, and what really, really doesn't.

I have to disagree.

I've worked for several tech consulting firms(8 years of experience) and then started my own consulting company 2 years ago. And in my running a successful consulting firm involves 3 key skills(in order of importance).

Sales - This is definitely the hardest and most important skill. And unfortunately is also the skill developers usually have the least experience in. This involves finding leads and closing deals. This will take a long time to do and is emotionally very rough for most developers.

Customer/Relationship Skills - If you're already a nice a polite person who doesn't mind eating the occasional shit sandwich this mostly involves repeatedly learning the lesson that however important you think communication it's more important you think.

Execution - This is mostly involves a combination of being able to correctly identify requirements and technical execution skills. Most developers usually have plenty of experience hear.

The experience most developers lack is sales. And most consulting shops won't put you anywhere near a sales or account management role unless you have previous sales experience or have spent significant time at the company. A much faster route to learn these skills is to just start a company and start doing them. (while reading a bunch of books and talking to anyone you can who has relevant experience)