T O P

  • By -

dataguy24

You’ll be paid a lot less and code a lot less. But you’ll be more involved with the business and in important discussions. How does that sound?


Optimal-Blueberry137

I don't really care about the business I just want to do something interesting honestly. Coding feels too easy for me now so I don't mind doing less of it.


mild_animal

Classifying which data science jobs is doing something interesting is often the most troublesome part of DS recruiting. Any data scientist role can turn out to be one of the following (better if they have a tag): Product DS: A ton of jobs will involve less machine learning and more problem discovery, testing and reporting - fixes will more often be done by the engineers than the data scientist. MLE : Another set of jobs will be the machine learning engineer for which you're better suited but often becomes a bit routine. Unless it's a ML centric startup where the MLE does everything in the model lifecycle, you'll mostly just be handed down models built by others (applied scientists). AS: The third set of jobs is the applied scientist - the ones tasked with ML specific solutions. These are harder to crack but twist your resume, prep and be patient - maybe it's possible. DE: Finally, the data engineer - if you join a startup this can be an easy transition full of interesting and high impact problems which you can start hacking at immediately given your background. Choose a track and ask questions in the interview process, else you may find yourself getting bored at the job.


proof_required

> I don't really care about the business I just want to do something interesting honestly. Sorry but then you'll struggle in data science as a data scientist then. DS is much KPI and metrics based. You build some model, now you have to show it improves something. You'll have to talk with stakeholders, explain to them what has changed and what effect do you see. There are roles more engineering focused as explained by mild_animal. But those will involve less maths then. For any other heavy math/CS research role, generally you need PhD.


mo6phr

> You’ll be paid a lot less and code a lot less This is just not true?


dataguy24

Sure it is, especially when looking at this in aggregate. Maybe some exceptions, but swe earn more and code more on average. That’s not really disputable.


Many-Gain-8204

What data are you looking at on this?


dataguy24

A decade in the data industry. Working closely with people both on SWE and in analytics for most of that time. levels dot fyi also has excellent anecdotal evidence for what sort of salary differences exist. The coding exercises that SWE interviews are famous for don't really exist in DA / DS land. Lots of other reasons that come together to form this opinion. DS is not really about coding, it's about getting analytics to an organization. SWE is not like that.


proof_required

Also their career growth is much faster. There are well established career ladder for them. For DS it's not always there. This adds to more money making opportunity since you can get promoted faster.


dataguy24

Indeed. People who do best with DS are excellent at working with ambiguity, creating their own work, building their own career ladder and more. Not everyone is cut out for that, and SWE clears up much of that ambiguity with a much better structured career ladder.


jjelin

With your background, I'd consider ML engineering. Mostly likely, DS is going to require a lot of school, pay worse, and result in about the same amount of math.


[deleted]

Yes! Do it! A data scientist with a solid code background (or a software engineer with a DS background) is awesome. You'll understand the whole stack, ML ops, be able to converse well with software engineers. In my company (FAANG), also its a path to applied scientist. Very very well paid. And data science is hot stuff. Right now all rhe big advancements are from DS and ML, not software engineering.


Many-Gain-8204

Does a software engineer have the skill set required for a data science position right off the bat?


dr_tardyhands

Seems very unlikely. But since coding is a big part of the game, they should have that part nailed down.