A brief history…

29 May 2022 Article on Professionalism

Photo by Med Badr Chemmaoui on Unsplash

---

I think I can say I have had a very broad range of experiences thus far in my career but the common theme is that I have always done a little bit of everything at the places I have worked.
This is not exactly what I had envisioned when coming out of college - I thought I would become a specialist but due to the nature of what was needed, I shifted roles every couple months and adapted to new technologies so by default I think that makes me a generalist. I’m beginning to doubt that thought after meeting multiple data scientiests and am starting to think I would fit well in a data career.

Here are some reasons I think I would fit well in this field:

• Data Science incorporates a broad range of technologies that are always changing. My background largely supports the foundations.
  • Engineering background with stats, math, and computer science technical skills.
  • Strong understanding of Web Development Technologies which make database, visualization, and webscraping tasks much easier.
  • Comfortable working with large amounts of data including messy data in multiple formats and technologies.
  • Consistently learning new technologies. Let’s be honest, much of the work is selecting the right technology for the specific neeed. article about how technolgies can be interchangeable - pandas, sql, js, etc. its about moving data around
  • I have now been a Data Science teaching assistant for about 2 years and have worked with multiple instructors. I feel that I am pretty competent in many of the areas and what I don’t know, I can figure out quickly.
• Working well with others is critical to satisfying a clients needs and effectively executing a complex project.
  • Truly enjoy developing projects from conceptualization to execution and process improvement.
  • Strong communication, project management and collaboration skills
  • I’m honest, straight-forward, non-adversarial, optimistic, and can indulge people when needed and ignore people when necessary. So for those difficult to work with people, I greatly disappoint them by not stoking any fires.
• The melding of technologies is necessary to truly accomplish most tasks. Individual skills are great but interrelationship among them is where money can be made.
  • Okay, so this is an area where I think I can really excel. Python (SQLAlchemy, Flask, Pandas, graphing libraries, ML Libraries, etc), SQL, Databases, R, Web Technologies, Tableau, etc. These are tools that can be used together to do some pretty useful and automated tasks.
  • I am looking to become more profiecient in Discrete Event Simulations and incorporating my data skills. I enjoy combining theoretical calculations, modeling process data, and considering hypothetical situations. It’s truly going back to my favorite engineering experiences.
  • I think I could sucessfully move between analyst, visualization, machine learning, and data organization tasks quite readily.
  • My greatest challenge right now is to stay up-to-date with new technology and practical skills. Working with at a company with a good technology stack and data culture would elevate my compencies.
• “Do it all for you systems” are a great concept but one solution rarely works for most situations so adapting technology should be expected.
  • I worked on a project where the client really wanted to use Microsoft Sharepoint and some of their work could be implemented on that system but parts of it could have been done much better and faster with other tools. I setup the tools and got the other tasks to work and I only hope someone maintained it after I left.