How did I transition into Data Scientist from Technical Consultant?
Three years ago I was working at a dead-end job, I had no motivation to go to the office every day, I hated every day of my working life. But today I am working as Data Scientist with great pay and just love my job. This is for all those people who are stuck at their jobs and want to switch to something exciting.
I started my career at one of the MNC in Mumbai my hometown. Back then Data Science or Machine learning was not that famous, this was before TensorFlow first release in 2015. We were trained to work on some ERP tool to perform day-to-day tasks. It was a complete black box kind of thing, that no one understands what happens behind the scenes. Anyway I switched to different domains but none of them were interesting enough to devote your life to it
In late 2016, I read one article about Data Scientist and wanted to give try. So I went to the Coursera site and started my first course in Data Science and Machine Learning by Andrew Ng . I couldn't finish it. Not because of the content of course, but due to my own lack of focus. I used to work 9–5 and with most of the time spent in travel, I used to get so tired by the time I get home.
Now I think this issue each one of us faces at some point in life. It really really hard to stick to a schedule. Its much harder if you are surrounded by some negative people.
There is so much content on the Internet to learn, it's ok to feel overwhelmed.
Stop Procrastination! Start doing things…
So these are few suggestions to stick to a schedule
Increase your reading speed
Don't make to-do list . This has never helped me. Try to do a small part at time.
Get a proper desk setup ( comfortable chair, Monitor, Keyboard ) . Believe me this really puts you good mood and elongates study hours
Do not commit to multiple courses at a time. Choose one and complete it.
Read Faster! Learn Faster
So I thought how can I learn faster, how to read faster without losing focus. Now once you start digesting content with higher speed than a normal person, you can easily achieve your six months goal in few weeks.
Here are few resources to help you improve your reading pace. Hope this helps
Kaggle is the way to go
Now once you get familiarized with the field, start applying for Internships right away, participate in Kaggle competitions. I have wasted so many hours just going through youtube video tutorials, blogs, articles. But things that actually helped me grow were these Hackathons .
Start with beginner level competitions, get your hands dirty . Then go for advanced ones.
Work on your Resume ..
Now you might think that how much improving your resume will help in landing my first job in Data Science, it's the most important thing.
All the knowledge, skills you have only will help if your resume passes ATS systems. The recruiter has only a few minutes to go through your resume, make sure it fascinates him/her
Check out your resume's ATS score. Try to put strong action verbs and metrics on your resume.
Clear your stats concepts!
All the interviewers try to see if the candidate is well aware of the underlying concept in ML and Statistical Techniques. So brush our skills before going for an interview. This is where you can stand apart from the crowd. Many candidates just learn how to use the library without knowing understanding actual algorithm behind it. Even though you might not have to build any model or algorithm from scratch, learn stats as deep as possible.
Choose Right Company
When you are starting as a fresher it's really important that you have some one as a mentor. You learn more from people you work with than any course or book. So choose mid-size company with 200–500 people, so people would have time to coach you. Don't go for a startup with 2–3 people, you will not have anyone backing you up and you might end up hating this field
Choose Your Role NOW
Even though you lots of Data Scientist profile on linkedin, every one of the different roles and responsibilities.
Data Science is still emerging and yet to mature. There are Different Roles in nay Data Science Team, You should choose which matches your skills
Data Engineer
Data Scientist
AI| ML engineer
MLops Engineer
Machine Learning Researcher
Product Lead Data Science
Lastly.. Have Patience!
I think this will help you in some way. All the best .. you can connect with me on email or LinkedIn
ajaygurav1603@gmail.com
