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Fireside Chat / Pro Tips

with Aaron Schumacher, Data Scientist, Meta

Tuesday 2023-09-19

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Aaron Schumacher

  • Washington, DC
  • Data Scientist at Meta
  • planspace.org

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Disclaimers

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Agenda

  • 12:05–12:20 Tips from my experience
    • 12:20–12:40 Q&A
  • 12:40–12:50 Recommendations from general to specific
    • 12:50–1:00 Q&A

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Tips from my experience

  • Education
  • Jobs
  • Setbacks
  • Volunteering
  • Events
  • Speaking
  • Projects
  • Writing
  • 2021 job search
  • Types of data roles, roughly

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Education

  • BS Math, UW-Madison
  • MAT Math, Bard
  • Coursera, Codecademy, Stanford MOOCs, etc.

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Jobs

  • Teaching
  • Data Science

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Setbacks

  • The worst interview ever
  • Being laid off

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Volunteering

  • DataKind
  • Hack.Diversity

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Events

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Speaking

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Projects

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Writing

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2021 job search

  • Facebook (now Meta)
    • Research Data Scientist
    • Machine Learning Engineer
  • Google Data Scientist
  • Uber Data Scientist
  • Robinhood Data Scientist
  • Clarabridge (now Qualtrics) Data Scientist
  • Capital One Data Scientist

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Types of data roles, roughly

  • Data Scientist
    • Analyst
    • Statistician
    • Economist
  • Data Engineer
    • Data Architect
    • Database Administrator
  • Software Engineer
    • Machine Learning Engineer
    • Research Scientist

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Q&A

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Recommendations from general to specific

  • Increase your opportunity surface area
    • Be human
    • Be creative
    • Be understanding
    • Be confident
  • Take the next step
    • Example concrete steps

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Increase your opportunity surface area

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Be human

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Be creative

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Be understanding

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Be confident

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Take the next step

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Example concrete steps

  • Do a project
    • Follow your interest!
    • Try a COMAP contest
  • Read a book
  • Write something
  • Go to an event
    • Volunteer, give a talk
  • Update your resume: Resume dos and don'ts
  • Get referred for a job: Come work at Meta!

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Q&A