
How I Did It: From Psych Degree to VP of Data Science at Top Startup - gczh
https://eugeneyan.com/2020/02/28/psych-grad-to-vp-data-science
======
dx87
When I was doing a cyber training exercise in the military, we had an Air
Force general tell us that the best technical officers they had started out
with non-technical degrees. They said that officers with undergrad degrees in
things like IT, Software Engineering, and Computer Science, weren't very good
at thinking outside of the box because everything they did was fairly low
level and had a provably correct solution. The officers with degrees like
psychology and political science were better at taking in large amounts of
information, and deducing a "best" answer to a problem that didn't have a
"correct" answer. I noticed the same thing when I started teaching after I got
out of the military; people with technical backgrounds wanted a checklist to
follow, and didn't really care about the end result as long as the steps were
followed. Non-technical students would look at what the result should be, and
do whatever was necessary, creating their own checklist as they went along.

~~~
bcrosby95
As a technical person, I find it interesting that so many technical people are
that way.

I start to get into a motivational rut if all I'm doing is working on a list
of technical things to complete. Engineering disciplines are some of the few
degrees that provide you the ability to both directly solve other people's
problems and have close customer contact - that was a major reason why
software engineering attracted me as a career rather than just a hobby.

~~~
dx87
I think it's a learned behavior, they were mainly talking about people fresh
out of college who were evaluated based on "use the fastest algorithm for a
mostly sorted set of data" type assignments. I worked with a lot of people
with technical degrees who learned to think outside the box, but it seemed
easier to teach technical knowledge to non-technical people than it was to
teach technical people that they needed to change the rigid way of thinking
that had been drilled into their head for 4 years.

~~~
pergadad
Easier to teach the skill than the attitude.

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quietthrow
VP at a top startup mean very different things to different people. To
somebody who values sr titles it’s Substantial. To somebody who views titles
as a measure of how much and what you contribute will only view this as
substantial in the context of where you operate - VP of the lemonade stand vs
VP at a large company (by revenue,employees etc). Most of the experienced
crowd on this site will generally take the latter view. Most of the
young/fresh grad kind of people on this site will take the former view. As for
yourself I would suggest you measure yourself by impact and not title.

~~~
throwawayhhakdl
Article suggests he has 3 direct reports

More of a PM

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levanify
Awesome post! Thank you for taking the time to document down your learnings
along your journey of pursuing data science. What I really like about your
journey is how one thing manages to lead to another in the most amazing way.
Some people attribute it to luck, but I guess in your case you really have
made your own luck by taking actions to move towards your goal!
Congratulations on your accomplishments thus far! I just have a few questions
which would love if you can elaborate further on.

Firstly, it seems to me that the online course enabled you to reach top 3% of
a Kaggle project which led to a series of career opportunities. However, I
believe that being able to reach the top in Kaggle competition is not an easy
feat. This kind of process is not really replicable especially for the people
who are just starting out in Data Science. In that case, what would you
recommend them to do?

And secondly, what is the end goal of a data scientist or at least for you as
a data scientist? Would it be going into research? Continue to climb the
ladder till you reach the top of the company? Data science and engineering in
general are great as a form of intellectual challenge. However, personally
sometimes I feel that there is a lack of meaning in the thing that I am doing
as engineer/data scientist (especially if the culture of the company is very
bottom-line driven). Just want to hear your thoughts! :)

~~~
7d7n
On the first point: I assume you're asking for avenues to practice and demo
your work. If so, personal projects are a great way.

The most impressive candidates can demo something they've deployed. This
demonstrates the ability to apply what you've learned AND learn the rest of
the stuff as needed (e.g., spin up EC2, build basic front end, maintenance,
etc.). The latter is more important and gives confidence that you take
ownership and likely can do the same (i.e., end-to-end with results) in the
company.

On the second point: having meaning in work differs from person to person.
Some people enjoy pushing the envelope (research), others enjoy staying hands-
on (individual contributor, IC), while some big picture thinkers enjoy
coordinating (PMs). It's helpful to think back on what gave you the greatest
satisfaction and work with your leaders to be a role that lets you perform
your best.

I find it most fulfilling to build data products that are useful, relative to
generating tons of revenue. I would be equally happy as an IC doing the hands-
on or leading a small team and mentoring them to become more effective.

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zachwill
Awesome work, Eugene!

I had almost the exact same experience going from a psychology degree, to
coding in SF, to heading up analytics for the Trail Blazers. Luck, self-study,
and Kaggle! Really cool to hear that someone else also took the psychology to
data analysis route.

~~~
disgruntledphd2
Me three (except for the VP part ;))

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omarhaneef
One of the interesting aspects of this account is the role of online classes
(Coursera and edX).

I always thought that those kinds of things are useful and should be effective
but (online) anecdotes suggest they are not. Seems like there is a missing
step and the author was able to find that step. (Branded company work?)

~~~
7d7n
Author here: I believe the missing step is being able to APPLY the knowledge
and skills (learned from online courses) to create value.

It's not difficult, you just need to know that creating an artifact is not the
end of your job--it needs to be used to benefit customers and generate value.
Remember to measure the impact after your feature/system is launched.

I've seen many interview candidates struggle with this (missing step) too.
Those that get past it were hungry enough to want it, as well as followed up
with proper validation and measurement.

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euix
Its often the case that less technically minded people move into management.

~~~
10kresistor
So they can make technical decisions. This is one of the reasons I hate
programming at companies. I didn't serve in Iraq so I could work my butt off
to get a degree and then spend years working professionally while continuing
to learn and do side projects to have someone who doesn't know anything tell
me what to do.

~~~
shostack
So they can empower their teams to make the best possible technical proposals
that they then champion as the path forward.

And that's assuming there at only technical considerations and not broader
ones involving discussions with many other stake holders.

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zcw100
Ok, this is shameless self promotion masquerading as a casual, "Hey I've got
an interesting story". I notice that he conveniently left out the part where
Alibaba promoted him to VP, Data Science at the same time he started an MSc at
Georga Tech which he completed in two years which is an impressive thing to do
while you're working so I suspect there is more to the story. If working in
NYC has taught me anything, always be promoting yourself while simultaneously
putting everyone else down. "I guess I just worked harder and smarter than all
those PhD's around me".

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creddit
According to his LI, he was a VP at Lazada for 1yr and then became a senior
data scientist at another company.

~~~
7d7n
Yes I left soon after it was acquired by Alibaba (didn't like the 996) and
wanted to put my skills to help in healthcare (in a 10-man startup).

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azizsaya
Fabulous post but this caught my attention: "The learning curve was steep.
Pushed me 2x beyond my existing abilities. Exhilarating."

What is meant by “steep learning curve”?
[https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/6209/what-is-
mea...](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/6209/what-is-meant-by-
steep-learning-curve)

I don't mean to be rude, just that it is interesting.

~~~
scarejunba
A learning curve is a plot of work required for achieving some amount of
learning. Those guys just didn't get that that was how it's being used.

"How hard is it to learn Haskell?" Not "How much time does it take to learn
Haskell?"

For instance, people will say some things are easy to learn, hard to master
(playing Go). Other things are hard to learn but once you have, you're close
to mastering them (kinds of problems that have a trick - like integrating e^ax
cos bx).

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ahuth
Curious how the author got better at communication. What are good resources or
books for doing so?

~~~
7d7n
I didn't recall any books helping much on communication.

With regard to presentation and speaking, I had great leaders around me who
provided candid feedback the presentation was off-point, too long, or had to
be re-ordered (e.g., when presenting to non-tech folks, results before
methodology). It was also useful to "rehearse" any conference presentations at
meet-ups and get feedback.

Feedback to improve written communication is harder to come by. Few people
feedback on your design documents or reports. For this, I find blogging and
seeking feedback from writers whose writing I enjoy to help the most.

------
runawaybottle
How is this new? Non tech people have been running tech people for quite some
time.

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tuananh
very inspring story. thanks for sharing.

i experience many things similar with yours.

\- progress plateau is scary. whenever i experience this, I try very hard to
get out of it.

> I needed practice too. The data team wanted to launch an internal newsletter
> to spread awareness—I volunteered. Someone had to visit overseas markets to
> do a data science roadshow—I volunteered. We wanted to present our work at
> conferences—I volunteered.

this is where I'm currently at.

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lonelappde
This self promotion boast blog posts says nothing. Most data science people
are self taught and don't study "data science" in college.

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mettamage
Key lessons that I'm picking up:

> _In year two I was internally transferred to the workforce analytics team,
> working to forecast job demand and build a job recommendation engine to move
> people within the organization._

I'm hearing this a lot from friends.

> _On the side, I continued self-learning. I picked up Python (love it) and
> took classes in machine learning. Spark, a shiny (pun intended) big data
> framework was emerging and provided free courses on EdX—I devoured these
> too._

I'm currently noticing this myself. I'm devouring content on Hack The Box. I'm
currently making 16 hour days and am at 200+ hours within 2 weeks, and
devoured half of their active boxes.

You don't need a background once you have 16 hour per day (every day)
determination. There are people who need more than sheer determination, but
enough don't. They simply need Elon Musk level determination.

> _They were struggling with accurate product categorization and had heard
> about my sharing on the Kaggle competition._

Use the right status symbols. It used to be university, now it is being at the
top of a competition.

> _My family and closest friends thought it was risky. However, deep down, I
> knew I would regret not accepting the offer._

A potential pitfall that he avoided. I've been heavily hit by this and kind of
stalled my life for a year. So yea, he could've listened to them. I know I
shouldn't have, but I did. He didn't and pushed forward.

> _The failure and embarrassment was very public. But so was the recovery and
> success._

One that I know from my personal circles: go to a public embarrassment that
isn't yours and no one dares to touch and make it into a success. It's not
easy to do but if you can do it, then do it, in the right company this will
transform your life. Or at least, it transformed the lives that I know of whom
did it. They didn't do it consciously though, it's upon reflection that they
realize.

> _But once in the field, there were PhDs with more experience around me—why
> did I get promoted above them?_

When I read this I'm simply thinking that he didn't get promoted _above_ them.
Being a VP is something different, I imagine, than being a data scientist, so
different skills are at play. Yes, you need technical competence but you also
need VP skills. Let's see what he says.

> _The measurable value I created was 3x that of an average data scientist._

Well, he could also communicate that. Could the avg data scientist do that? I
don't know, I bet half of them couldn't or wouldn't care.

> _I was promoted to be a role model and to mentor the team to deliver and
> communicate better._

Like I said, VP skills.

\-----

To close:

I think he's right in his assessment, simply by looking at my successful
friends, family and acquaintances and by constantly asking what they do.

I'd summarize his success as:

A) Get in (I'm struggling super hard at this part, "you can problem solve but
have too little experience" is what I get, it's depressive, it's a key stage)

B) Create trust with _everyone_

C) Be the best pick for the new position out of your team

From those key stages one can distill that technical skill is initially
important and communication later.

\-----

If anyone wants to hire me as a mix between a hacker and programmer anywhere
in the world let me know! I have 1 year of work experience in software
engineering (excluding the bootcamp I taught for a year). My Hack The Box
profile is looking to be more impressive every day.

~~~
7d7n
Wow, thank you for dissecting the post and and sharing your personal
experience and lessons as well. Those are great learning points!

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dot1x
Did being asian had anything to do with this?

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NadavKeyson
inspiring!

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brenden2
Getting to VP level at a "top startup" has little to do with data science, and
everything to do with your ability to play the networking game. Depending on
the size of the company, VP level jobs are more about management skills than
technical proficiency.

~~~
syndacks
Why does this community (HN) have such a proclivity for these types of bitter
responses?

This comment makes wild assumptions, doesn't assume best intentions, and
really just makes `brenden2` sound like a nasty person. Yet here it is, top
comment on the front page.

Nice work OP! You are flexing a very unique set of muscles (technical +
leadership + communication + ambition) that very few people have. You will go
far in life.

~~~
aerosmile
Tech startup as a phenomenon of the last 25-ish years is maturing and has
become sufficiently mainstream that it has attracted a very wide spectrum of
people, so much so that the majority of them are - as you would expect - quite
average. It turns out that being average is not enough to beat the odds, and
those are quite stacked against early-stage startups. So you end up with
fairly low chances of success and the resulting bitterness. As this industry
continues to mature, the next step will be calls for regulation, unions, etc.

None of this is new - it's happened to all industries after they became
sufficiently mainstream. Take a look at aviation - at first it was the wild
west at the beginning of the century, then WW1 and WW2 brought some rapid
advances, and in the last 70 years things have been relatively stale. Anyone
dreaming of designing the next airliner today is a very different person from
those who designed them at the beginning of that cycle.

I am not even saying there's anything wrong with all of this. As an industry
matures and becomes more mainstream (aka, affects more people), we have to put
some safety mechanisms in place. That means discussions become more about
safety and less about achievement, and this attracts a fundamentally different
group of people - more average, more bitter.

Kudos to the OP: just like syndacks, I am rooting for him and hope he'll use
his enthusiasm to continue to shoot for the stars!

~~~
whatshisface
That's a nice theory but tech people have been bitter since the invention of
Usenet.

