Breaking into Data Science - Advise for Junior and New Data Science Practitioners

Ever since the Harvard Business Review deemed data scientist as the “sexiest job in the 21st century”, there have been an influx of advice on the web telling you how to start down the path of becoming a data scientist and the 100 things that you need to master. This talk focuses on giving new and junior data scientists practical advice that may not be easily accessible from a simple web search, and will give you a clearer understanding of what you need to succeed in your career path as a data scientist. Kevin has interviewed hundreds of data scientists, interviewed at dozens of data science roles, and worked as a data scientist in both research and business-oriented roles, and will highlight the most common misleading and confusing items entering the field. Specific examples will be showcased during this talk as well as tips to how to make your data science career successful.

Kevin is currently a senior data scientist at Rock Central and has been a practicing data scientist since 2017. He has applied his data scientist expertise in numerous fields and applications such as in People Analytics, Healthcare, Market Research, and Customer Lifetime Value Modeling. He has also worked in numerous areas of data science, ranging from predictive analytics, A/B testing, NLP, and image processing. Outside of work he loves to play basketball, compose music, and play strategic card/board games while finding ways to incorporate data science and analytics to improve on these hobbies.