My career pivot to data science

If someone had told me last year that I would soon be working as a Research Assistant responsible for data wrangling, visualization, and statistical analysis for a research study I would have assumed you had me mistaken for someone else. Wrangling is something cowboys do, right? Yet, here I am, Data Scientist, Research Assistant. To quote The Talking Heads, “Well, how did I get here?”

I retired from my high stress, high reward, senior management job on the last day of 2021. I had been with the same company for 30 years, which is a long time by Silicon Valley standards. The company’s high-performance culture led to tremendous growth but was also taxing for people, like me, in upper management. When they offered employees an early retirement package I accepted. It was time for a break.

I started my retirement by pursuing the hobbies that I thought I would enjoy if I ever had the time. I took up photography, hiked the White Mountains, skied, and travelled. The activities were fun, but they were not entirely satisfying. It turns out, I wasn’t ready to retire, I just wanted to do something different. I had started my career as a software engineer, but a series of promotions had taken me away from work that I had enjoyed. I decided to go back to my roots and start programming again. I bought a Raspberry Pi and taught myself Python. I followed that by taking a series of on-line data science classes. The classes were so enjoyable that I decided to make a career pivot.

There are a lot of options for someone wanting to learn new skills. You could piece together your own course curriculum at Udacity or Coursera, attend a full immersion coding bootcamp, or go back to school and get a graduate degree. After exploring the options, I decided I wanted an in-person experience and enrolled in Bentley University’s Master of Science in Business Analytics program.

The response from my friends and family members was of disbelief. Comments ranged from, “Why would you do that?” to “Surely you’re joking!" I laughed because it wasn’t the first time I heard that phrase. Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman, while at a Princeton University social event, asked for both cream and lemon in his tea. The hostess replied, “Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman!” Her response became the title of his memoir as well as the name of my blog.

There is a general belief that retirement should involve hobbies and travel. That’s fine. I now declare that my hobbies are data transformation, statistical analysis and artificial intelligence. My travel is to Waltham, MA. Over the next few months, I’ll share my experience as I progress through my career change journey. I hope you will follow along.