Senior DS looking to pivot to data engineering, ML engineering, or SWE

[hexed knoll]

what experience do u have with AWS?

[tulip valve]

I know how to set up my own EC2 instance and do data analysis using an AMI and S3. I briefly looked into deployment of Docker images but didn't have time to look into it. Also briefly looked into deploying HF models with Sagemaker, didn't have time to resolve access issues.

GCP is frankly the one I am most familiar with.

[hexed knoll]

not sure if that warrants listing AWS as a skill

i would right align ur expected grad date in education and then just say “Dec 2026” or whatever

[tulip valve]

I think that's a good point. My issue at the moment is I haven't been getting interviews at all

for DS roles

I haven't even tried really going into the SWE world yet

[hexed knoll]

i will say i don’t think this resume would go much of anywhere in SWE

just to be frank

[tulip valve]

I am fully willing to acknowledge that

I am a statistician by training and I know that SWE is lightyears away from me

[hexed knoll]

i think the main issue i notice is that… idk theres not much impact noted on the resume and it doesn’t really come across as u did much of anything

not to say u can’t ever get into SWE but if u do want to get into it, i think u could do with some side projects and/or see if ur team/company will let u dip ur toe into some light coding projects

[tulip valve]

I think a huge issue with this was that I spent so much my time in academic institutions, where even though I could push for something as much as I want, the culture simply prevents me from making progress

It's also doubly an issue because my current position has an NDA and I can't give specifics

[hexed knoll]

what i mean is that in ur senior DS position.. ik u said u have to be vague but it’s almost too vague and very much.. fluff.. saying u guided people through GCP use and migration is kinda like meh ok… whatever..same with “guiding passionate discussions” , “advised scientists”.. like it seems like u were some sort of consultant or something

[tulip valve]

My NDA does not even allow me to disclose methods or financial figures

It is making my life honestly difficult

[hexed knoll]

so u can’t talk about ANYTHING u do thats more hands on? almost everything you’ve listed is just saying u talked to people

[tulip valve]

But yes, that is basically how my department functions with its scientists

[tulip valve]

My position has shifted from a day-to-day coding role to more of dealing with organizational issues

As of February

I'm kind of there just to advise the team when it comes to technology, and on top of that, I'm just in meetings

To vaguely describe my current role, I am mainly there to advise people on correct things to do with data and make sure that projects get seen through to the end

I do some coding, but that is maybe less than 10% of my job these days

Which makes my path extra confusing, I realize. I don't really know what my next step is going to be, but it cannot be statistics

[hexed knoll]

and ur management will NOT let u begin shifting into more coding? are there other teams at ur company that would allow u to code more?

[tulip valve]

My manager made it very clear to me in my performance review with him last month that he wants me to dedicate time to devising strategy. I'm also going to say that to call what my team does "coding" is nowhere near the scope of what would be expected of an SWE. I would have to switch teams. Statisticians simply aren't trained well enough to code at the level of an SWE team.

I could theoretically switch teams, and I need to think carefully about how to frame that conversation since my manager would be notified. At the very least, I don't know how to frame my resume so that it actually gives me an interview.

And this is one of the pains I have when it comes to pivoting. I completely understand that I am essentially going to have to throw everything away from my 10 years of working in this field (some of which is omitted in this resume) if I am going to bother making the switch. Focusing on statistics has not done me any favors.

To give you some idea of exactly what I mean, in almost every team I have been in, I have had to fight to convince people to implement version control, or to quit copying and pasting their code and actually define their own custom functions.