Productive Day in the Life of a Data Scientist | What Data Scientists ACTUALLY Do at Work 👩🏻‍💻

Summary

In this engaging vlog, a data scientist shares a day in her life at a growth marketing tech company in Sydney. From her morning routine of making iced coffee and organizing her tasks to diving into deep work on machine learning projects, she highlights her role's blend of technical and business responsibilities. The video covers her meetings, work on predictive models, and the challenges of managing perfectionism. After a productive workday, she balances cooking dinner, watching a Korean reality show, and attending Pilates classes, all while preparing for an upcoming trip to Japan.

Takeaways

• 😀 The speaker is a data scientist at a growth marketing tech company in Sydney, Australia.
• 😀 The company operates on a remote-first model, allowing employees to work from anywhere.
• 😀 The speaker follows a simple morning routine, including making the bed and doing light makeup.
• 😀 The day starts with the team sharing updates via Slack, which helps the speaker create a personalized to-do list.
• 😀 The speaker's role involves developing new features and working with stakeholders to leverage data for business value.
• 😀 Morning hours are dedicated to deep work, focusing on machine learning techniques for text summarization and categorization.
• 😀 Meetings include status updates, one-on-ones with managers, and team catch-ups to discuss progress and feedback.
• 😀 The speaker practices intermittent fasting and prepares light, healthy lunches, usually opting for yogurt and fruit.
• 😀 Afternoon tasks include data analysis, data engineering, and building predictive machine learning models.
• 😀 The speaker is learning to balance perfectionism in their work and acknowledges the value of the 80/20 rule.
• 😀 Key technical tools used include SQL for data manipulation and Python in Jupyter notebooks for model building.
• 😀 The speaker is finalizing a text cleaning function and creating documentation for colleagues to follow during their upcoming vacation.

Q & A

What is the speaker's role at their company?

The speaker is a data scientist working at a growth marketing tech company.

What is the company’s work policy regarding location?

The company is remote-first, allowing employees to work from anywhere.

What does the speaker do in the mornings to prepare for the day?

The speaker makes their bed, does light makeup, and prepares iced coffee before starting work.

How does the speaker manage their daily tasks?

They receive a daily text update from their team on Slack and create a separate to-do list.

What types of meetings does the speaker attend?

The speaker attends status updates, one-on-ones with their manager, team catch-ups, and monthly company-wide updates.

How does intermittent fasting affect the speaker's lunch routine?

The speaker eats their first meal at lunchtime due to intermittent fasting and prefers light, healthy meals.

What kind of projects does the speaker work on?

The speaker works on feature development, data analytics, data engineering, and building predictive machine learning models.

What tools does the speaker frequently use for data work?

The speaker uses SQL for data extraction and manipulation, along with Python in Jupyter Notebook for machine learning tasks.

What challenges does the speaker face in their current project?

They struggle with perfectionism and the challenge of developing a one-size-fits-all function for text cleaning.

How does the speaker wind down their day after work?

The speaker takes their multivitamins, prepares dinner, watches a show, attends a workout class, and starts editing their video.