Must read before attending any data science interview

Vincent GranvilleHere is fundamental resources that you should check out before your next data science interview. Read these documents thoroughly to get prepared, impress your interviewer, boost your chances to be hired, and get a bigger paycheck if hired:

Resources to read 2-3 days before your job interview:

• Fast Combinatorial Feature Selection with New Definition of Predict...
• Big Data Poster
• Data Science Cheat Sheet
• 16 resources to learn and understand Hadoop
• A practical illustration of Map-Reduce (Hadoop-style), on real data
• Why and how you should build a data dictionary for big data sets
• What MapReduce can't do
• The curse of big data
• Fast clustering algorithms for massive datasets
• Life Cycle of Data Science Projects
• Interesting Tutorials from PyCon 2014 – USA
• 66 job interview questions for data scientists
• How to detect spurious correlations, and how to find the real ones
• Large set of Machine Learning and Related Resources
• Six categories of Data Scientists

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Are You Recruiting A Data Scientist, Or Unicorn?

Guest blog by Jeff Bertolucci (InformationWeek)

Many companies need to stop looking for a unicorn and start building a data science team, says CEO of data applications firm Lattice.

The emergence of big data as an insight-generating (and potentially revenue-generating) engine for enterprises has many management teams asking: Do we need an in-house data scientist?

According to Shashi Upadhyay, CEO of Lattice, a big data applications provider, it doesn't make sense for organizations to hire a single data scientist, for a variety of reasons. If your budget can swing it, a data science team is the way to go. If not, data science apps may be the next best thing. "If you look at any industry, the top 10 companies can afford to have data scientists, and they should build data science teams," Upadhyay told InformationWeek in a phone interview.

But the solution is less clear for smaller organizations. "The pattern that I've seen now, having done this for over six years, is that very often medium-sized companies think of the problem as, 'I need to go and get me one data scientist,'" said Upadhyay.

[Guidelines aim to combat potential misuse of big data. Read Data Scientists Create Code Of Professional Conduct.]

But the shortage of data scientists, a problem that's only expected to worsenin the next few years, makes that approach a risky proposition.

For example, a company may hire one or two people, Upadhyay said, "but before you know it, because the supply for this talent group is so far behind demand, they have lost this person [who] has gone to the next company. And all of a sudden, all that good work is lost. And you ask yourself, 'Why did that happen? And how can I manage against it?'"

One common problem, he noted, is that companies simply don't understand data scientists and how they work. The job generally requires knowledge of a wide array of technical disciplines, including analytics, computer science, modeling, and statistics. "They also tend to be fairly conversant in business issues," Upadhyay added.

But it's often difficult to find these divergent skills in a single human being. "It's a little bit like looking for a unicorn," Upadhyay said.

When medium-sized companies -- those that fall below the top five in a given industry, for instance -- hire just one or two data scientists, they often can't provide a long-term career path for those people within the company. As a result, the data scientists get frustrated and move onto the next thing.

In Silicon Valley, where data scientists command six-figure salaries and are in great demand, it's very difficult to retain talented people.

The better solution? Build a team.

"You will absolutely get a benefit if you hire a data science team," said Upadhyay. "Go all the way [and] commit to creating a creating a career path for them. And if you do it that way, you will get the right kind of talent because people will want to work for you."

Smaller companies that can't afford data science teams should consider big data applications instead. The biggest firms -- in Upadhyay's words, "the Dells, HPs, and Microsofts of the world" -- can take both approaches: data science teams and big data apps.

The team approach seems to be winning. "I rarely see teams that are one or two people in size," Upadhyay observed. "Obviously people have those teams, but they tend to evaporate over time. Until they get to a team of 10 people or more, [companies] can't justify it."

So what does a data science team cost, and what's the payoff?

Upadhyay offered this example: Say you hire a team of 10 data scientists with an average annual cost of $150,000 per employee. "That's $1.5 million for a data science team," he said. "So they better be creating at least $15 million dollars in value for you -- 10 times [the expense] -- to be worth it."

Emerging software tools now make analytics feasible -- and cost-effective -- for most companies. Also in the Brave The Big Data Wave issue of InformationWeek: Have doubts about NoSQL consistency? Meet Kyle Kingsbury's Call Me Maybe project. (Free registration required.)

My life in Norway: Pursuing the dream (part I)

Before I start telling my dream story, it would be better to say who am I in few lines:

Born and raised in Macedonia, spent 4-5 years in Kosova and then migrated first time in Norway. My family was one of the few interested in science, specially in math, where my father was a math professor and most of my uncles studied math or engineering. I inherited the love to science and math, continued developing my self focused in math by becoming one the best in local, national and international competition of both math and physics (kind of applied mathematics).
Studied computer technology at University of Prishtina and 3 year in row won the University scholarship.

Studied with International professors from Concordia University; Vienna Institute of Technology and Institute Jean Lui Vives.

Even physically in Kosova, my dream was just to move to a more prospered countries to pursue my dream of being a great scientist. I have heard of UK, US and the big american dream, but never thought of Norway....

I moved in Norway some years ago and then I come back May 2010, pursuing my dream for a better career. I never thought that this will the time when the Revolution of my life started. I will never forget the time when I was sitting home and got a call that was actually a job opportunity to work in Norway, to work for one the best companies in the World, Nordic Choice Hotels. I answered with BIG YES and came to the first interview. It was all by the plan, the first interview was successful. Waited in Oslo for a couple of days, where I got invitation for the second round which was decisive. One day after that, I got the call of my career, saying the your job opportunity is now a job offer. Without hesitating I said YES and that was the biggest "yes" of my life, because what happened after proved this conclusion. Still not understanding in what wonderful world I was stepping in.

After signing the contract and some official paper work I started to work in June/July. I was thrilling to start with my new company and bring the successful project of Business Intelligence into live.I had time read and understand the business concept and strategy of Nordic Choice Hotels, so I was ready to dive in directly to the solution.

One of the biggest highlights of my career here is meeting the owner of Nordic Choice Hotels and bunch of other business around Norway, Mr. Petter A. Stordalen. His ability to give energy at any time in the company was special. You could feel his absence or his presence without seeing him at all.


Me and Petter Stordalen at Garden Party

During the time being at Choice, I had the opportunity to meet other important people as well, so I learned a lot from them.

Me and my department made great efforts on creating the best BI solution for the company in a given condition and situation. So we excelled by creating this solution presented in the video:



But things came to an end, sometimes without our willing, so in April I had to change my job and pursue my professional dream at Nextbridge AS. 

Why Nextbridge AS?

NextBridge is an IT-consultancy dedicated solely to business intelligence (BI). The company encompasses more than 100 years of collective experience in this field. Our services span most areas of the BI field; from DWH to reporting, from scorecards and dashboards to data mining and statistical analysis, from BI Competency Centers to maturity analysis. 
NextBridge assists the largest and most demanding clients in improving their managerial information. Our client segment is Norwegian Top 500 accounts and include Sparebank1, SG Finans, Gjensidige, BNBank, Helse Nord and NorgesEnergi . NextBridge consultants are bilingual, and speak both business and IT. Our mission is ”Bridging business and IT at the next level”. Our vision is to be the reference in the field of BI.

The blog post is public, I would not share too much of the details, so I will just jump to give a introduction of my professional profile:

""
I am an IT professional with focus on Business and Data Analytic, prefer to call myself Data Scientist. I have in depth experience using and implementing business intelligence/data analysis tools with greatest strength in the Microsoft SQL Server / Business Intelligence Studio SSIS, SSAS, SSRS. I have designed, developed, tested, debugged, and documented Analysis and Reporting processes for enterprise wide data warehouse implementations using the SQL Server / BI Suite. I also have designed/modeled OLAP cubes using SSAS and developed them using MS SQL BIDS SSAS and MDX. Served as an implementation team member where I translated source mapping documents and reporting requirements into dimensional data models. Strong ability to work closely with business and technical teams to understand, document, design and code SSAS, MDX, DMX, DAX abd ETL processes, along with the ability to effectively interact with all levels of an organization. Additional BI tool experience includes ProClarity, Microsoft Performance Point, MS Office Excel and MS SharePoint.
""

Professional highlights:

1. Worked for Capgemini Norway AS

2. Worked for Nordic Choice Hotels AS

3. Working for Nextbridge AS


Academic Honors:

MIT Honor Code Certificate: CS and Programming (04.06.2013)

Harvard University Honor Code Certificate: Computer Science (15.04.2013)

Princeton University Honor Code Certificate:  Analytic Combinatorics (10.07.2013)

Stanford University Honor Code Certificate: Mathematical Thinking,, Cryptography (06.05.2013)

The University of California At Berkeley Honor Code Certificate: Descriptive Statistics

IIT University Honor Code Certificate: Web Intelligence and Big Data (02.06.2013)

Wesleyan University: Passion Driven Statistics (20.05.2013)

MCTS 70-448: Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Business Intelligence Development and Maintenance

Career Highlights:

1. Over Nine years of experience in the field of Information Technology, System Analysis and Design, Data
    warehousing, Business Intelligence and Data Science in general

2. Experienced in implementing / managing large scale complex projects involving multiple stakeholders and
    leading and directing multiple project teams

3. Track record of delivering customer focused, well planned, quality products on time, while adapting to
    shifting and conflicting demands and priorities.

4. Experience in Data warehouse / Business Intelligence developments, implementation and operation setup

5. Expertise in Data Modeling, Data Analytics and Predictive Analytics SSAS, MDX and DMX

6. Strong Knowledge in Data warehouse, Data Extraction, Transformation, and Loading ETL

7. Excellent track record in developing and maintaining enterprise wide web based report systems and portals in Finance, Enterprise wide solutions and BI and Strategy Systems

8. Best new employee for 2011 of Nordic Choice Hotels AS


Achievments:

1. First place in reagional math competitions in 2 years in a row

2. First place in Physics competition in a Balkaniada (Balkan Olympics in Theoretical Physics)

3. First place in fast math competition in International Kangourou Competition

4. First place in Norway in Microsoft Virtual Academy (Microsoft Business Intelligence)

Research Work:

1. Riccati Differential Equation solution (published in printed version Research Journal)

2. “Everything” comes from “Nothing”: The Intelligent Universe, published IJSER 10 October edition

3. Personal Finance Intelligence; published in IJSER 8 August 2012 edition

4. Predictive Analytics vs. Data Mining (Is DMX dead already?) in Silicon India

Next you will read: Life in Norway: Living the dream (part II), STAY TUNED!

Mike Walsh, futurist

In our VK2012 was invited Mike Walsh and he had a keynote about technology future. He instisted that the future of the World is DATA and claimed the most important profession of the future will be Data Scientist. Let the future begin and let say I am a Data Scientist.