My Job Makes Me Feel Sexier Each Day

Still the Sexiest Profession Alive

Most people might have only heard of the sexiest man or woman alive, and very few heard of the sexiest profession alive.

It is data scientist!  Fortunately I am one of them.  

Our work is to identify “pattens” or “algorithms” hidden in big datas in order to predict any future events, or evaluate the disparities.

Here are some examples:

• Use a customer’s derogatory information (delinquency, bankruptcy, etc.) in the last five years to predict the probability of default in next twelve months.
• Use past spending patterns of a credit card customer to detect emerging unusual spending patterns to tell the possibility of the credit card being stollen.
• Use customers’ credit histories to evaluate any disparities in the results of consumer loan applications between minorities and majority.

More and more business decisions are based on strict data analysis, ranging from banking, biomedical, marketing, retails, data storage, etc., the list can  go on and on.

So what I am doing everyday?  I spend most of time sitting in front of computer to “stare” on the data.  I apply my mathematical and statistical backgrounds to tie those millions of seemly unrelated records together by a concise equation.  The process is called “regression”.  Another part of my job is to identify the patterns from big data and present summaries and recommendations to the decision – makers.

So what is the most exciting part of being a data scientist?  For me it is designing multiple layers of loops, macros and letting them interact with each other.  The processes require imagination power, logical thinking and a calm mind.  Even though sometimes I feel slightly dizzy during observing those loops circling around to scrutinize the records one by one, by the end I always feel relief after solving complicated problems.

So what is taken to be a data scientist?  A math – related background and a strong curiosity.

Among all aspects of being a data scientist, I can tell one thing for sure that it makes me feel smarter, prouder and sexier each day!