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I'm sorry, what? Being a good engineer in the real world means building quality solutions within time and cost constraints. It's a craft. One can be a good engi
by jknoepfler 10y ago
I'm sorry, what? Being a good engineer in the real world means building quality solutions within time and cost constraints. It's a craft. One can be a good engineer and have both pride and curiosity. You also need humility and the ability to put your customer's needs ahead of your ego.
I mean, by all means open up a little boutique data science consultancy that charges three orders of magnitude more for a solution that can't be updated by anyone without a ph.d and only beats an out of the box svm by .1%, where you put your pride and curiosity (your vanity) first. You might even find some suckers to patronize you, but man... I must be misunderstanding you because that is the most clueless and entitled thing I've read in days.
98% of the time data science customers actually just want some basic statistical insights into their data to make better informed decisions. If you aren't willing to help with that, and also can't find a research group to take you in (to work on their projects) and also can't bootstrap your own startup, then yes, stay in academia.
- M_Grey 10y agoWe're... not talking about engineers though.
- jknoepfler 10y agoA data scientist is an engineer.
- M_Grey 10y ago"Mathematicians becoming data scientists..." At best you're talking about a career change, at worst you're talking about a watered-down version of your intended career.
- stale2002 10y agoA watered down version of your career that pays 3 times as much, working on problems that will actually affect people's lives.
- M_Grey 10y agoOh yeah, you're going to change the world by figuring out who to market baby formula to, and that internet-connected toaster is a winner. The money is good though, that's true.
- stale2002 10y agoThe money is good because people are willing to pay. If the world needed more PHDs, then the world would pay them more. Thats how markets work. Supply and demand.
- M_Grey 10y ago"Needs" Not so much. "Wants" as "Thinks it needs", but even then, the amount of student debt suggests that neither of those are entirely true either.
- pryelluw 10y agoCan you elaborate as to why and how? Im genuinely curious. :)
- stale2002 10y agoAn engineer is a person who creates real world solutions to real world problems. What matters is not how elegant your solution is, what matters is solving the problem. And doing it under cost and time constraints. An engineer is first and foremost, a person focussed on the end goal, above all else.
- pryelluw 10y agoDo data scientists do as engineers?
- throw_away_777 10y agoThis definition of engineer is so broad as to be meaningless. There is no "fake world" with "fake world" problems, pretty much everyone is trying to create real world solutions to real world problems. Similarly most jobs are focused on the end goal. A data scientist job usually involves a mix of science and engineering.
- stale2002 10y agoMy definition of "real world" problems are ones that people are willing to pay for. If nobody is willing to give you money for whatever it is that you are doing, then it probably isn't solving someone's actual problem.
- throw_away_777 10y agoThe problem with this approach is that people pay much more money for limited gains they can exploit than for general gains that benefit everyone equally. Advancing academic knowledge provides gains distributed over a very large number of people, but the current system often does not efficiently allocate resources to this problem.