100% correct. I am a statistician and a developer and my work falls into the domain of machine learning. The vast majority of my job is really painful data ga

100% correct. I am a statistician and a developer and my work falls into the domain of machine learning. The vast majority of my job is really painful data gathering, scrubbing, and fighting the toolchain. I have done this for YEARS, and the software is never just right, requires tons of tuning, huge budgets, and understanding management. These variables just don't line up that often. OP has nothing to worry about. Moreover, the math stuff just gets abstracted away into a library. It's never like what went on in graduate school.