[minimaxir]

Many recommend setting up an online portfolio for these types of positions. But I've applied to a number of Data Analyst/Scientist jobs recently and I am immediately rejected almost every time despite highlighting my blog/portfolio (http://minimaxir.com) and my GitHub with open-source code/Notebooks for each and every post (https://github.com/minimaxir), both of which have topped HN on occasion.

Internal recruiters have hinted that my Software QA Engineer background + no CS degree implies I have no technical skill.

[tom_b]

I wonder if you are less impacted by the lack of CS degree than by your "Software QA Engineer" label.

My own experience was that my initial position as a software performance engineer resulted in a perception that I was a "tester" without technical skills despite having multiple CS credentials and published code in practitioner-oriented sources.

Overcoming recruiter biases was such a struggle that I now routinely counsel students and early career programmers to carefully consider whether job role perceptions would negatively affect their future prospects. I also tell them, when financially viable, to not take on roles where hiring orgs cannot give them a day-to-day job description that directly matches their desired career path.

This advice seems quite challenging or maybe misguided for data science careers though. It seems like just getting an entry-level data science job might require a dedicated MS in either CS or stats, with a healthy set of projects in whichever of those two subjects you didn't spend grad school working on to prove yourself . . .

[bbarn]

You're probably on to something there. Sadly, the opposite of this is true too - it's incredibly hard to find competent QA Engineers (not testers) because they all realize very quickly they can make more money as rank and file software devs than QA-side specialists, even if their role in QA is leagues more complex.

[yttrium]

I had a similar experience. My first job out of college was for a Developer Role (building testing frameworks, maintaining and building browser extensions) but the job was titled 'QA Developer' so I had a hell of a time the first time I tried to find a new job. Never mind that I wrote thousands and thousands of lines of application code, lots of recruiters would deny me on the basis that my background didn't fit.

[thomasthomas]

Some companies are really dumb and only consider candidates with specific job titles on their resume. I've had recruiters from contract companies say "your experience is great but can we change your previous job title to X." Recruiter knows the client gets hung on job titles if its not exactly what they're looking for. In my experience i'll change previous job titles to fit the position i'm applying for, as most of my previous jobs I could've been titled 4-5 things.

[CryoLogic]

I've seen this happen. Most companies cannot hire competent recruiters. Often recruiters have no technical background, and are unfamiliar with all but the buzzwords.

This trend will probably continue until someone decides to up recruiter pay and hire engineering background candidates for recruiting roles (if possible).

[santaclaus]

Did you try dropping the exact title from your resume for a more general description of the role?

[yttrium]

Yes, but it was hard to entirely obfuscate the fact that I designed/coded testing frameworks. Part of my job was running and analyzing big batches of regression scripts, so it would have been disingenuous to pretend like it didn't happen.

[user5994461]

Replace by Software Engineer. Problem solved!

[user5994461]

The first job is the hardest to get. Keep trying, lower your expectations: Take anything you can and don't expect to be paid much.

Contrary to what the reddit folks would have you think. The ONLY thing that consistently get someone through the door is demonstrable real work experience, on real projects, in the industry (read: not academia). Side projects are not a substitute and the lack of degree is a barrier.

[user5994461]

https://www.linkedin.com/in/minimaxir/

It turns out that QA was only the tip of the iceberg. You have a job title as "QA" and a job title as "support".

You will NEVER get any development or engineering job with that. Expect 90% reject in the resume screening because you are not a developer.

If they were development jobs, replace both by "software developer".

[minimaxir]

Those were my college internships, as you can see by the dates. (and obviously I do not include them in my resume)

My most recent job is obfuscated a bit in the public eye/only visible to logged-in LinkedIn users, for good reason. (I politely request people looking into it not discuss it)

[user5994461]

> and obviously I do not include them in my resume

You remove the experiences you have and wonder why your resume doesn't pass a screening test? Must seem quite empty.

[EternalData]

I've seen your posts on Spark. That's sad to hear.

Are you applying online or via getting coffees with people in the data science team and just talking shop? The latter seems to have a high conversion rate if you can nail it.

[minimaxir]

Mostly online; I've been too busy to network during the weekdays unfortunately, which is something I'm working to fix.

[muninn_]

Yeah. The problem is recruiters are almost universally non-technical, so they can't properly gauge your talent nor do they understand the job requirements fully.

[cwilkes]

I wouldn't limit it to recruiters ... some engineers see the word "QA" or "SDET" and think the guy isn't worthy of being a "real" software engineer, or if they do then it is at the lowest rung of the ladder. Really annoying.

In the OP's case I would change their title (if applicable) to "QA / engineer" as a) that probably paints a more accurate picture of what you were doing and b) gets around yokels that look down on QA/SDET.

[NumberCruncher]

Your portfolio sais "I can plot public data in colour". It should say "I understand and can apply in practice a couple multivariate modelling techniques". Learn until you understand why we don't blog about single decision trees.

[dataframing]

I have to disagree. The blog is very heavy on the data visualization -- but is that a bad thing? The posts effectively cover most of the data analysis timeline (collection, iterative exploration, model building, visualization) and they're well-explained and thoroughly-explored.

Others have said the same, but I'd wager the biggest issue is (a) the limited past roles that directly dealt with data science/analysis or (b) SF's narrow-minded hiring practices. Maybe a masters or data science bootcamp would go further than more blog posts?

[minimaxir]

Thanks for the optimistic descriptions of my posts. :)

[kevinburke]

> Internal recruiters have hinted that my Software QA Engineer background + no CS degree implies I have no technical skill.

They're really trying to mitigate risk that they pass you along to engineers and the engineers say "why am I looking at this person with no formal qualifications" and then the recruiter feels like they've wasted the time of the engineering team. It's stupid but insidious.

If you can I would suggest trying to bypass the recruiters and contact the engineers/hiring manager directly; ask them out for coffee and ask for advice on starting a career in data science, or show them your portfolio via email there.

[dev1n]

Send the recruiters your Reddit posts in the r/beautifuldata or w/e that subreddit is. I'm sure the recruiters spend a lot of time on Reddit. Recruiters are ridiculous.

edit: spelling

[ploggingdev]

I would suggest taking part in the Who wants to be hired monthly thread if you have not been doing that already.

I realize that most startups recruiting through HN are looking to hire for web, app or backend development, but there are a few data science jobs. Since people recognize you here on HN, you have a much better chance of landing a job.

It's unfortunate that most recruiters primarily screen based on resume.

I don't know if Triplebyte [1] helps people find data science jobs, but do check with them.

[1] https://triplebyte.com/

[melvinmt]

> my Software QA Engineer background + no CS degree implies I have no technical skill

It's OK to leave stuff out on your resume if it's not relevant (and maybe even harmful) to the position you're applying for.

[minimaxir]

My Software QA Engineer position is my first, and only job post-undergrad.

[cema]

Maybe you could rephrase it. For example, give it a title "software engineer", and then a subtitle or one short paragraph explaining: "the position was officially called qa whatever and involved developing software for this and that", and then list the accomplishments.

[amorphid]

I recruited for one data science job. The hiring manager was super focused on getting someone with a PhD. Is that the norm for a position like that?

[randcraw]

Some companies know what skills they need, others don't. For those who don't know, but want a typical statistical modeler, a PhD in statistics is the safest choice, then a PhD in machine learning or MS in stats, after that, you need to look for the presence of specific skills... like deep learning for image recognition or the Hadoop stack.

[megablast]

> Software QA Engineer background + no CS degree implies I have no technical skill.

Sure, but that doesn't sound unreasonable.

[minimaxir]

>:|