[czbond]

Data science. In that field, your background of statistics and math will be used much more frequently. In SWE, quite honestly, it won't. In SWE, you'll be placed into some field comprising of either: front end/back end/web programming, infrastructure, DevOps, etc. Plus, currently there is less good competition in the field of DataScience. There is a long career runaway, and a few data leaders looking to grow the next batch of careers. The competition is much higher in SWE, as the field is well developed, and often well trodden. SWE is now in the "era of efficiency" where well developed best practices, processes, etc are developing/ in place. Data Science has much less of that already in place, and exciting ares around future of data, privacy, volume of data, etc.

[wirrbel]

> there is less good competition in the field of DataScience

In my experience, it is probably easier to differentiate yourself and proof your worth by producing great products in software engineering.

Data science is overrun at the moment by everyone chasing the hype. So it is kind of hard to proof your worth by producing great data science, you just will not be heard among all the shouting of people, sub-orgs and consultants trying to sell their latest deep learning model for a data-set that would fit on a floppy disk (okay, that was exagerated, a zip drive).