Five years ago, I wrote about my job search as a senior data scientist. Since then, I’ve worked different roles, weathered corporate chaos, took on leadership, and faced the pandemic. My recent months-long job search wasn’t easy. Here’s a brief summary:
With about a decade of experience, I aimed for senior/staff MLE and DS roles focused on model deployment. The market is tough, especially for those without experience, but manageable if you adjust expectations. Below are some key observations from my journey:
Tech Interviews: Less leetcode than expected. Most interviews focused on coding models or building toy apps. Despite being friendlier, they’re still highly competitive.
Preparation: Treat it like a part-time job. Diligent preparation helped me turn the tide after a rough start.
Remote Work: Remote jobs are still available, but high comp roles are extremely competitive, and referrals are critical.
ML/AI Trends: LLM/NLP experience is increasingly in demand, with some roles making it a must-have skill.
Referrals & Timing: Most of my callbacks were due to referrals or applying quickly after a job posting appeared.
Lastly, I’ve interviewed others, and a word of advice: if you list a skill or model on your resume, be prepared to explain it.
In summary, I won’t sugarcoat it. It’s a hard market. It’s probably quite unlikely if you lack experience.
I have some experience, but not much. Do you have any advice for those in this boat? I’ve already applied for a lot of jobs, including internships and more entry-level employment like software engineer and data analyst. But given that my experience is mostly in data science and machine learning, I believe it’s possible that my résumé isn’t exactly what they’re looking for for those positions either.
Even though I am hardly midlevel, it has been alright for me. My acquaintances who are recent graduates have received respectable offers, but this is because their resumes have a strong brand name signal.
That is somewhat comforting to know. Regarding resumes, I’ve gone through a lot of revisions and am fairly certain that, without adding more work experience, my CV is as excellent as it can get. Although I haven’t noticed it yet, I’ve heard stories that the market is becoming better.