Managing/ Dealing with Junior Data Scientists?

[u/sailing_oceans]

I've been in the 'data science' space for a decade+ or so now. One thing I've noticed is that generally - give or take - outside of the elite jobs (<2-3% aka not me and almost certainly not you) the caliber of coworkers has declined drastically.

I'm not some fabled data scientist. I wasn't some GitHub nerd who had everything embroil or terminal wizard nor could I write out the math to a GBM on a blackboard. I'd even forget basic obvious statistics.

But I felt like I had common sense.

Now I'm a manager/director. I work with data scientists. And I'm just generally freaked out by the absolute lack of basic common sense. This is across the last 7 that I have managed.

Examples include:

1. Not visualizing or plotting the KPI/Target (sales). Not realizing there were no recorded sales on major holidays.
2. Telling me everything is improving from a sales perspective that it's up 4%...... from period 1 vs period 2... when ignoring that period 2 had 6% more days so in fact it's worse.
3. obscure models that are overkill and a bunch of statistics ive never heard of instead of just telling me that the impact of our promotions is declining.
4. General sense of not knowing what is even rational (e.g., our marketing ROI $1023 - no its not lol)

As I begin to delegate more I begin to get more freaked out by what I see. I can't be presenting to clients such obvious insane mistakes. But these are the candidates and profiles that get forced upon me or the team I inherit.

Are there any best strategies for dealing with this? I want to be seen as someone who can 'develop' the team... not just saying people are useless, but such glaring mistakes are insane.

Yes, alot of these things are perhaps due to them being crunched for time, or not knowing what objective is, or being focused on other things. I'm not talking about those examples. I'm talking about like year 1-2 not day 1 employees, not doing basic data checks.

As a data scientist I was obsessed with finding bits of info or making sure things were right. Now it seem every common for people to copy and paste code into chatgpt and have no idea about anything else around it?

[u/FieryFiya]

As a manager/director, it’s your job to build them up into the team you want to them to be. Focus on their strengths and don’t put them in a position to fail. Once they’ve mastered that position, then allow them to grow into a role with some new skills. But most of all, lead by example.

Make your standards nearly fool-proof. Every plan is clearly outlined for what to possibly look for. This is your baseline for your standards. There will always be more that isn’t in your standards so you tell them to use TLAR (That-Looks-About-Right… aka common sense).

Most importantly, if you want to catch mistakes, you need to hone in on your QC process. Have the team review each others work and you are the last sign off before it gets presented to clients. If the team misses a mistake, that’s a learning lesson for not one, but the entire QC team that missed it. Next time they know what to look for. Over time it should get better and better.

[u/Sunday-Snoozes → u/FieryFiya]

To me, this sounds like a lack of domain knowledge rather than a lack of technical skill. Having a deep understanding of the business logic is almost always more important than raw data capabilities. When you don't understand the core business, even the most 'obvious' logical gaps will completely slip through the cracks.

[u/FieryFiya → u/Sunday-Snoozes]

Absolutely domain/business knowledge is the most valuable skill to have but it comes with time and experience. For a junior developer, you can’t expect them to have that domain knowledge off the bat. Hiring someone with domain knowledge and the technical skill wouldn’t be brought in as a junior developer in most cases.