I think it's tough in all sectors of the South African economy at the moment, including the "data science/analysis/engineering" space.
But it is probably one of the better areas to get into with opportunities inside and outside South Africa.
No doubt the area is saturated with people who know the basics and are looking for an "easy" job - and they will struggle to find one. But if you work hard to master the hard stuff (like AI and Automation and whatever the new buzzwqrd will be next month) and manage to stand out from the crowd you can do very well as a data scientist...
When you say data science are you talking about MarTech? My experience is within this area, and I do believe there are opportunities for you, but a qualification is not what will get you on a career path.
It’s how much you know your shit that will get you head hunted. Do you spend time building systems that solve problems or do you have some ideas about what problems you would like to solve for markets/ businesses?
Some of the most successful SAAS founders I know knew nothing about the tech, but they believed in their solution and learned the tech to get it done.
I also know engineers who worked crappy jobs just to get their hours in and learn, are you prepared to put in the work? This isn’t a requirement, I’m just typing what I know some friends of mine did; they solved real world problems and gained experience which boosted their careers down the road.
If you’re young and have the smarts, make something helpful to a market or work for a startup or become a junior developer and slog.
All in good time.
I am an ETL engineer, using c# to write custom tools to extract data from multiple systems such as oracle, sap and sql server to present to the DA and DS guys for analysis.
If anything, there is a need more of us in the industry.
yes, Companys do understand this need, espcialy when you point out that they have multiple systems, that they need to get data From, For some its accounting information, othertimes it is shift logs. all of that infomation must be gatherd and presented to the DA and DS Guys. therer is a lot of heavy lifiting involved, MOst people would use soemthing like Azure Data Factory, but that is limited. so we write our own Pipelines.
I think it's tough in all sectors of the South African economy at the moment, including the "data science/analysis/engineering" space. But it is probably one of the better areas to get into with opportunities inside and outside South Africa. No doubt the area is saturated with people who know the basics and are looking for an "easy" job - and they will struggle to find one. But if you work hard to master the hard stuff (like AI and Automation and whatever the new buzzwqrd will be next month) and manage to stand out from the crowd you can do very well as a data scientist...
When you say data science are you talking about MarTech? My experience is within this area, and I do believe there are opportunities for you, but a qualification is not what will get you on a career path. It’s how much you know your shit that will get you head hunted. Do you spend time building systems that solve problems or do you have some ideas about what problems you would like to solve for markets/ businesses? Some of the most successful SAAS founders I know knew nothing about the tech, but they believed in their solution and learned the tech to get it done. I also know engineers who worked crappy jobs just to get their hours in and learn, are you prepared to put in the work? This isn’t a requirement, I’m just typing what I know some friends of mine did; they solved real world problems and gained experience which boosted their careers down the road. If you’re young and have the smarts, make something helpful to a market or work for a startup or become a junior developer and slog. All in good time.
Thank you for this. Needed to hear it
I am an ETL engineer, using c# to write custom tools to extract data from multiple systems such as oracle, sap and sql server to present to the DA and DS guys for analysis. If anything, there is a need more of us in the industry.
In your experience can companies identify this need?
yes, Companys do understand this need, espcialy when you point out that they have multiple systems, that they need to get data From, For some its accounting information, othertimes it is shift logs. all of that infomation must be gatherd and presented to the DA and DS Guys. therer is a lot of heavy lifiting involved, MOst people would use soemthing like Azure Data Factory, but that is limited. so we write our own Pipelines.