I realise the article was written for a specific audience for which this may be obvious, but what is the difference between data scientist and data engineer (in terms of what their job is)?
"Data engineering" means building systems that can manipulate data (e.g. storing, retrieving, and delivering it). There are usually fairly well-defined functional requirements about what the system is supposed to do, plus goals about performance and reliability that might be slightly more nebulous.
"Data science" means building systems that can draw conclusions from data. The functional requirement is usually some form of "accuracy", as measured somehow against some kind of human evaluation of the same conclusion.
Concretely: a data engineer might be asked to build a system that can ingest every tweet posted to Twitter, and return the 10 most widely-used hashtags in the last hour. A data scientist might be asked to build a system that looks at a tweet and figures out what language it's written in, or whether it's spam, or whether an attached image is pornographic.
Data scientist actually cook up and run the statistical/ML models on data and write reports about their "findings".
However, the data that data scientists want to use is often messy and comes from varied sources. Hence, data engineers do supporting infra work like cleaning/loading data from different databases, etc.
A good presentation is not a matter of software. You can make outstanding presentation without embedded videos and fancy transitions. And you can make them on PowerPoint, Keynotes, Libreoffice, or translucent sheets.
Focus on a clear storyline, and key messages of each slide, keep it simple, use some visuals instead of a wall of text, use bullet-points wisely...
People spend months on a project and then 1-2 days on the final presentation and wonder why the audience does not understand / is bored. Management consultants (whose main output are presentations) start working on the final deck from the first weeks / days of the project.
Should have clarified better in my original post. It is for accompanying video with documentation for my software. For those devs who prefer to watch a video over reading a wall of text (plenty have ADHD who prefer video over text).
The presentation is only for bullet points + embedded video (which will showcase the product + code) as well as highlighting specific parts of code where necessary. Micro transitions to keep them engaged.
Got some really good suggestions here. So will try them out and settle on one soon. Liked reveal-md/reveal.js so far as it fits my requirements quite well.
It is one of the few subscriptions to media / news sites that I really value. Apart from their Editorials section, all articles have a balanced point of view, presenting all sides of an argument. They are all well written, and manage to explain complex topics (science, economics) in a fairly accessible way. And is also a good way to keep up to date on what happens around the world as each world region is covered and articles are often a well argumented summary of any relevant topic in that area in the past week(s). Their Christmas double issue is joy to read.
But you can buy the print version at your newsagent for a few weeks as a trial.
Former management consultant here (with one of the Big 3). It is true that some of this type of work (twisting analysis to fit conclusions) happens, but my experience has been the opposite, as in the medium-long term clients appreciate more the consultants that don't hide the truth, and in the end consulting partners want to keep long term relationships with the executives they work with. Consulting has offered me a lot. Money, but more importantly exciting projects that one usually doesn't work on at a relatively young age, the opportunity to learn how to structure communication effectively, how to manage stakeholders with opposing views (and how to become a bridge between them), how to break down a problem in pieces that are solvable with the experience and tools that you have. This in turn has accelerated my career (also outside of consulting). I also went back to consulting after working in industry.
Companies hire consultants for many reasons. In general they have the skills internally too, but unless they have overcapacity, their people have a day-job too and it is preferable to throw a group of smart and motivated mercenaries to solve a tough problem working full-time on it. Sometimes consultant are the only ones that are capable of liaising across functions and departments, without seeming skewed towards any particular one: as roles in industry tend to specialise ever more, this is becoming more and more important. And some problems (organization, process, etc) benefit a lot from an external view.
Sure, sometimes Mck, BCG, Bain (and many others) are used to provide validation for something that the CEO wants to do. But it happens a lot less often than people think.
This was my experience as well. In 2 years of consulting you might work on as many problems as 10 years in a corporate role. And the problems vary by functional area as well. The experience can be grueling, but very educational as well.
And consultants get hired for a multitude of reasons. Sometimes you’re just buying headcount for a special project, other time buying expertise in an area your company isn’t that strong in. And sometimes for an “independent voice”.
But the criticisms I read are kind of funny considering the clusterfucks some companies are. That was probably one of the more eye opening things. As an outsider who works with lots of clients the strengths and weakness of different organizations is really apparent.
I feel exactly the same and would wager that some of the ultra-negative comments here are either the result of extreme examples of bad work (every company will deliver bad work at times) or they have been personally affected by the consequences of hiring strategic consulting firms, so they are the enemy from this point forward.
I used to work for Big 3 as well, in technology consulting (way way way before switching to become an actual dev somewhere else), so our analyses were targeted more towards offering a client a perspective on his technological standing compared to the rest of the industry. It was at a time were _the majority_ of European companies exhibited extreme skepticism towards public cloud infrastructure, for example, and putting laws, economic numbers, competitors and all that into perspective for a client can certainly be very valuable to drive some change.
For Big 3 however, I had a feeling that consultancy offerings were always a way to get the foot in the door to win clients for the accounting teams - who were pretty toxic about being the only "real" Big 3 employees and everyone else is inferior.
Who is this product for? The majority of expert Excel users in a company, do not know how to code. The majority of people that in a company are coding (for whatever aim) are never asked to produce business reports from excel. People who need the report (management) do not care how easy or complex it is to create it. Airtable is (somewhat) successful because it allowed a vast group of people with limited excel knowledge to create good looking reports with a simple visual interface. I think your app just gives people who know how to use (coders) it something they don't need (excel reports), or gives people who would need it (analysts, controllers, managers) something they would be scared to use (too much coding!!).
So nobody is really going to bother management with the request to try it and buy it.
Yet, there is no good reason why expert excel users couldn't pick up some coding. I've seen several econ graduates teach themselves F# to be able to run reports. I've seen interns learning pretty complex VBA stuff. Young people know more and more some programming.
On the other hand, there is no good reason why developers shouldn't make business reports. Developers know where the data is, they know how to properly create reports that don't screw up the infrastructure. The only brake is that they're bad at frontend.
Maybe I'm being idealistic thinking that this tool could actually change how people manage the way they create reports. But I can't help thinking this is a good idea.
If you think that there is 'no good reason' why excel users couldn't pick up some coding, and 'no good reason' why developers shouldn't make business reports, you should think about those questions harder, and try to understand what the reason actually is, not worrying about whether it's good or bad. Your not understanding why people do something is not going to make them stop doing it.
My opinion is that people do what they do because they don't have the choice. As in because my tool is not on their radar. Obviously optimistic from me, but I am launching a product, I have to be!
I don't think it is correct that "they don't have the choice". Reliance on EUDAs in Excel is a well telegraphed problem for literally decades. There have been lots of attempts to solve it, whether by apps which seek to replace Excel, addins or things which work with Excel, programming interfaces, changes made by Microsoft to Excel itself, alternatives such as Jupyter. You needed to know about these and understand to what extent they succeeded and why they failed. If there's an opportunity for your tool, why is it different to all the other solutions?
The main motivation is because "I was there". I've worked 13 years building EUDAs in Excel, with all sorts of addins and what not. I've been very good at it. Being the only developer on successful trading desks for years. Creating tools used by everyone at one of the best hedge fund on the planet.
Literally everyone wants out of Excel but can't. Users are too addicted to the speed of iterations.
Hiring UI guys to make web apps instead of EUDAs is going to be orders of magnitude more expensive than working with Excel and EUDA developers.
I've listed all the alternatives over the years. None of them is spot on. I've spent 13 years asking myself: why the f is nobody building this?
Do you think that the alternatives failed because they weren't 'spot on'? Perhaps they failed because it's a much harder problem than they recognized when they started out.
Really great app. One minor issue I have with it is that when you sort alphabetically (by ticker symbol), the watchlist and the portfolio get mixed together, which is counter-intuitive and a bit unfriendly to the eyes. I would expect it to sort alphabetically but grouping separately the watchlist elements and the portfolio elements.
I work as management consultant and the iPad+Apple Pencil+OneNote combination has been a game changer for my workflow. No need to have tons of paper notebooks to take notes during meetings (and then misplace 2 months into the project), no need to print powerpoint or pdf presentations or documents to make comments for the rest of the team. The OneNote app works really well and syncs perfectly with my windows 10 laptop (and my macbook pro for personal use). I haven't found another compelling use for it (I wouldn't use it to make powerpoint presentations, nor excel spreadsheets; i could use it for text documents in MS Word, but the full keyboard of a laptop and far superior trackpads make this a non-starter). For emails, the phone is good enough if i need to reply on the go. All this to say that how fitting an instrument is to your work depends on the kind of work you do. From what I have seen, graphic designers and artists have embraced the iPad. Do software developers really crave a touch-first instrument that is barely more portable than a MBP 13"?
> Do software developers really crave a touch-first instrument that is barely more portable than a MBP 13"?
I don't know about the need for touch-first, but I can certainly see where the blog post is coming from.
It's not so much about what the iPad can do, it's more about what it cannot do and that there's no technical reason for its limitations.
It's kind of pointless to have two separate device classes when there's no technical difference between them anymore. Before the release of the M1 laptop and Mac Mini it could have been argued that the more traditional machines were more powerful and expandable.
But there's literally no difference between the hardware of a Macbook, Mac Mini, and iPad Pro apart from peripherals (e.g. screen, keyboard, touchpad). Why would a developer even need two devices when the laptop runs the same hardware and is only missing things (modem, touch screen, sensors, cameras)?
> But there's literally no difference between the hardware of a Macbook, Mac Mini, and iPad Pro apart from peripherals (e.g. screen, keyboard, touchpad).
screen, keyboard, trackpad, touch screen ports, are A LOT of what defines the hardware. It is clearly not only chipset and RAM.
> Why would a developer even need two devices when the laptop runs the same hardware and is only missing things (modem, touch screen, sensors, cameras)?
Maybe they don't need two devices in the first place. Isn't a MBP a very capable, portable, software development device? If the issue is that moving around with a MBP13 and an iPadPro with keyboard is cumbersome / heavy, then maybe the MBP plus the cheapest iPad with no keyboard would be more bearable and cover most of the use cases? Maybe the MPB and the iPhone can cover enough use cases.
I think my point is that the reasoning around iPadpro and MBP should not be that they are in principle equally powerful, so they should allow me to do the same things equally well, rather than the two have distinctive hardware features (form, keyboard, ports...) that make one better suited than the other for specific tasks. Whether I value these specific tasks enough to buy both, depends on my personal needs (and cash reserves)
> Isn't a MBP a very capable, portable, software development device?
It's the other way around: isn't the iPad Pro an even more capable and portable software development device? That's my whole point, especially since now you could develop iPad (non-pro) software seamlessly on the device without the need for testing on external hardware (since it already has all the bits and bobs contrary to the MBP).
The PE funds you describe are only a portion of the many PE strategies. Some take over well managed family owned companies where the family wants out; other acquire parts of larger groups that are being sold off because the current owner needs cash to invest somewhere else; in many cases PE funds come in to provide the cash needed for massive international expansion etc etc. The vulture/turnaround funds you describe certainly exist, and give the acquired company some hope of survival (usually, at least initially, with massive cost cutting). The fact that all these are leveraged investments (some less than others) means that a negative turn in the economy can have a massive negative impact in the ability of the company to cover their debt obligation, hence the bankruptcy.
Companies in Germany, like Switzerland, Netherlands, US etc import green coffee from around the world, roast it, mix various types and origins and qualities to produce commercial recipes that have a stable taste, then grind it and pack it in air sealed packs (as soon as possible after roasting). Being an import hub for green coffee allows the mixing, essential for commercial coffee. Coffee producing countries usually put duties on imports of green coffee to protect local production. They could import roasted coffee to then mix with local production, but that would have to be air/sealed in bulk, which i imagine is quite costly. And I suspect the market for single origin coffee is still too small to allow economically viable operations. Once roasted and sealed from the effect of air oxidation and humidity, coffee can last quite a while, certainly enough to be exported throughout the world.
I think people also underestimate the efficiency of supply chains. Not quite the same thing because of scale, but one of the best places in the US to get oysters is restaurant in Denver, CO. While Denver is not near water, it is near the center of the US and gets fresh oysters from both coasts.
I'm not sure many people are air-shipping coffee for freshness, but Germany could easily provide 'fresh' roasted coffee for anywhere in Europe.
Jax Fish House downtown. I used to think it was just a localish place, but I've mentioned 'good oysters in Denver' to vendors who travel a lot and they all immediately say Jax. Admittedly, I haven't been to Jax in quite a few years since moving to the coast, but people I talk with still say it's great.
