High Signal: Data Science | Career | AI Episode 27: Why Your Data Team Doesn't Have a Seat at the Table (And How to Earn It)
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Oct 30, 2025 Paras Doshi, Head of Data at Opendoor and former Amazon data leader, shares insights on building effective data functions. He discusses transforming fragmented analytics into a centralized asset, emphasizing the importance of having a 'seat at the table' for data teams. Paras argues that AI is set to create the '100x individual contributor,' enabling significant productivity boosts. He also covers the balance between batch and real-time ML, the role of data in strategic business decisions, and the essentials for a successful data career.
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Data As The Customer's Voice
- Data teams act as the voice of the customer at scale when you cannot talk to millions of users directly.
- That scaled voice lets companies segment behavior and drive product decisions with data rather than anecdotes.
Fixing Fragmented Analytics
- Paras found 80 fragmented analytics hires across Opendoor with multiple conflicting numbers for the same metric.
- He centralized people, platform, and process to unify metrics, reduce vendor cost, and improve decision making.
Data Is Core To Valuation
- Opendoor's core product depends on accurate home valuations built from hundreds of features per property.
- Owning the data assets and valuation analysis is central to the company's business model and risk control.