21. Adam Waksman - Data science is becoming software engineering

When I think of the trends I’ve seen in data science over the last few years, perhaps the most significant and hardest to ignore has been the increased focus on deployment and productionization of models. Not all companies need models deployed to production, of course but at those that do, there’s increasing pressure on data science teams to deliver software engineering along with machine learning solutions.

That’s why I wanted to sit down with Adam Waksman, Head of Core Technology at Foursquare. Foursquare is a company built on data and machine learning: they were one of the first fully scaled social media-powered recommendation services that gained real traction, and now help over 50 million people find restaurants and services in countries around the world.

Our conversation covered a lot of ground, from the interaction between software engineering and data science, to what he looks for in new hires, to the future of the field as a whole.