

DataTalks.Club
DataTalks.Club
DataTalks.Club - the place to talk about data!
Episodes
Mentioned books

Nov 5, 2021 • 59min
Becoming a Solopreneur in Data - Noah Gift
We talked about:
Noah’s background
Solopreneurship
A day of a solopreneur
Exponential vs linear work
Escaping the office work - digging the tunnel
Structuring goals
Staying motivated
Publishing books
Planning out books
Writing a book is like preparing to run a marathon
Distributed income
Getting started as a solopreneur
Lowering expenses and adding time
The right time to quit full-time
Building a network
Teaching at universities
Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html
Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

Oct 29, 2021 • 1h 5min
Building Business Acumen for Data Professionals - Thom Ives
Links:
https://join.slack.com/t/integratedmlai/shared_invite/zt-r3hpj44k-gfhf1pzIt3jixrATyXCWnQ
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomives/
Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html
Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

Oct 22, 2021 • 1h 2min
Conquering the Last Mile in Data - Caitlin Moorman
We talked about:
Caitlin’s background
The last mile in data
The Pareto Principle
Failing to use data
Making sure data is used
Communicating with decision-makers
Working backwards from the last mile
Understanding how data drives decisions
Sketching and prototyping
Showing the benefits of power data
Measurability
Driving change in data
Asking high-leverage questions
Resistance from users
Understanding domain experts
Linear projects vs circular projects
Recommendations for data analyst students
Finding Caitlin online
Links:
Emelie's talk
https://locallyoptimistic.com/post/linear-and-circular-projects-part-1/
https://locallyoptimistic.com/post/linear-and-circular-projects-part-2/
Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html
Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

Oct 15, 2021 • 60min
Similarities and Differences between ML and Analytics - Rishabh Bhargava
We talked about:
Rishabh's background
Rishabh’s experience as a sales engineer
Prescriptive analytics vs predictive analytics
The problem with the term ‘data science’
Is machine learning a part of analytics?
Day-to-day of people that work with ML
Rule-based systems to machine learning
The role of analysts in rule-based systems and in data teams
Do data analysts know data better than data scientists?
Data analysts’ documentation and recommendations
Iterative work - data scientists/ML vs data analysts
Analyzing results of experiments
Overlaps between machine learning and analytics
Using tools to bridge the gap between ML and analytics
Do companies overinvest in ML and underinvest in analystics?
Do companies hire data scientists while forgetting to hire data analysts?
The difficulty of finding senior data analysts
Is data science sexier than data analytics?
Should ML and data analytics teams work together or independently?
Building data teams
Rishabh’s newsletter – MLOpsRoundup
Links:
https://mlopsroundup.substack.com/
https://twitter.com/rish_bhargava
Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html
Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

Oct 8, 2021 • 59min
Building and Leading Data Teams - Tammy Liang
We talked about:
Tammy’s background
Being the chief of data
First projects as the first data person in a company
Initial resistance
Expanding the team
Role of business analyst
Platanomelon’s stack
Order for growing the data team
Demand forecasting
Should analysts know machine learning
Qualifications for the first data person in a company
Providing accurate results
Receiving insights in a timely manner
Providing useful insights
Giving ownership to the team
Starting as the first data person in a company
Data For Future podcast
Supporting team members that are stuck
Finding Tammy online
Links:
Tammy's podcast: https://dataforfuture.org/
Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html
Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

Oct 1, 2021 • 1h 2min
What Researchers and Engineers Can Learn from Each Other - Mihail Eric
We talked about:
Mihail’s background
NLP and self-driving vehicles
Transitioning from academia to the industry
Machine learning researchers
Finding open-ended problems
Machine learning engineers
Is data science more engineering or research?
What can engineers and researchers learn from one another?
Bridging the disconnect between researchers and engineers
Breaking down silos
Fluid roles
Full-stack data scientists
Advice to machine learning researchers
Advice to machine learning engineers
Reading papers
Choosing between engineering or research if you’re just starting
Confetti.ai
Links:
https://twitter.com/mihail_eric
http://confetti.ai/
Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html
Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

Sep 24, 2021 • 59min
Introducing Data Science in Startups - Marianna Diachuk
We talked about:
Marianna’s background
Being the only data scientist
What should already be in the company
How much experience do you need
Identifying problems
Prioritization
What should the company already know?
First week
First month
First quarter
Managing expectations
Solving problems without ML
Project timelines
Finding the best solution
Evaluating performance
Getting stuck
Communicating with analysts
Transitioning from engineering to data science
Growing the team
Stopping projects
Questions for the company
From research to production
Wrapping up
Links:
Marianna's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marianna-diachuk-53ba60116/
Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html
Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

Sep 17, 2021 • 1h 3min
Defining Success: Metrics and KPIs - Adam Sroka
We talked about:
Adam’s background
Adam’s laser and data experience
Metrics and why do we care about them
Examples of metrics
KPIs
KPI examples
Derived KPIs
Creating metrics — grocery store example
Metric efficiency
North Star metrics
Threshold metrics
Health metrics
Data team metrics
Experiments: treatment and control groups
Accelerate metrics and timeboxing
Links:
Domino's article about measuring value: http://blog.dominodatalab.com/measuring-data-science-business-value
Adam's article about skills useful for data scientists: https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-apply-your-hard-earned-data-science-skillset-812585e3cc06
Adam's article about standing out: https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-stand-out-as-a-great-data-scientist-in-2021-3b7a732114a9
Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html
Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

Sep 11, 2021 • 1h
Making Sense of Data Engineering Acronyms and Buzzwords - Natalie Kwong
We talked about:
Natalie’s background
Airbyte
What is ETL?
Why ELT instead of ETL?
Transformations
How does ELT help analysts be more independent?
Data marts and Data warehouses
Ingestion DB
ETL vs ELT
Data lakes
Data swamps
Data governance
Ingestion layer vs Data lake
Do you need both a Data warehouse and a Data lake?
Airbyte and ELT
Modern data stack
Reverse ETL
Is drag-and-drop killing data engineering jobs?
Who is responsible for managing unused data?
CDC – Change Data Capture
Slowly changing dimension
Are there cases where ETL is preferable over ELT?
Why is Airbyte open source?
The case of Elasticsearch and AWS
Links:
Natalie's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nataliekwong/
https://airbyte.io/blog/why-the-future-of-etl-is-not-elt-but-el
Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html
Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html

Sep 3, 2021 • 1h 2min
Mastering Algorithms and Data Structures - Marcello La Rocca
We talked about:
Learning algorithms and data structures
Resources for learning algorithms and data structures
Most important data structures
Learning the abstractions
Learning algorithms if they aren’t needed at work
Common mistakes when using wrong data structures
Importance of data structures for data scientists
Marcello’s book - Advanced Algorithms and Data Structures
Bloom filters
Where Bloom filters are useful
Approximate nearest neighbours
Searching for most similar vectors
Knowing frameworks vs knowing internals of data structures
Serializing Bloom filters
Algorithmic problems in job interviews
Important data structures for data scientists and data engineers
Learning by doing
Importance of compiled languages for data scientists
Links:
Marcello's book: Advanced Algorithms and Data Structures http://mng.bz/eP79 (promo code for 35% discount: poddatatalks21)
MIT, Introduction to Algorithms: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-006-introduction-to-algorithms-fall-2011/
Algorithms specialization by Tim Roughgarden: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/algorithms
Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html
Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html