Ken's Nearest Neighbors - TopPodcast.com

How Can Data Teams Get Out of Their Own Way (Alex Gold) - KNN Ep. 196 Oct 21, 2024

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Alex Gold. Alex is the Director of Solutions Engineering + Support at posit and author of DevOps for Data Science. In this episode we talk about Alex's experience working in data for presidential campaigns, his experience in solutions engineering, and the role that DevOps plays in the data domain.
Book: https://www.routledge.com/DevOps-for-Data-Science/Gold/p/book/9781003213345
(You can use Code AFLY04 for a 20% discount)
Alex's Links:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexkgold/
Twitter - https://x.com/alexkgold
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Listen to Ken's Nearest Neighbors on all the main podcast platforms!
On Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kens-nearest-neighbors/id1538368692 (Please rate if you enjoy it!)
On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7fJsuxiZl4TS1hqPUmDFbl
On Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xNDMwMDQxLnJzcw?sa=X&ved=0CAMQ4aUDahcKEwjQ2bGBhfbsAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ
MORE DATA SCIENCE CONTENT HERE:
🐤My Twitter - https://twitter.com/KenJee_DS
👔 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenjee/
📈 Kaggle - https://www.kaggle.com/kenjee
📑 Medium Articles - https://medium.com/@kenneth.b.jee
💻 Github - https://github.com/PlayingNumbers
🏀 My Sports Blog - https://www.playingnumbers.com
🗣️ 66DaysOfData Discord Server - https://discord.com/invite/4p37sy5muZ

How She Went From Analytics Executive to Solopreneur (Serena Huang PhD) - KNN Ep. 195 Oct 21, 2024

Today, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Serena Huang. She is one of the leaders in the field of people analytics. In this episode, we dive deep into what people analytics are and how companies are evaluating their workforce with data. We also touch on her transition from executive to solopreneur and speaker.
Serena's Links:
Her LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/serenahhuangphd/
Her Thought leadership program - apply here
https://www.datawithserena.com/tla
Her First Book book, The Inclusion Equation - Leveraging Data & AI for Organizational Diversity and Wellbeing, will be published early next year.
Resources cited in podcast:
Research: Women Ask for Raises as Often as Men, but Are Less Likely to Get Them
https://hbr.org/2016/09/diverse-teams-feel-less-comfortable-and-thats-why-they-perform-better
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Listen to Ken's Nearest Neighbors on all the main podcast platforms!
On Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kens-nearest-neighbors/id1538368692 (Please rate if you enjoy it!)
On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7fJsuxiZl4TS1hqPUmDFbl
On Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xNDMwMDQxLnJzcw?sa=X&ved=0CAMQ4aUDahcKEwjQ2bGBhfbsAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ
MORE DATA SCIENCE CONTENT HERE:
🐤My Twitter - https://twitter.com/KenJee_DS
👔 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenjee/
📈 Kaggle - https://www.kaggle.com/kenjee
📑 Medium Articles - https://medium.com/@kenneth.b.jee
💻 Github - https://github.com/PlayingNumbers
🏀 My Sports Blog - https://www.playingnumbers.com
🗣️ 66DaysOfData Discord Server - https://discord.com/invite/4p37sy5muZ

The Journey of a Non-Technical Founder in a Data Company (Jake Schuster) - KNN Ep. 194 Aug 06, 2024

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Jake Schuster. Jake is the CEO of Gemini Sports Analytics, a company that is making it easier for college and professional sports teams to leverage data into insight. Jake came from a sports science background, and found that his own pain point was making the data he was collecting into something actionable for the teams. In this episode, we talk about the challenges sports teams face and the challenges that Jake faced as a non-technical founder.
Jake's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-george-schuster-2263a359/
Gemini: https://geminisports.ai/
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions

Inside New York's Most Exclusive Data Community (Derek Larson) - KNN Ep. 193 Jul 08, 2024

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Derek Larson. Derek runs New York AI, an exclusive community for data people in New York. Derek also started Kin, a company that designs useful tools for local communities. In this episode we learn how important communities are for innovation, where AI is going based on what he is seeing in his communities, and much more!
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions

4X Kaggle GM Shares His Surprising Secret to Success in Competitions (Chris Deotte) - KNN Ep. 192 Jun 11, 2024

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Chris Deotte. He is a member of NVIDIA's KGMON Team (Kaggle Grandmasters of NVIDIA), and one of the greatest kaggle grandmasters of all time. He has been previously ranked first in Discussions, Notebooks, and Datasets. Currently he is ranked 11th in competitions and has been ranked as high as 4th. Chris also has an immense love for sports and board games. He has worn all sorts of hats throughout his life and he believes that all of them have helped him to be successful in kaggle and in his career.
In this episode we learn how Chris got into kaggle competitions, how he hacked the meta for a popular board game, and how he has able to have so much success in the kaggle domain.
Chris on Kaggle: https://www.kaggle.com/cdeotte
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions

The Crappiest Data Company I've Ever Heard Of (Scott Hickle) - KNN Ep. 191 May 17, 2024

Today I had the pleasure of Interviewing Scott Hickle. Scott is the co-founder of Throne Science, an innovate company that is looking to measure and evaluate our waste. In the episode we learn about the comical origins of the idea behind Throne, the value of tracking our data, and the importance of N=1 experimentation.
Scott's Links:
Twitter - https://twitter.com/ScottHickle
Throne - https://www.thronescience.com/
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions

Caribbean Data Scientist Explains How to Go Out and Get Your Career (Mark Moyou) - KNN Ep. 190 May 10, 2024

Today, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mark Moyou. Mark is a Senior Data Scientist and the host of the AI portfolio podcast and the Caribbean Tech Pioneers podcast. He grew up in Trinidad and Tobago, and his work is deeply inspired by his family and upbringing there. In this episode, we dive into how he landed his first job in the States, what makes a successful data scientist, how to make meaningful connections, and how work at a large company is different than his previous jobs.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Mark's Links:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmoyou/
@caribbeantechpioneers
@aiportfoliopod

Lessons from Teaching in North Korea for 4 Years (Andrew Kemp) - KNN Ep. 189 May 01, 2024

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Andrew Kemp. Andrew is the head of product marketing for data science and AI at Z by HP. Andrew recruited me into the Z by HP global ambassador program and is responsible for its creation. In this episode we learn about his experience teaching in North Korea for 4 years as well as how the landscape of hardware and community is changing.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Andrew's Links:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewallenkemp/
Z by HP Ambassador - https://www.hp.com/us-en/workstations/industries/ambassadors.html

The Youngest Ever 3x Kaggle GM Explains Why She Switched to Product (Ruchi Bhatia) - KNN Ep. 188 Apr 21, 2024

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Ruchi Bhatia. Ruchi is the youngest ever 3x Kaggle Grandmaster. She recently started work as a product marketing manager at HP after being a Z by HP global data science ambassador. In this episode we talk about why Ruchi shifted to product, what she has learned from transitioning into the workforce at HP, and what she thinks of all of the new changes going on in the AI space.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Ruchi's Links:
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruchi798/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/techbyruchi/

How Fast is AI Innovation Really Happening? (Tina Huang) - KNN Ep. 187 Apr 12, 2024

Today I brought back my good friend Tina Huang on the podcast! We talked about her continuing venture into content and entrepreneurship as well as our experience and learnings from NVIDIA's GTC conference.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Tina's Links:
https://www.youtube.com/@TinaHuang1
https://www.lonelyoctopus.com/

How AI Changes the Interview Process (Nick Singh) - KNN Ep. 186 Apr 05, 2024

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Nick Singh. He is the author of Ace the Data Science Interview and the Head Lemur at datalemur, a website helping you prepare for interviews. In this episode we learn what Nick has been doing since the publication of his book, how the interview process has changed with new advances in AI, and how you can stand out in the challenging job market.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Nick's Links:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-singh-tech/
Personal Website - https://www.nicksingh.com/
Book - https://www.acethedatascienceinterview.com/
Data Lemur - https://datalemur.com/

The Problem With Developer Advocacy (Daliana Liu) - KNN Ep. 185 Mar 30, 2024

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Daliana Liu. Daliana is the host of the Data Scientist Show. She also has experience in developer advocacy and working as a data scientist in large tech companies and startups. Today we talk about why she quit her job in tech, how developer advocacy could be improved, and much more!
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Daliana's Links:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dalianaliu/
Personal Website - https://dalianaliu.com/
Podcast - https://www.youtube.com/c/thedatascientistshow

Speaking with the Creator of Pandas on the Future of Open Source (Wes McKinney) - KNN Ep. 184 Mar 22, 2024

Today I had the pleasure of speaking with Wes McKinney. Wes is well known in the open source community for his work building the pandas library. He also has a fascinating background leading the production of other data tooling with a focus on ubiquitous language-agnostic, hardware-optimized analytical computing. In this episode we learn about the origin of pandas, Wes' transition into a new role at Posit, and his perspective on the future of open source.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wesmckinn/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/wesmckinn
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions

The Story Behind the Analyst Builder (Alex Freberg) - KNN Ep. 183 Mar 16, 2024

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing @AlexTheAnalyst yet again on the podcast. So much has changed for him in a short period of time with his analyst builder platform. In this episode, we talk about his journey creating a product, the changing field of data, and how he dealt with burnout.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions

Should Kids Still Learn to Code? (Hunter Kempf) - KNN Ep. 182 Mar 02, 2024

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Hunter Kempf for a second time on the KNN podcast. Hunter is a fellow Z by HP global ambassador who works as a Data Scientist at Cloudflare. He is at the intersection of Data and Cyber security. In this episode, we touch on if kids should learn to code, the implications of AI on security, and much more!
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Hunter's Links:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunterkempf/

From Auditor to Data Driven Decision Maker (Monica Kay Royal) - KNN Ep. 181 Feb 23, 2024

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Monica Kay Royal. She is the host of Data podcast for nerds which can be found here @nerdnourishment ! She went from working as an auditor to leading a team making data driven audit decisions. In this episode we talk about how she made her transition, the benefits and drawbacks of standardization of data science learning, and what she learned from making her own podcast!
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Monica's Links:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicakayroyal/
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLX8ysIVTifR0BkqJYkQIMQ
Personal Website - https://www.nerdnourishment.com/

How Fatherhood Changes Career Goals (Antonio Ivanovski) - KNN Ep. 180 Feb 16, 2024

Antonio Ivanovski (A.I.) is husband and father of two amazing kids who works as a senior data analyst at Google working on protecting Google's ad ecosystem from invalid traffic. Antonio has experience working at Verizon as an A.I. Product Manager and as a Business Intelligence Analyst. When not working, Antonio is spending time with family, playing sports, or researching crypto. In todays episode we learn how one mentor shaped Antonio's career, how he was able to advance quickly in his career at google, and how his career priorities shifted when he became a father.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Antonio's Links:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanovskia1/
Listen to Ken's Nearest Neighbors on all the main podcast platforms!
On Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kens-nearest-neighbors/id1538368692 (Please rate if you enjoy it!)
On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7fJsuxiZl4TS1hqPUmDFbl
On Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xNDMwMDQxLnJzcw?sa=X&ved=0CAMQ4aUDahcKEwjQ2bGBhfbsAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ

Why He Left His PhD to Pursue His AI Podcast (Louis-Francois Bouchard) - KNN Ep. 179 Jan 10, 2024

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Louis-Francois Bouchard! Louis is the host of the @WhatsAI and he just recently left his PhD to pursue the channel and podcast full time. In this episode we dive deep into this decision, how he is choosing to spend his new free time, and how he recovered from the early stages of burnout.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Louis's Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOD9-WyWExs
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/whats-ai/
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@UCUzGQrN-lyyc0BWTYoJM_Sg@What'sAI

From Divinity Student to Data Scientist (Immanuel Tacky) - KNN Ep. 178 Jan 03, 2024

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Immanuel Tacky. Immanuel is currently a data scientist at Canadian tire company. In this episode, we talk about why Immanuel decided to pursue a masters degree to break into the data science field. We also talk about how he went from a masters in divinity into his current career in data.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Immanuel's Links:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/immanueltacky/

How AI Reshaped This Data Analyst's Job (Luke Barousse) - KNN Ep. 177 Dec 13, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing my good friend @LukeBarousse ! We dive into how Luke is now using AI for all of his data work, the incredible opportunity he got working for mr. beast, and much more!
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Luke's Links:
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@LukeBarousse
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-b/
Website - https://www.lukebarousse.com/

The Past and Future of Healthcare and AI? (Eric Doherty) - KNN Ep. 176 Dec 07, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Eric Doherty. Eric is a global executive leader in the healthcare space. He has held senior executive roles in 5 different companies focused in the pharmaceutical and medical device spaces. In this episode, we will learn a bit more about past and future of healthcare, especially how they relate to AI.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Eric's Links
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericdohertypresidentpersown/

Why His Data Tik-Tok is so Addicting (Elijah Butler) - KNN Ep. 175 Nov 29, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Elijah Butler. Elijah is a Data Analyst at Humana who has developed an impressive following on tik tok for his short form, informative, data related content. Elijah had a great conversation about how he developed his audience, how he gets over the "overwhelm" associated with the data career, and with how content can be difficult when dealing with confirmation bias.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Elijah's Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elijahbutler/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@imelijahbutler?_t=8hhKPqKXm5z&_r=1

Why Your Company May Need a Part Time Chief Data Officer (Eric Gonzalez) - KNN Ep. 174 Nov 22, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Eric Gonzalez. Eric is the VP of Business Intelligence Architecture at Eastern Bank. He also works as a for hire fractional data leader. Before data leadership, Eric cut his teeth in consulting. In this episode, we learn about the benefits and drawbacks of working in consulting, what data leaders are missing with generative AI, and how being introspective about our mindset can transform our careers in the long run.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Eric's Links:
LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/egdataguy
Upcoming newsletter - https://datinuum.beehiiv.com/subscribe
Listen to Ken's Nearest Neighbors on all the main podcast platforms!
On Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kens-nearest-neighbors/id1538368692 (Please rate if you enjoy it!)
On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7fJsuxiZl4TS1hqPUmDFbl
On Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xNDMwMDQxLnJzcw?sa=X&ved=0CAMQ4aUDahcKEwjQ2bGBhfbsAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ

Life / Podcast Update! - KNN Ep. 173 Nov 15, 2023

It's been a while since I've done an update! Have some life changes coming up. Wanted to share and talk about how these may impact the podcast (Hopefully positively)
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Listen to Ken's Nearest Neighbors on all the main podcast platforms!
On Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kens-nearest-neighbors/id1538368692 (Please rate if you enjoy it!)
On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7fJsuxiZl4TS1hqPUmDFbl
On Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xNDMwMDQxLnJzcw?sa=X&ved=0CAMQ4aUDahcKEwjQ2bGBhfbsAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ

Confronting the Biggest Problem with the Data Science Interview (Jack Blandin) - KNN Ep. 172 Nov 01, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Jack Blandin. Jack is a brilliant data scientist and manager that I had the pleasure of working with at Gohealth. Jack moved from software engineering to data science at Trunk Club and never looked back. He has since managed engineering teams at Gohealth, Wayfair, and now Fi. In this episode we dive into Jack's distaste for the data science interview process, and how he is planning to make it better. We also touch on how he would build an ideal data science team.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Jack's Links:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackblandin/

The Difference Between Working at Google and Founding a Startup (Mike Dezube) - KNN Ep. 171 Oct 25, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Mike Dezube. This is Mike's second appearance on the podcast! In this episode we learn about Mike's experience working at google, why he left, and the differences he ran into when founding his own startup from the big company atmosphere.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Mike's Links:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikedezube/
Charles River Data - https://www.charlesriverdata.com/

The Surprising Importance of Timing on AI Innovation (Marinela Profi) - KNN Ep. 170 Oct 18, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Marinela Profi is the Head of Product Marketing Strategy for AI at SAS. Marinela moved to North Carolina from Rome to pursue her career in AI. In this episode we talk about how she got over the isolation of moving to a new country, what product marketing strategy is, and why timing is so important for innovating in AI.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Marinela's Links:
Invisible Women (Book) - https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Women-Data-World-Designed/dp/1419729071
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marinelaprofi/
Linktree - https://linktr.ee/MariProfi

How a Book Landed Him His Dream Job (Tyler Richards) - KNN Ep. 169 Oct 11, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of bringing Tyler Richards back on the show. Last time I talked with him, he was a data scientist at Meta who had just written a book on Streamlit. Now he actually works at Streamlit and is releasing a second edition of his book. He joined Streamlit right before the were purchased by Snowflake and in this episode we talk about his experience going through an acquisition, landing a job at streamlit, and why more data scientists don't pursue entrepreneurial projects.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Tyler's Links:
Install Streamlit - https://docs.streamlit.io/library/get-started/installation
Twitter - https://twitter.com/tylerjrichards
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerjrichards/
Website - https://www.tylerjrichards.com/
Book - https://blog.streamlit.io/streamlit-for-data-science-book/

How He Became the Biggest Podcaster in Data Science (Jon Krohn) - KNN Ep. 168 Sep 20, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Jon Krohn. Jon is the host of the Super Data Science podcast, a cofounder of Nebula, and force in the data science space. In this episode we learn how Jon became the biggest podcaster in data science, the difference between type 1 and type 2 fun, and about how Jon has been able to find passion and meaning in creating free educational resources.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Jon's Links:
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@JonKrohnLearns
SDS Podcast YouTube - @SuperDataScienceWithJonKrohn
Personal Website - https://www.jonkrohn.com
Podcast - https://www.superdatascience.com/podcast
Nebula AI - https://nebula-ai.com

Why He Quit Being an Analytics Manager ( @AlexTheAnalyst ) - KNN Ep. 167 Sep 15, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing my good friend @AlexTheAnalyst . Alex just passed the 500k subscriber threshold on YouTube producing incredible content around the data analytics domain. He also creates some amazing eye opening content on linkedin. In this episode we dive into Alex's choice to leave his analytics manager job, his new platform analystbuilder, and his perspective on the new AI technologies coming out!
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Alex's Links:
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@AlexTheAnalyst
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-freberg/
Website - https://www.alextheanalyst.com/
Analyst Builder - https://www.analystbuilder.com/

250,000 Subscriber Q&A!! - KNN Ep. 166 Sep 06, 2023

Answering some of your questions to celebrate 250,000 subscribers on @KenJee_ds !
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions

How Companies and Data Scientists Can Capitalize on the AI Boom (Vin Vashishta) - KNN Ep. 165 Aug 30, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Vin Vashishta. Vin is the author of the Wiley book, ‘From Data To Profit.’ It’s the playbook for monetizing data and AI. Vin is the Founder of V-Squared and built the business from client 1 to one of the world’s oldest data and AI consulting firms. His background combines over 25 years in strategy, leadership, software engineering, and applied machine learning. Today Vin gives his take on the AI hype, what makes us uniquely human, and how companies can with with strategic changes around new large language models. This is a great conversation that can benefit data leaders and data scientist a like. Enjoy!
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Vin's Links:
https://www.datascience.vin/
Vin's Book: https://amzn.to/3OZDXbl

From Unemployed Subscriber to Director in 3 Years (Ray Ojel) - KNN Ep. 164 Aug 23, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of bringing back Ray Ojel to the podcast. He was an early subscriber who landed his first job the last time I talked to him. Now he has reached the director level in just 3 years. In this episode we talk about how he was able to progress so quickly, how he made himself irreplaceable to his company, and he also gives his best advice for juniors to make real impact on the job.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Ray's Links:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ray-ojel_fixed-variable-rates-activity-7087479056325095424-JGZT
Listen to Ken's Nearest Neighbors on all the main podcast platforms!
On Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kens-nearest-neighbors/id1538368692 (Please rate if you enjoy it!)
On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7fJsuxiZl4TS1hqPUmDFbl
On Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xNDMwMDQxLnJzcw?sa=X&ved=0CAMQ4aUDahcKEwjQ2bGBhfbsAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ

Why Data Scientists Should Break Things (Daniel Parris) - KNN Ep. 163 Aug 16, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Daniel Parris. Daniel is a data scientist and data journalist with over eight years of experience. He was one of DoorDash's first data science hires, and he currently invests in early-stage data products through Dash VC. He run the newsletter called Stat Significant, which crafts data-centric essays about pop culture phenomena, and Data People, a short-form interview series with world-class data professionals. Which I was featured in recently. In this episode, Daniel explains what it was like to work at a quickly growing company with an experimental culture like doordash, what he learned from his biggest mistakes, and why he decided to pursue consulting and data journalism.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Daniel's Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-parris-8324b274/
- Email: daniel@askdatapeople.com
- Newsletter: https://substack.com/@statsignificant
- Data People: https://www.askdatapeople.com/

Leaving Google and BCG to Start Their Own Data Firm (Gleb Drobkov & Mike Dezube) - KNN Ep. 162 Aug 09, 2023

Today, I had the pleasure of interviewing Gleb Drobkov and Mike Dezube. They are the founders of Charles River Data, a Boston-based data science consulting firm.
Gleb is a returning guest and you can hear all about his experience as a data science consultant at bcg in episode 23. Since that episode, he has taken the leap to leave BCG and found CRD with Mike.
Mike is new to the show and has a great wealth of experience working as an engineer and data scientist at google for 7+ years before starting CRD.
In this episode Mike and Gleb go deep into how they started their business, why now is a great time for consulting and contracting, and the biggest differences between running your own shop and working at google or BCG.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Charles River Data:
Website - https://www.charlesriverdata.com/
Email - inquiries@charlesriverdata.com
Medium Article - https://medium.com/charles-river-data
Press Release - https://apnews.com/press-release/pr-newswire/x-corp-alphabet-inc-jpmorgan-chase-co-morgan-stanley-corporate-management-de20b254f3c7354b9724ab5063502bc4
Gleb's Links:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/glebdrobkov/
Mike's Links:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikedezube/

How AI is Altering Music Forever (Ale Koretzky) - KNN Ep. 161 Aug 03, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of bringing back my good friend Ale on the podcast. Ale has spent the last year traveling the world while working full time. He is the Head of AI and Audio Science Innovation at Splice. He is the brains behind their new CoSo technology which has the ability to identify complementary sounds via embeddings. In this episode, we talk about his work innovating in the music space, his perspective on how new advancements will shake the foundations of the data space, and much much more!
Ale's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akoretzky/
Ale in Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/cathyolson/2023/06/27/can-ai-reinvent-song-creation-without-cutting-out-humans-music-sample-platform-splice-says-yes/?sh=76d7a7eab127
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions

What is Langchain and Why Will it Change the World? (Greg Kamradt) - KNN Ep. 160 Jul 26, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Greg Kamradt. Greg ( @DataIndependent ) has been in and around data science and analytics his entire career. He has seen it from the corporate side as a Director Of Strategy & Growth at Salesforce then as the first business hire at Digits, a Series-C FinTech company. This year he’s been focused on teaching thousands of developers and founders how to get started building with AI. He runs Data Independent, a YouTube channel with tutorials and interviews on the AI space. I actually found Greg through his amazing content on langchain. In this video, we talk about the best advicTe Greg ever got, why he things langchain is so special, and how he sees an explosion of AI products changing the world.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Greg's Links:
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DataIndependent
- Greg's Langchain Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v_fgW2SkkQ&list=PLqZXAkvF1bPNQER9mLmDbntNfSpzdDIU5&ab_channel=GregKamradt%28DataIndy%29
- Personal Website: https://www.gregkamradt.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkamradt
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/GregKamradt

What Separates High Output Data Scientists from the Rest? (Jeff Li) - KNN Ep. 159 Jul 19, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing my good friend and fellow teacher Jeff Li. Jeff is one of the most prolific data scientists I know, he also has diverse interests like myself in sports and self improvement. Today we talk about our frameworks for success in our careers and lives, the story behind our courses, and his experience helping to design YourMove.ai
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Jeff's links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lijeffrey/
GitHub: github.com/jeffmli
365 Data Science Course: https://365datascience.com/courses/the-machine-learning-algorithms-a-z/

Why RStudio is now Posit (J.J. Allaire | Posit CEO) - KNN Ep. 158 Jul 12, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing JJ Allaire. J.J. is the founder of RStudio and the creator of the RStudio IDE. He is an author of several packages in the R Markdown publishing ecosystem including rmarkdown, flexdashboard, learnr, and distill, and also worked extensively on the R interfaces to Python, Spark, and TensorFlow. J.J. is now leading the Quarto project, which is a new Jupyter-based scientific and technical publishing system. In this episode we learn about why RStudio has now repositioned itself as posit, how it maximizes its open source nature as a B corp, and how JJ as a open source advocate views the private nature of many LLMs. I really enjoyed this conversation, and I hope you will as well!
Posit - https://posit.co/
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions

How He Became a Data Strangler (Abe Diaz) - KNN Ep. 157 Jul 05, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Abe Diaz. Abe is a Marine Corps veteran with a diverse background in data analytics consulting, financial analysis, recruiting, and supply chain management. Abe is also passionate about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and embodies values of discipline, perseverance, and teamwork. He is so passionate about it that he has started his forever project substats all about Jiu Jitsu analysis. In this episode Abe and I talk about the lessons learned from parting ways with a company, what it means to create a forever project, and of course all about Jiu Jitsu.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Abe's Links:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/abe-diaz/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/__abruhham__/
Sub Stats - https://www.substats.app/

Why He Left Google DeepMind at the Peak of AI Hype (Aleksa Gordić) - KNN Ep. 156 Jun 28, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Aleksa Goridc ( @TheAIEpiphany ) Aleksa is a ex-Google deepmind and Microsoft ML engineer who recently launched Ortus. A startup aimed at helping users make YouTube videos more accessible and interactive. I’m excited to announce that we have Ortus working on my Youtube channel, and you can try it out for free by quickly installing the chrome plugin (https://www.ortusbuddy.ai/). Aleksa also runs the AI Epiphany YouTube channel, where he shares his learnings from reading papers on the latest generative AI research. In this episode, we learn about his awesome learning framework that he stole from weightlifters, how he landed his job ad deepmind, and why he left that job at the peak of the AI hype to start his own company. I hope you enjoy this conversation, I know I did!
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Aleksa's Links:
LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/aleksagordic
Twitter - twitter.com/gordic_aleksa
YouTube - youtube.com/@UCj8shE7aIn4Yawwbo2FceCQ
Personal Website - gordicaleksa.com

Q&A: Job Market, LLMs, Future of Data Science - KNN Ep. 155 Jun 21, 2023

It has been some time since I did a Q&A on the channel! These are my responses to some user submitted questions on Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram!
Topics:
- Lot of LLM questions. How will these impact coding ability, future work, and data
- Job questions. How to land a job, and what the future of the data science job market looks like
- Personal questions. What would I do if I wasn't in data, how do I stay motivated, how do I approach burnout
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions

What You Can Learn from a "Normal Guy" Pursuing Data Science (Nash Mundondo) - KNN Ep. 154 Jun 14, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Nash Mundondo. @datanash8200 thought he could never learn to code. At 16 he dropped out of his high-school computer science class, and at 23 he dropped out of his Sports Science masters because it had 1 coding module and he thought he couldn't handle it. Now there's nothing he loves more than coding and data science. He is currently documenting his journey on YouTube to show others who think they can't learn code or data science, that if he can do it, they can too. Today we talk about how Nash struggled with self learning, how he landed his internship, and how ChatGPT played into his school life.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Nash's Links:
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@datanash8200

Understanding Data Privacy in the Age of AI (Katharine Jarmul) - KNN Ep. 153 Jun 07, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Katharine Jarmul. Kathrine recently published Practical Data Privacy a book that is extremely relevant with the fast expansion of LLMs and AI Products. In this episode we touch on her experience as a data journalist, how she thinks companies are handling data privacy with the expansion of new AI tools, and how someone can prepare themselves for a career in the data privacy space.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Katherine's Links:
LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/katharinejarmul
Company - kjamistan.com
Blog - blog.kjamistan.com
Twitter - https://twitter.com/kjam
Book - https://amzn.to/3NhmBHl

Finding Your Tribe in the Tech World (Rabie Zahri and Zaheer Ali) - KNN Ep. 152 May 31, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Z and Rabie who are the co founders of Positon. Their company provides programmatic M&A capability as a service leveraging data analytics and machine learning algorithms to identify and evaluate potential acquisition targets, negotiate deals, and manage post-acquisition integration. In this episode we dive deep into what it means to find your tribe and your business partners, the value of a global perspective, and their thoughts on the pace technology is moving as startup founders.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Links:
Linkedin
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/zaali/
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/rabiezahri/
Twitter
- https://twitter.com/Twaregg
- https://twitter.com/ZaheerAbbasAli
Positon
- https://www.positon.ai/

Finding Your Perfect Career in the Age of AI (Tina Huang) - KNN Ep. 151 May 24, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing @TinaHuang1 one of my closest friends. She is also an incredible content creator and an excellent business partner. Today she discusses how she designed her own career and how she views a future integrated with AI. We also touch on her new venture Lonely Octopus and how she is trying to help people upskill for a changing world.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Tina's Links:
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@TinaHuang1
Lonely Octopus - https://www.lonelyoctopus.com/
Newsletter - https://tinahuang.substack.com/
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tinaw-h/

Risking it all to Join a Stealth Startup (Mark Freeman) - KNN Ep. 150 May 17, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of having Mark Freeman back on the show! He has some exciting news. He left his data science job to be employee #1 at a stealth startup in the data engineering space. In this episode we learn how Mark landed his new role through his network, the challenges and excitement of being in an early stage company, and the perspective change he's had over the last year. I hope you enjoy!
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
Mark's Links:
LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/mafreeman2
GitHub - github.com/mellamomark
Company - onthemarkdata.com

What Makes Someone Stay in Data Science (Richad Nieves-Becker) - KNN Ep. 149 May 10, 2023

Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
This week we welcome Richad back to the show. In the last episode I did with him, he talked about his meteoric career growth going from analyst to director in 4 years. This time we touch on why he quit his job, what he is working on now, and what keeps data scientists happy at work. We also touch on ChatGPT (Because I Couldn't help it).
Richad's Links:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/richadbecker

Why the Best Teachers Learn Alongside You (Kevin Markham) - KNN Ep. 148 May 03, 2023

Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions
This episode of Ken's Nearest Neighbors is powered by Z by HP. HP's high compute, workstation-grade line of products and solutions. Today, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kevin Markham. Kevin is the founder of Data School, an online school that helps you to learn data science. In the past 8 years, he has taught more than a million students in the classroom and online. He's passionate about teaching people who are new to data science, and he's known for taking complex topics and breaking them down into easy-to-understand lessons. He has a degree in Computer Engineering from Vanderbilt University, and he lives in Asheville, North Carolina with his wife and son. In today’s episode, we learn how Kevin found his superpower in teaching, how he embodies the saying “not all who wander are lost”, and how he found motivation and creative energy through self-work and introspection.
Kevin's Links:
Blog - https://www.dataschool.io/
Courses - https://courses.dataschool.io/
Tuesday Tips - https://tuesday.tips/
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@dataschool
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/justmarkham/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/justmarkham
GitHub - https://github.com/justmarkham

I Interview ChatGPT (GPT-4) - KNN Ep. 147 Apr 26, 2023

This episode of Ken’s Nearest Neighbors is powered by z by hp, hp’s high compute, workstation grade line of products and solutions. Please check out our other sponsors and partners in the description or show notes to help support the podcast. Today I wanted to try something different with the podcast. Chat GPT and GPT 4 present scary and interesting questions for the future of the data domain and for the way our world works at large. I sat down and asked Chat GPT questions about its GPT-4 trained version of itself, the data domain, autogpt,issues with its use, and even the 6 month proposed pause on the training of GPT 5. This was a fascinating experience for me to learn more about this technology and hopefully help educate others about major issues revolving around its future. I should also note that I also used another AI tool, elevenlabs, to give Chat GPT a voice. I randomly selected the voice from a group of around 30, it is not my personification or interpretation of what I think the model would sound like.
Podcast Sponsors, Affiliates, and Partners:
- Pathrise - http://pathrise.com/KenJee | Career mentorship for job applicants (Free till you land a job)
- Taro - http://jointaro.com/r/kenj308 (20% discount) | Career mentorship if you already have a job
- 365 Data Science (57% discount) - https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY | Learn data science today
- Interview Query (10% discount) - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee | Interview prep questions

How to Craft a Fulfilling Career by Embracing Your Authentic Self (Jess Ramos) - KNN Ep. 146 Apr 19, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Jess Ramos. Jess is a Senior Data Analyst at Crunchbase, a LinkedIn Learning Instructor, and a content creator in the data space. She has a bachelor's degree in Math, Spanish, and Business and a master's in Business Analytics. She has focused most of her career in the FinTech data industry, and she's super passionate about impacting the world through data and technology. Jess is a huge advocate for women in STEM and loves to combat stereotypes and support others. She lives and works remotely in GA with her husband and 4 pets, and she loves to volunteer within the community as an ESL teacher and middle school lacrosse coach. In this episode we discuss the benefits and drawbacks of putting yourself out there, how to weigh the decision of leaving a job very early, and how she is trying to help break the mold for women in stem.
Jess's Links:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessramosmsba
LinkedIn Course - https://www.linkedin.com/learning/preparing-for-your-analytics-job-interview
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jessramosdata

What Does ChatGPT Mean for Students, Teachers, and Kagglers? (Ruchi Bhatia) - KNN Ep. 145 Apr 12, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Ruchi Bhatia. She is a 3x kaggle grandmaster and grad student at Carnegie Mellon studying Information Systems Management. Ruchi is also a fellow Z by HP global data science ambassador. In this episode we talk about her experience becoming a kaggle grandmaster, how she was able to kickstart her career through sharing her work, and the implication of ChatGPT on students, teachers, and kagglers.
Ruchi's Links:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruchi798/
Kaggle - https://www.kaggle.com/ruchi798
Twitter - https://twitter.com/ruchi798?lang=en

Seeds of Innovation: Data Science's Role in Agribusiness (Serg Masís) - KNN Ep. 144 Apr 05, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Serg Masis. Serg is a Data Scientist at Syngenta, a leading agribusiness company with a mission to improve global food security, and a bestselling author of "Interpretable Machine Learning with Python", and upcoming "DIY AI". Before that, he had a prior career in entrepreneurship, web and app development, and analytics for over fifteen years. He's passionate about improving decision-making with data, learning by building AI systems from scratch, and empowering others that wish to do the same. In this episode Serg teaches me all about how data science has changed how food is grown, we also touch on the recent advancements in AI and their implications on DIY AI.
Serg's Links:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/smasis
Twitter: https://twitter.com/smasis
Website: https://www.serg.ai/
GitHub: https://github.com/smasis001
Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@smasis@masto.ai
Serg's Book: https://amzn.to/3GgpHHA

The Myth of Job Security in Big Tech (Michael Galarnyk) - KNN Ep. 143 Mar 29, 2023

This is Michael's second appearance on the podcast! Today we talked about why he left his most recent job in big tech, diversifying income and skills, and his crazy nomadic travel lifestyle.
Michael's Links:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgalarnyk/
Medium - https://medium.com/@GalarnykMichael
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@UC2QvKS5O6QhqaZi4LyAEUnA
Parallel Domain (Blog) - https://paralleldomain.com/synthetic-data-best-practices-for-perception-applications

The Best Way for Universities to Prepare Data Science Students? (Greg Hogg) - KNN Ep. 142 Mar 22, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Greg Hogg. Greg was a statistics major from the university of waterloo turned YouTuber with a love for teaching and machine learning and deep learning models. In this episode we learn about Greg's experience with Waterloo's unique co-op structure and how he found himself at the intersection of education, content, and data science.
Greg's Links:
LinkedIn - https://ca.linkedin.com/in/greghogg
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJublDh2UsiIKsAE1553miw
Website - https://www.greghogg.com/

Inside the Kaggle Grandmaster Team at NVIDIA (Theo Viel) - KNN Ep. 141 Mar 15, 2023

Be sure to check out Theo's Session at GTC! You can register here: https://nvda.ws/3XQRqoF
Win a RTX 4080 or DLI credits here: https://forms.gle/htEV2dDgk11t1btr9
Today I had the pleasure of Interviewing Theo Viel. Theo is a French 3x Kaggle Grandmaster (Competitions, Notebooks, Discussions) and part of the Kaggle Grandmaster of NVIDIA (KGMON) team. He’s mostly interested in Deep Learning - but is keen to tackle any problem as long as it's challenging and he’s learning new things. In this episode, we learn about Theo’s origins in Kaggle, how he keeps a regular competition schedule, what it is like to be on the Kaggle grandmaster team and much more! Theo and the rest of the KGMON team will be speaking at GTC Match 20-23, so be sure to check that out as well.
Theo's Links:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/theoviel/?locale=en_US
Twitter - https://twitter.com/The0Viel
Kaggle - https://www.kaggle.com/theoviel
GitHub - https://github.com/TheoViel

Rage Quitting SF (Tina Huang and Zach Wilson) - KNN Ep. 140 Mar 08, 2023

This Week I had the privilege of interviewing Tina Huang and Zach Wilson. We were roommates for the month in Salt Lake City. Both have been previous guests on the show. In this episode we talk about the future of tech jobs, solopreneurship, and their reasons for leaving San Francisco (and now going back)
Tina's Links:
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@TinaHuang1
Newsletter - https://tinahuang.substack.com/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tinaw-h/
Zach's Links:
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/DatawithZach
Medium - medium.com/@eczachly
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/eczachly/

The Modern Data Stack: Everything You Need to Know (Chris Tabb) - KNN Ep. 139 Mar 01, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Chris Tabb. Chris is the Co-Founder & CCO at LEIT DATA. In this episode he schools me on the modern data stack and gives me a great look into the history of data and data management.
He started his career in the Business Intelligence/Analytics domain 30 years ago. Beginning at Cognos in the 90’s working in the back office before becoming an expert in all their products, and leaving to become an independent BI consultant in 1998. It is safe to say he loves Data and always has
He followed the evolution of the analytics industry, working hands-on with all the technologies in the ecosystems: - Databases, ETL/ELT, BI/OLAP /Visualisation Tools, Big Data Technologies, Infrastructure On-premises / Cloud across many vendors, some old some new.
Nowadays he works at a more strategic level providing Technical Roadmap, Vendor Selection, Migration Strategies, Data Management, Data & Application Architecture, but still likes to keep hands-on with products in the Data Eco System.
Chris's Links:
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-tabb-datatips/?originalSubdomain=uk
Ski Event - https://skiersindata.com/
Leit Data - https://www.leit-data.com/

Where AI Meets Religion and Psychedelics (David Gonzalez) - KNN Ep. 138 Feb 22, 2023

David “Gonzo” González is an Executive and Data Science professional with well over a decade of experience putting AI and ML into production in mission-critical systems. He co-founded Zeff.ai, acquired in 2020 by DataRobot where he succeeded in bringing a jobs-to-be-done perspective to focus product strategy. He led Zeff.ai as CEO and pioneered transactionally authored training and inference on multi-modal datasets. Gonzo is the primary author of The AI Manifesto for Applied Artificial Intelligence Development and has multiple ML patents. In his free time, he enjoys playing outdoors in the wilds of his adoptive home of Utah with his wife and five children. Gonzo has recently taken a break to pursue a startup combining health and wellness and AI. As a warning, in this episode we touch on sensitive topics like a data centric view of religion and also on plant based medicine. This was an enlightening conversation and I’m grateful for Gonzos candidness and openness. Now on to the interview.

The Data Project too Risky to Share in an Interview (Zach Quinn) - KNN Ep. 137 Feb 15, 2023

Zach Quinn is a data engineer and writer with a master's degree in Data Science and an undergraduate degree in journalism. During his, admittedly, short broadcast media career, Zach worked in radio, television and digital media. At age 20, he worked as a producer for his favorite morning radio show in Baltimore, which he left abruptly after getting an opportunity to intern at the Tonight Show. Following the Tonight Show, Zach went to Orlando, FL where he worked at Disney World while the company paid for his data science master's. Shortly after graduation, Forbes hired Zach as a data engineer; he works remotely full-time. In his spare time, Zach writes about data, tech and remote work on his Medium blog, Pipeline. He's also contributed to Towards Data Science and is a co-editor of Learning SQL where he and his co-editors helped it rank as a top 5 publication for the SQL tag. He lives in Orlando with his wife and the pets that interrupt all of his meetings. Zach and I had an amazing conversation about the importance of writing in data science, how he leverages the skills learned from journalism in his current work, and his highly unorthodox projects.
Zach's Links:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/zach-l-quinn
Medium - https://zachl-quinn.medium.com/

Creating Career Insurance in the Age of Tech Layoffs (Matt Harrison) - KNN Ep. 136 Feb 08, 2023

Matt Harrison is a renowned author, python / pandas enthusiast, corporate trainer, and meetup organizer. I had the pleasure of speaking with him this week about how he hosting meetups is his biggest hack as an introvert, how he hedges his career with network insurance, why skin in the game is important for learning, and about the future skills we will need as new tools like Chat GPT enter the playing field.
Matt's Links:
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/panela/
Website + Books - https://hairysun.com/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/__mharrison__
Matt's Company - https://store.metasnake.com/

Why are Data Science Jobs Disappearing? (Jay Feng) - KNN Ep. 135 Feb 01, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Jay Feng. Jay is the founder of interview query, a platform that helps you prepare for data science interviews. Jay lives a nomad lifestyle allowing him to work from the beaches of Hawaii to the mountains of Utah. In this episode we dive into the story behind the mass layoffs in tech, why data science job postings are disappearing, and what you should do if you got laid off.
Jay's Links:
🌟 Interview Query - https://www.interviewquery.com/?ref=kenjee
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jay-feng-ab66b049/
YouTube - @InterviewQuery
Substack - https://datastream.substack.com/

From Highschool Teacher to Data Science Leader (Ben Doremus) - KNN Ep. 134 Jan 25, 2023

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Ben Doremus. Ben is a leader in Healthcare Analytics with a broad background in data, engineering, and management. His communication skills were refined during a decade as a 3rd-12th grade STEM teacher and teacher-of-teachers. After the stint in public schools, he found a new niche by blending his leadership experience with expertise in Data Science and Engineering for healthcare analytics startups. In this episode we learn how ben transitioned from teaching to data, what he learned from transitioning to a CTO role, and a bit about his strong feelings towards data contracts.

The Future of Data Engineering (Joe Reis and Matt Housley) - KNN Ep. 133 Jan 18, 2023

Joe and Matt are two pioneers in the data engineering space. They recently published the book: The Fundamentals of Data Engineering which is now a best seller, and have worked together at Ternary data consulting in the space for the past 5 years. In this episode we learn about the future of data engineering, the scope of new AI models, and about how they make career transitions at this stage in their careers.
Their Book: https://amzn.to/3IW9XeZ
Joe's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephreis/
Matt's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/housleymatthew/

The TRUTH About Landing Your First Data Job (Avery Smith) - KNN Ep. 132 Jan 11, 2023

Today I had @averysmith back for his second appearance on the KNN podcast! We talked about fatherhood, growing your own business, and landing your first data job. Enjoy!

How To Prioritize Work and School For a Data Career - KNN Ep. 131 (Devansh) Jan 04, 2023

Devansh is Nomad working in AI Research and Machine Learning. While he is still a college student, Devansh has been able to start a compay, land research opportunties with elite isntitutions and create one of the top newsletters in the tech space. In this episode we talk about how he is able to manage his time across all these opportunities as a student, how he was able to land such great opportunities, and what he plans to do after he graduates.
Devansh on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devansh-devansh-516004168/
On Medium: https://machine-learning-made-simple.medium.com/
YouTube: @devanshmachinelearningmade7705
His Newsletter: https://codinginterviewsmadesimple.substack.com/

When Comedy Collides with the Tech Scene (Socially Inept) - KNN Ep. 130 Dec 28, 2022

interview Austin, Jesse, Nikita, and Lee about unique tech roast style of comedy, their origins, and about what makes the technology scene inherently funny. We also have some good laughs along the way. I hope you enjoy!
Links: https://sociallyinept.io/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techroastshow/?hl=en
ML Process Course: https://365datascience.com/learn-machine-learning-process-a-z/
Free ML Process Course GitHub: https://github.com/PlayingNumbers/ML_Process_Course
🌟 365 Data Science (57% Annual Discount): https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY

The TRUTH About Working in Gaming as a Data Scientist (Carly Taylor) - KNN Ep. 129 Dec 28, 2022

Today, I had the pleasure of interviewing Carly Taylor. Carly is a technology strategist, video game enthusiast, and founder of Rebel Data Science. She obtained her M.S. in chemistry from the University of Colorado focusing on computational quantum dynamics. She has authored multiple peer-reviewed publications and holds two non-provisional machine learning patents. In today's episode, Carly explores the experience of working as a data scientist in the game industry, we also touch on what it means to be a good manager and the dark side of LinkedIn. I had a blast speaking with Carly, I hope you enjoy our conversation as well.
Carly's Website: https://www.rebeldatascience.com/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carly-taylor0017/
ML Process Course: https://365datascience.com/learn-machine-learning-process-a-z/
Free ML Process Course GitHub: https://github.com/PlayingNumbers/ML_Process_Course
🌟 365 Data Science (57% Annual Discount): https://365datascience.pxf.io/P0jbBY

How She Built Her Own Role at Google (Stephanie Wong) - KNN Ep. 128 Dec 07, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Stephanie Wong. Stephanie is a 3x Webby award-winning Head of Developer Engagement. She is a global keynote speaker, engineer, and content creator with a mission to blend storytelling and technology to inspire developers. She has created hundreds of pieces of content, including the Google Cloud Youtube series Networking End-to-End, Season of Scale, and Discovering Data Centers, and is host of the weekly Google Cloud Podcast. Before Google she helped businesses implement cloud technologies at Oracle. Born and raised in San Francisco, Stephanie's active in her community, supporting women in tech and mentoring students. She's a former pageant queen, hip hop dancer, and has an unhealthy obsession with dogs. You can find her online at @stephr_wong. In this episode we learn about how Stephaine was able to create her own unique role at the intersection of her interests, how she manages imposter syndrome with the pancake principle, and seemingly unrelated experiences like pageants can improve the value you create at work.
Stephanie's links:
stephrwong.com
http://www.twitter.com/stephr_wong
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stephrwong
https://www.youtube.com/@stephr_wong

Leaving His Data Analyst Job for Good (Stefan Masnikovic) - KNN Ep. 127 Nov 30, 2022

@Stefanovic92 held a stable job as a data analyst for 7 years. Right at his "career peak" when he was working as a freelancer earning a 6 figure income, he decided to 180 his life completely, leave everything behind and start focusing on building a personal brand while traveling the world. In this episode we talk about why the traditional job path may not be for everyone, what Stefan learned from his travels, and how everyone can benefit from a little career risk in the right places.
Stefan's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Stefanovic92

Podcast Update, Feedback, and Future Plans - KNN Ep. 126 Nov 23, 2022

In this episode I give a short update on the podcast, ask for feedback on ways to improve, and talk about the future of KNN and my YouTube channel.

The Secret Analytics War Behind International Team Golf (Dylan Beirne) - KNN Ep. 125 Nov 16, 2022

Dylan Beirne is a quant trader and data scientist, most focused on golf. Currently he works with Nellie Analytics, part of SIG, modelling and trading golf. He’s worked on analysis and strategy with the last 2 Ryder Cup European Teams and 2 International Presidents Cup teams, as well as a variety of golfers, from major winners and world #1s to challenge tour players. As it so happens, As it so happens, I was running analytics for the US team in many of those team events, which makes Dylan and I rivals in a way. In this episode, we learn how Dylan transitioned from construction into working in sports analytics, we dive deep into the business of sports gambling and trading, and we share our thoughts on the analytics battle that goes on behind the scenes of the biggest golf events.
Follow Dylan Beirne on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dylan__beirne

The Woman Behind the Kaggle Days World Championship (Maria Parysz) - KNN Ep. 124 Nov 09, 2022

This week I had the pleasure of interviewing Maria Parysz. Maria is the CEO of LogicAI, founder of ElephantAI and the mastermind behind kaggle days. Kaggle days is a series of in person kaggle events that has it's own beautiful community. In this episode we learn the origin story behind kaggle days, about the current world championships, and about how Maria AI managers as an underserved community.

Working at Kaggle as a Kaggle Grandmaster (Walter Reade) - KNN Ep.123 Nov 02, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Walter Reade. Walter is a data scientist at kaggle where he helps to prepare competitions. He is also a kaggle grandmaster with an incredible story. In this episode we learn about how Walter landed his role at kaggle, how he became a kaggle grandmaster, and some of the unique projects that he worked on along the way.
Walter's Links:
Kaggle: https://www.kaggle.com/inversion
Twitter: https://twitter.com/walterreade
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reade/

Why She Left a Big Tech City to Advance Her Career (Christina Stathopoulos) - KNN Ep. 122 Oct 26, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Christina Sathopolous. Christina is an Analytical Lead at Google where she works with the Waze. She also teaches at two international business schools and has built a impressive brand as a linkedin creator and public speaker. She is also well known for the #bookaweek challenge on linkedin. In this episode we dive deep into her decision to relocate back to Spain from New York, her work as an analytical lead, and the books that changed her life.
Books mentioned:
The One Thing: https://amzn.to/3FhZgBO
Captivate: https://amzn.to/3SwGXvr
Children of Time: https://amzn.to/3FfzsGc
Aurora: https://amzn.to/3W1J8Kl

Multiplying His Income 6X in 4 Years With Data Jobs (Shashank Kalanithi) - KNN Ep. 121 Oct 19, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of welcoming back @Shashank Kalanithi . Shashank is the reigning iron analyst, a data analyst turned senior data engineer, a youtuber that now has over 100,000 subscribers and a good friend. In this episode we talk about how technology can be one of the great equalizers for inequality, how he was able to 6x his income through this field over the last 4 years, and about his experience in the iron analyst competition. I have linked the full competition in the description below if you’re curious about that as well. This was a great chat with Shashank, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
Iron Analyst: https://brightdata.com/iron-analyst

Cowboys vs. Scientists (DJ Rich) - KNN Ep. 120 Oct 12, 2022

DJ is an educational content creator on YouTube who covers Machine Learning relating topics, from Reinforcement Learning to Information Theory. As a Data Scientist at Lyft, he's successfully pushed for Causal Forecasting as the best mechanism for company-wide planning. He would argue it's the only valid data-driven approach to planning. His graduate education is formally in financial engineering, which he's used as a quant within the hedge fund industry. In this episode we dive into his experience with financial engineering, how he transitioned to his work at Lyft, and how he believes reinforcement learning will be the future of the field.

An Inside Perspective on Baseball Analytics (Jeremy Frank) - KNN Ep. 119 Oct 06, 2022

Jeremy Frank is the creator of the Twitter account @MLBRandomStats which has amassed nearly 100,000 followers. He's currently studying data science at Purdue University, and has previously interned at Sports Reference (creators of Baseball Reference, Basketball Reference, etc.) and for the Houston Astros working in their research and development team. In addition, he is known for co-creating the popular Wordle spinoff MLB Pickle (mlbpickle.com) and co-authoring two books about baseball stats across the history of sports. In this episode we learn how Jeremy got into sports, how teams use baseball data, and what he thinks of the new MLB rule set.
Jeremy's Twitter: https://twitter.com/MLBRandomStats

Why You SHOULD Take Risks Early in Your Career (Patrick Akil) - KNN Ep. 118 Sep 29, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Patrick Akil. Patrick is a software engineer, consultant, and host of the @Beyond Coding Podacst. In this episode we learn about Patrick’s unique view on taking risks early in your career, we also learn some best practices for having difficult communication with your bosses and peers, and finally we learn about the very opportunistic way he was able to become the host of the beyond coding podcast. I loved this conversation and if you want to hear more of us talk, I was on his show a few weeks ago and that episode is linked in the description. Now on to our talk.
Connect with Patrick here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-akil/

Quantifying "Soft Skills" to Get the Most Out of Your Career (Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic) - KNN Ep. 117 Sep 22, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of iterviewing Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic who was introduced to me via my good friend and podcast guest @Luke Barousse . Cole tells stories with data. She is Storytelling With Data CEO and author of the forthcoming book "storytelling with you: plan, create, and deliver a stellar presentation" and best-selling books "storytelling with data: let’s practice!" and "storytelling with data: a data visualization guide for business professionals," which has been translated into a dozen languages, used as a textbook by more than 100 universities and serves as the course book for tens of thousands of SWD workshop participants. For more than a decade, Cole and her team have delivered interactive learning sessions sought after by data-minded individuals, companies, and philanthropic organizations all over the world. They also help people create graphs that make sense and weave them into compelling stories through the popular SWD community, blog, podcast and videos. In this episode Cole tells us how data people can quantify what are traditionally considered "soft skills", where professional development intersects with career development, and how you as a data practitioner can maximize your career through communication.
Links:
YouTube - @storytelling with data
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/colenussbaumer/
Website - https://www.storytellingwithdata.com/
Storytelling with You - https://amzn.to/3xHAer1
Storytelling with Data - https://amzn.to/3S5OG4b

Using GPT-3 To Automate Dating and Work (Dmitri Mirakyan) - KNN Ep.116 Sep 14, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Dmitri Mirakyan. Dmitri Dmitri runs the consumer product analytics team at Opendoor. Prior to that, he was a data scientist, analyst, and a consultant at Deloitte. He is passionate about data viz and finding 80/20 solutions to open-ended problems. Outside of work, he enjoys building questionably useful side projects and going fast on motorcycles or skis. In this episode we discuss how he cold emailed his way into a data role, how he is working to automate his dating and professional life with GPT3, and the trade off between fulfillment and achievement. I learned a lot from this chat with Dimitri and I think you will to!
Dmitri on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmirakyan/
https://www.yourmove.ai/
Episode with Jeff Li: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGq8xIlARoo&ab_channel=Ken%27sNearestNeighborsPodcast

Why He Left His Startup To Pursue Data Science Tutorials on YouTube (Keith Galli) - KNN Ep 115 Sep 07, 2022

Today I had @Keith Galli back on the KNN podcast for round 2! Since our last talk, he left his startup to pursue YouTube and data science contracting full time. We talk about balancing our work, finding motivation, and maximizing our habits in this exciting episode!
Keith's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/keithgalli/?hl=en

What You're Getting Wrong about Data Vis - According to a UX Designer (Thomas Watkins) - KNN Ep 114 Aug 31, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Thomas Watkins. Thomas is a thought leader in the User Experience space, a speaker and industry practitioner located in Houston TX. He is a life-long learner who has a passion for bringing greater clarity to the world. Thomas has made it his career’s focus to combine technology with design psychology in order to drive business success. He specializes in helping his business partners bring their own brilliant ideas to life, by translating complexity into simplicity. The scope of his work has included interface design for mobile, SaaS system architecture, usability research, and data visualization. In this episode we take a dive into the user experience field, we learn about human factors research, and we explore how data analystis and data scientists can improve their data visualization by applying some psychology principles. I hope you enjoy this episode, I know I had a great time speaking with Thomas.

Why He Shared His Tech Salary on LinkedIn (Zach Wilson R2) - KNN Ep. 113 Aug 24, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of speaking with @Data with Zach , a Staff Data Engineer at Air BNB. Zach is best known for his radical transparency about his salary over his career and the other amazing content that he shares on LinkedIn. Today we discuss his controversial posts, what money means to him in the scope of his career, and what he has learned from an incredibly fast career progression. We also get to meet his awesome dog!

The Man Behind the Bam! (Josh Starmer Round 2) - KNN Ep. 112 Aug 17, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing @StatQuest with Josh Starmer for a second time! We talked about his new book: "The statquest illustrated guide to machine learning", his love for cooking, and what he learned about collaboration through the trip at the #brightdatahouse!
Josh's first time on the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDrPSKbsWWo&ab_channel=Ken%27sNearestNeighborsPodcast
Josh's new book: https://amzn.to/3dtaffz

Data Analytics YouTuber Faceoff! (Luke Barousse & Alex Freberg) - KNN Ep. 111 Aug 10, 2022

Had the honor of chatting with @Luke Barousse and @Alex The Analyst at the same time this week at the #brightdatahouse! It was fascinating to hear about how they create content differently with different constraints on their time. It was also great to hear about the specific things they learned from being around so many other creators!

Everything You Need to Know About ML Ops (Miki Bazeley) - KNN Ep. 110 Aug 02, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing the incredible @Miki Bazeley - The MLOps Engineer for the second time! Watch the first interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii2Qo5pwWho&ab_channel=Ken%27sNearestNeighborsPodcast . We dive into everything ML ops in this episode. What is it, what is the future of it, and how can you break into it. We also touch on cultural differences and their impacts on the workplace.

Recession Planning for Data Scientists(Shailvi Wakhlu) - KNN Ep. 109 Jul 27, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Shailvi Wakhlu. Shailvi is the Sr. Director of Data at Strava, where she leads a large team of product analysts and machine learning engineers to enable data-informed product improvements in support of Strava Athletes. In the past, she worked at Salesforce, Fitbit, and multiple other data-rich companies, in addition to previously running her own company. As a data leader, she focuses on harnessing the power of data to build great products, clarify strategic direction, and improve business processes. She is also a passionate mentor in the community and spends her spare time volunteering for programs that further STEM education for minorities. In this episode we learn how self advocacy has changed her career, if jumping companies is a good or bad thing, and some great insights into how data scientsits can hedge their work opportunities during the impending recession. I had a great time speaking with Shailvi, I'm sure you will enjoy this episode.

Answering Your Anonymous Questions (Data Science Masters, Learning, Salary) KNN Ep. 108 Jul 20, 2022

Today I switched it up a bit and took some anonymous questions from you all! If you want to ask more, use this link: https://ngl.link/kenjee_ds ! I cover topics around data science, my lifestyle, and content. If you like this one, I will do another next week, then back to regular content!

Navigating The Maker vs Manager Tradeoff (Jared Dean) - KNN Ep. 107 Jul 13, 2022

Jared Dean is a data scientist SAS and an adjunct professor at Duke University. Jared is the mastermind behind the batting lab at SAS that was the topic of one of my most recent videos. In this conversation, we learn about common misconceptions about statistics, why he left a management role to go back to an individual contributor position, and of course the whole story behind the SAS batting lab. I loved this conversation with Jared and I hope you enjoy it as well.

How Analytics Fits into a Competitive Jiu Jitsu Career (Breylor Grout) - KNN Ep. 106 Jul 06, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Breylor Grout. Breylor is a data analyst who has built his work lifestyle around his full time competitive Jiu Jitsu career. He was born and raised in San Diego, and graduated from Cal Poly Saint louis obispo in 2017 with a major in math with minor in statistics. Since graduating he’s been putting more and more time into Brazilian jiu jitsu, which he has been training since 2010 but did not compete consistently until a after graduating from college. More recently, Breylor won the IBJJF No-Gi brown belt pans and was featured on “Who Next” the jiu-jitsu equivalent of the ultimate fighter. In this episode we talk about how Breylor was able to find a role in analytics that matched his training schedule, the surprising similarities between Jiu Jitsu and data analytics, and why maybe you should explore the sport in your free time. This was a special episode for me because we were able to combine two of my passions. I loved talking with Breylor, and I hope you enjoy it!
Breylor's Links:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/breylor/?hl=en
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/breylor-grout-77a32a8b
Watch Breylor Compete Here: https://www.flograppling.com/events/7785463-tezos-wno-whos-next-finale
00:00 Introduction
05:16 When did you originally get fascinated by data?
10:50 Internship learning experience
13:29 The importance of failure
22:41 Making the transition to remote work
31:09 Intersection of data and Jiu Jitu
40:49 Lessons that can be obtained from Data and Jiu Jitsu
47:11 The power of unconscious resolution
54:36 The benefits of pursing Jiu Jitsu
01:04:36 How to handle adversity
01:14:30 Jiu Jitsu belt system
01:20:05 Final remarks

Can Data Science Be Beautiful? (Thu Vu) - KNN Ep. 105 Jun 29, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Thu Vu. Thu is a Data Science Consultant with 5+ years of experience in data analytics + data science. She has a background in Economics and Computer Science, focused on building tools to communicate data insights. She also creates videos on her YouTube channel to share advice and help newcomers in Data Science develop their skills. In this episode we learn about introspection and how it can help you find more enjoyment in your career. We also learn about how art and beauty has influenced Thu's career and content.

How a Sports Agent Uses Data Science (Ian Greengross) - KNN Ep. 104 Jun 22, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Ian Greengross. Ian is my friend, a business partner, and a sports agent with over 25 years of experience. He represents: NFL players, football coaches, hockey coaches and now data scientists. In this episode, we learn about how Ian uses data in his work as a sports agent, and how even late in his career he is finding joy in programming. Special thanks to Nick Wan for the introduction.

What Comes After Landing Your Dream Data Science Job? (Jeff Li Round 2) - KNN Ep. 103 Jun 15, 2022

I had the pleasure of interviewing Jeff Li for the second time on the podcast (Episode 24). Jeff is a good friend of mine and we are currently working on two machine learning courses together. He came to visit me in person to do some recording. While he was here, we sat down and talked about life, data science, books, and the future. Jeff has what many consider to be a dream data science job, he is a senior data scientist at Spotify. Many people forget you have to actually work after you land a job, and in this episode we talk about how his priorities changed after landing his new role.
Books Mentioned
- Millionaire Fastlane: https://amzn.to/3HplbG4
- Principles: https://amzn.to/3tBUcBs

Lost After College to Top Data Scientist (Kristen Kehrer) - KNN Ep. 102 Jun 08, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Kristen Kehrer. Kristen is currently a Developer Advocate at Comet sharing about MLOps best practices. Since 2010, Kristen has been delivering innovative and actionable machine learning solutions across multiple industries, including the utilities, healthcare, and eCommerce. Kristen was a LinkedIn Top Voice - Data Science & Analytics in 2018. Previously Kristen was a Data Science instructor at UC Berkeley Ext, Faculty/SME at Emeritus Institute of Management and Founder of Data Moves Me, LLC. Kristen holds an MS in Applied Statistics from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a BS in Mathematics. In this episode we talk about how Kristen was able to transform her life and her career after hitting rock bottom after college and how she has been able to break negative cycles in her life. We also discuss how social media interacts with mental health, and we learn more about her new role as a developer advocate at Comet ML. I really enjoyed this conversation with Kristen and I hope it inspires you to break some negative cycles in your life.
00:00 Introduction
02:20 Becoming a Developer Advocate
06:03 How did your data journey start?
18:05 How did you change your mentality toward a better life?
30:17 How did you pick up the software skills coming from a math background?
34:27 How did you start producing blog content?
38:08 Social Media Presence
47:27 Overcoming mental health struggles during the COVID-19 Pandemic
55:23 Final remarks

How He Made Learning to Code Completely Free (Quincy Larson) - KNN Ep. 101 Jun 01, 2022

Quincy Larson is the founder of freeCodeCamp. A Non-Profit with a mission to make learning to code free to everyone. Currently over 40,000 freeCodeCamp graduates have gotten jobs in tech. Quincy worked as a teacher and a school director for a decade before learning to code at hackathons and makerspaces around California. He enjoys reading history books, taking his kids to the park, and trying to teach anyone who will listen to him. In this episode, we learn how Quincy went from being an English teacher to now running arguably the largest free coding non-profit in the world. We also learn the benefits and drawbacks of running a non-profit vs a private enterprise, and Quincy's secret technique for his incredible output. I loved this conversation with Quincy, he is down to earth and clearly cares about his mission. I'm so happy I could share this one with you.

[Special] A Parent's Perspective on Our Work (Art Jee) - KNN Ep. 100 May 25, 2022

Today is the 100th episode of the KNN podcast! I wanted to do something special for this monumental occasion. Taking a page out of @Lex Fridman's book, I brought my dad Art Jee in for an interview. This may sound like a weird choice since he is an oral surgeon and has very little to do directly with the data domain, but honestly, this conversation is one of the most meaningful ones I’ve had in my entire life. I was able to learn about my family history and take dedicated time to document the experiences that shaped who my dad is and his relationship with me. I don’t think I’ve ever had quite as much of an appreciation for his life, his work and his individual philosophy as I do now. For those tuning in, I hope this is a window into how our parents and loved ones view our work, our happiness, and decisions. I also hope that this inspires you to take the time to truly get to know the people in your life before the opportunity to do that dissipates.

The Power of Bringing People Together (Tina Huang & Luke Barousse ) - KNN Ep. 99 May 18, 2022

In this week's episode I brought back two of my friends and previous guests of the show: Tina Huang & Luke Barousse. I spent the last 2 weeks with them in Arkansas & Texas. In this episode we talk about what we learned from collaborating on content and seeing each others working styles. We also learn about what Tina thinks about the American south and Luke's country accent.

Behind the Scenes of a Data Science Movie (Hunter Kempf) - KNN Ep. 98 May 11, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Hunter Kempf. Hunter is a Data Scientist at Cloudflare, a Z by HP Global Data Science Ambassador and is finishing up his Masters in Cybersecurity from Georgia Tech. He completed his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame and went on to work at AT&T in a variety of data roles over the course of 4 years while earning his Masters in Data Science. In his free time Hunter works on a variety of data science related side projects some of which end up as medium articles and enjoys backpacking and hiking. I had the pleasure of working with Hunter on the Unlocked campaign this year and in this episode we dive into some behind the scenes details. We also learn about some of the incredible personal projects hunter is working on. Hopefully some of his inspire you to look at your own data in a new light.

What Is A Tech Lead REALLY? (Zach Wilson) - KNN Ep. 97 May 04, 2022

Zach Wilson is a tech lead at Airbnb and a content creator on LinkedIn with over 150k followers. He is passionate about data engineering and mental health. He also has an awesome YouTube channel, Data with Zach, where he teaches people about data and data engineering. In this episode, Zach explains what it means to be a tech lead, a position that I was personally confused about, how he was able to reach leadership in such a short period of time, and why he finds jumping between engineering and data roles has led to his own personal growth. Zach brings awesome energy to our conversations, and I’m happy we get to share this talk with you all!

How "Bridges" Bring You Data Science Career Clarity (Sadie St. Lawrence) - KNN Ep. 96 Apr 27, 2022

Sadie St Lawrence is the Founder and CEO of Women in Data, the #1 Community for Women in AI and Tech. She has trained over 350,000 people in data science and has developed multiple programs in machine learning and career development. Sadie was named 10 Most Admired Business Women to Watch in 2021, and has been listed as a Top 21 Influencer in Data. Her work has been featured in USA Today, Dataversity, and she is the recipient of the Outstanding Service Award from UC Davis. In addition, she serves on multiple start-up boards, and is the host of the Data Bytes podcast. In her free time, you will find Sadie painting abstract art or sitting in the sun daydreaming about the future.

How He Breaks Down Complex Machine Learning Research for YouTube (Yannic Kilcher ) - KNN Ep. 95 Apr 20, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Yannic Kilcher. Yannic is a YouTuber covering state of the art Machine Learning research topics. He has a PhD from ETH Zurich and is currently the CTO of DeepJudge, a LegalTech NLP startup. In this episode we learn about how Yannic decided on a PHD in Ai, how he is able to make advanced research so digestable, and the reason why he wears sunglasses on camera. I hope you enjoy the epsisode, I know I enjoyed our conversation.

Are Your Goals Holding You Back in Data Science? (Ben Sullins) - KNN Ep. 94 Apr 13, 2022

Ben has spent his entire adult life trying to understand how the world works by looking at the stories buried in data. Ben's career in data started in 1998 at the telecom industry with the company MCI. Since then Ben has consulted at silicon valley’s biggest companies and led the charge at Pluralsight to become a data-driven organization and help millions elevate their skillsets.
In 2016 Ben shifted gears towards helping fight climate change and leave a better world for future generations. Ben's efforts in that space involve helping people decide to drive electric as well as living more sustainably with renewable energy solutions.
Today Ben continues to help people develop their skillsets at Free the Data Academy and inspire people to live more sustainably on YouTube. In our conversation today, we learn about Ben’s journey into data and why he things goal setting is complete BS. I think you will enjoy our healthy debate on the topic!
00:00 Introduction
02:07 How did you initially become interested in data?
06:50 How did you know what to learn throughout your career?
11:55 How did you progress your data science career?
16:53 Great team workflow tips
39:38 How did you start your online platforms?
53:27 Final remarks
Ben's Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/BenSullinsDataGeekChannel

Is It Worth Getting a Masters Degree in the United States? (Naveed Ahmed Janvekar) - KNN Ep. 93 Apr 06, 2022

Naveed Ahmed Janvekar is a Senior Data Scientist working at Amazon in the United States. He works on solving fraud and abuse problems on the platform that impacts millions of customers of Amazon in the US and other parts of the world using Machine Learning and deep learning. He has 7+ years of expertise in the Machine Learning space which includes classification algorithms, clustering algorithms, graph modeling, BERT to name a few. He is using Machine Learning and Deep Learning to solve multi-faceted problems. He has a Master's degree in Information Science from The University of Texas at Dallas and graduated top of his class and awarded as scholar of high distinction and inducted in the prestigious International Honor Society Beta Gamma Sigma. He has a Bachelor's of Engineering in Electronics and Communications from India. He has worked with other influential firms such as Fidelity Investments and KPMG. In his current role he is researching on identifying novel fraud and abuse vectors on ECommerce platforms and using Active Learning to improve Machine Learning model performance.

Why Attend Data Science Conferences? (Sheamus McGovern) - KNN Ep. 92 Mar 30, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Seamus McGovern. Seamus is the founder of the Open Data Science Conference otherwise known as ODSC. One of the world's leading successful AI conferences. ODSC runs numerous virtual and in person data science conferences around the globe. Seamus also founded ai plus training, which is dedicated to bridging the AI talent gap with on demand live training programs. He's a technologist with over 25 years of experience in software, data engineering and AI. And in our conversation, we dive into how Seamus integrates project management into his life, and how his passion for learning was multiplied when he first found conferences. I happen to be speaking at one of the ODSC events coming up, and I hope you'll join me I'll be there in person. I'd love to meet all of you. I really enjoyed this conversation with Seamus he's fun, he's animated and I think you will too.
Open Data Science website: https://odsc.com/boston/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw3IqSBhCoARIsAMBkTb3sflc3UAtTaUUg2EUlYpnWW2fSmg_HkdacFTFMWU4r6pAnR7-a4RAaAhAVEALw_wcB
Get a free pass to see my Keynote speech sat ODSC East April 21st here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/odsc-east-2022-in-person-and-virtual-talks-and-keynotes-pass-bronze-tickets-301301690467

Transitioning from Data Engineering to Data Science in Big Tech (Sundas Khalid) - KNN Ep. 91 Mar 23, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing @Sundas Khalid . Be sure to check out her YouTube Channel! Sundas is a data science leader and a passionate advocate for diversity in the workplace. Sundas currently works at Google as Sr. Analytical Lead, leading Google Search Engine analytics. Prior to Google, Sundas was at Amazon where she received awards for her work as a data science leader driving large-scale experimentations and data science initiatives. Sundas is the first woman in her family to graduate college, her journey is one of persistence and resilience, and has been featured on Forbes and Google's Data Analytics Professional Certificate on Coursera.
As the first-female in her family to graduate university, she is an advocate of women's education and workforce diversity, and actively participate in diversity, equity & inclusion within and outside of Google. In her free time, she enjoys public speaking and creating educational content on various platforms on data science, career and financial literacy. In 2021, Sundas help women of color negotiate $1.4M in job offers. In this interview we dive into how Sundas made such an incredible career transition from taking some time off through data engineering and eventually into data science.
00:00 Introduction
02:57 How did your data journey begin?
09:22 Navigating in data science with a career gap.
11:22 After internship experience.
15:00 Tips on leveraging internships.
22:04 Transitioning from data engineering to data science.
29:11 Transitioning to a company with a strong culture.
33:00 Benefits of working at a large company.
36:45 Tools that large tech companies use.
40:29 Application process for FAANG companies.
46:33 YouTube journey.
57:56 Final remarks.

From Data Analyst to Director in 3 Years: How He Did It (Richad Nieves-Becker) - KNN Ep. 90 Mar 16, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Richad Nieves Becker. Richad is a self-taught data scientist with an eclectic background. He currently leads the data science function at Revantage, a real estate shared service organization in the Blackstone family, and enjoys regularly sharing his perspective on the field on LinkedIn. Richad got a BA in Neuroscience and Anthropology and was on the PhD path until he realized a life of basic research was not for him. He pivoted and earned a Masters in Commerce (concentration in Marketing and Management) from the University of Virginia where he met me. After a brief stint in inside sales, Richad committed to data science and built his career in the real estate and finance spaces. He started at CoreLogic focusing on text mining, then moved to Greystone leading all things data in an innovation lab, before joining Revantage. Richad credits his career progress to focusing on impact and deeply understanding the business case. In this interview we gain some insight into the specifics of data in the real estate domain and we learn about how Richad was able to go from analyst to director level in less than 4 years.

What You Can Learn From Teaching Data Science (Ajay Halthor) - KNN Ep. 89 Mar 09, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Ajay Halthor ( @CodeEmporium ). Ajay is a Data Scientist with an interesting life story. Born in Los Angeles, he spent half his life in the States and the other half India. He dabbles in all that is data during the weekdays. And on weekends, you'll find him on a mountain. Today we’ll talk about his journey from a Computer Science major in India to Data Scientist and YouTube content creator & educator he is today.
00:00 Introduction
02:36 How did you get interested in data?
09:52 Different experiences between living in India and the United States.
13:26 The importance of getting out of your comfort zone.
19:41 Differences between education in the USA vs India.
24:09 Path to becoming a data science educator.
38:40 How do you make content easy to understand for your audience?
43:51 How do you evaluate your content?
47:02 YouTube Comedy Skits.
50:20 The importance of getting outdoors.
54:49 Final remarks.

Growing the Biggest ML Ops Community From Abroad (Demetrios Brinkmann) - KNN Ep. 88 Mar 02, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Demetrios Brinkmann. Demetrios is one of the main organizers of the MLOps Community and currently resides in a small town outside Frankfurt, Germany. He is an avid traveler who taught English as a second language to see the world and learn about new cultures. Brinkmann fell into the Machine Learning Operations world, and since, has interviewed the leading names around MLOps, Data Science, and Machine Learning. Since diving into the nitty-gritty of ML Operations he felt a strong calling to explore the ethical issues surrounding AI/ML. He loves how communities tick and their inner workings so much so it has become one of his passions. When he is not conducting interviews you can find him making stone sackings with his daughter in the woods or playing the ukulele by the campfire. In this episode we learn about how Demetrios was able to grow an incredible community and some of the growing pains he faced when scaling, we also learn about how he avoids burnout and his love for ice baths.

Using Data to Land on the Front Page of Reddit (Andres Slaughter) - KNN Ep. 87 Feb 23, 2022

Today, I had the pleasure of interviewing Andres Slaughter. Andres is a digital marketing specialist who has worked in various capacities for over 5 years. He’s worked in several sectors including technology, education, and food services with nearly 10 years of experience in marketing. He runs a YouTube channel called Andres Slaughter where he discusses the oddities of life and dives into topics to improve your life. He also is a part-time content creator known as StatsPanda on Instagram where he makes data visualizations about interesting topics. He’s the youngest person to receive a graduate degree in the state of Oklahoma and one of the youngest managers of a global 300 company - Compass Group. In today’s episode, we talk about how Andres was able to grow and manage a community around his data visualizations, we also learn about what makes a compelling visual, and about how he was able to land on the front page of Reddit with his work multiple times.

From Warehouse Worker to Data Analyst (Sergio Ramos) - KNN Ep. 86 Feb 16, 2022

This week I had the pleasure of speaking with Sergio Ramos. Sergio is a self taught data analyst from Fort Worth Texas.

Coming from a background of blue collar construction and warehouse work, Sergio was fired at the beginning of the COVID pandemic and taught himself all of the prerequisite skills to become a data analyst from home with the help of his mentor

In his spare time, Sergio enjoys reading non fiction and listening to podcasts as well as strength training and boxing.

Art and Data Science: Her Kaggle Grandmaster Story (Andrada Olteanu) - KNN Ep. 85 Feb 09, 2022

This week I am speaking with Andrada Olteanu. They are currently a Data Scientist at Endava, Kaggle Notebooks Grandmaster, Dev Expert at Weights&Biases and Data Science Global Ambassador at ZbyHP. They have a bachelors in Statistics and a masters in Data Science and Analytics. They work to combine the artsy side of data with the technical side to create fun, educative and insightful notebooks. This was a great conversation and I hope you all enjoy.

Where Marketing and Data Meet (Christopher Willis) - KNN Ep. 84 Feb 02, 2022

Christopher P Willis is Acrolinx’s Chief Marketing & Pipeline Officer, responsible for all aspects of the company’s Marketing strategy and pipeline health. Christopher has over 20 years of experience growing companies in the technology sector. Before joining Acrolinx, Christopher held leadership roles in marketing, creative, technical, and business development at companies including Perfecto, Pyxis Mobile, KPMG-CT, ModelGolf, and Cambridge Technology Group.

Why He Left His Data Engineering Job at Facebook (Meta) (Benjamin Rogojan) - KNN Ep. 83 Jan 26, 2022

Ben Rogojan is a data engineering solutions architect with expertise in data architecture and statistics. He focuses on developing end-to-end data solutions that help take data from raw format into data products and analytics. He has delivered on projects for clients across healthcare, finance, SaaS, and technology and previously worked as a data engineer at Facebook. He maintains a strong online presence creating content for data engineers and those curious in entering data engineering career paths and is known as the “Seattle Data Guy” online.

How YouTube Literally Helped Save @Codebasics Life (Dhaval Patel) - KNN Ep. 82 Jan 19, 2022

Dhaval Patel is a data engineer at Bloomberg (EX: NVIDIA). He has 17 years of industry experience and has worked in different big tech companies mainly as a software engineer. He runs a youtube channel called codebasics where he teaches data science, machine learning, python, data structures and algorithms, and career guidance.

He Ate Hundreds of Burritos In the Name of (Data) Science (Scott Cole) - KNN Ep. 81 Jan 12, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Scott Cole. Scott is technically a machine learning engineer in the fintech space, but stubbornly prefers a “data scientist” title. He studied bioengineering at Clemson University before moving to UC San Diego for grad school where he developed algorithms and python packages to analyze brain wave data. Scott then went through the Insight Data Science program, and for the last 2 years has been building algorithms for detecting fake accounts on a peer-to-peer payment app. Scott’s most known for eating hundreds of burritos during grad school and curating a small database of their qualities along 10 dimensions. In this epissode we learn the origin of Scott's burrito dataset, how he narrowed his career search based on his interest, and how he is trying to create a data centric board game. I hope you enjoy the episode, I know I had a blast speaking with Scott.

(Almost) Everything You Need to Know About the Data Science Interview (Nick Singh) - KNN Ep. 80 Jan 05, 2022

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Nick Singh. Nick is a career coach, and the best-selling author of "Ace the Data Science Interview". Previously, he held a variety of Software & Data roles at Facebook, Google, and VC-backed startups. He aspires to be the Drake of Data Science....whatever that means!" Today we learn about Nicks fascinating career journey through tech, the keys to landing the data science job, and his unique experience writting his book. I hope you enjoy the episode, I know I enjoyed our chat!

Defining People Skills For Data Scientists (Gilbert Eijkelenboom) - KNN Ep. 79 Dec 22, 2021

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Gilbert Eijkelenboom. As a former professional poker player, you can find Gilbert wherever psychology and data meet. After studying behavioral science, Gilbert has built an amazing consulting career in the data and analytics space. Combining both worlds, Gilbert founded the company MindSpeaking: The human side of data. His training programs help data scientists understand the business, get buy-in from stakeholders, and tell stories with data. Last year gilbert published his best selling book, People skills for analytical thinkers that we will be giving 3 away of today. Just comment below with your favorite part of the episode with a chance to win!
Today we take a deep dive into our minds. We learn about how gilbert found a passion for his work through his career in poker and consulting, how introspection and reading helped him to change how he interacted with the world, and what batman, the joker, and elephants have to do with how we communicate. I had a great time speaking with Gilbert, and I hope you enjoy the interview!

From Living in the Woods to AI Startup Founder (Ben Taylor) - KNN Ep. 78 Dec 15, 2021

This episode of Ken's Nearest Neighbors is powered by z by hp. Hp's high compute workstation grade line of products and solutions. Ben Taylor has over 18 years of machine-learning experience. After studying chemical engineering Taylor worked for Intel/Micron in applied semiconductor building process control and fault models. After that, he worked as a quant at a hedge fund on a 600 GPU cluster. Taylor then joined a young Sequoia-backed HR startup called HireVue to run their data group. In 2017 Taylor co-founded Zeff.ai with David Gonzalez to pursue deep learning for image, audio, video, and text for the enterprise. Zeff was acquired by DataRobot in 2020 where Taylor now works as their Chief AI Evangelist.
In this episode we learn why Ben Lived in a tent in the woods during college, how introspection has changed his career and his relationships with people, and why AI is far more philosophical than you think.

Why He's Completed over 25 Online Certificates (Jack Raifer Baruch) - KNN Ep. 77 Dec 08, 2021

Jack Raifer Baruch is a Behavioral Scientist turned Data Scientist. A believer in lifelong learning, entrepreneur and passionate about using Data Science to improve socio-emotional development for individuals and organizations. Currently he heads the Data team at Ada Intelligence. In this episode we talk about the intersection of human behavior and data, why Jack loves online learning and certificates, and the wild possibilities for data science if we remove profit from the equation.

Why She Switched from Data Scientist to Machine Learning Engineer (Mikiko Bazeley) - KNN Ep. 76 Dec 01, 2021

This episode of Ken's nearest neighbors is powered by z by hp, hp's high compute workstation grade line of products and solutions. Today I had the pleasure of speaking with Mikiko Bazeley. Miki is an informally-taught Machine Learning Engineer, focused on combining 5+ years of experience in data analytics + data science, growth, & engineering to help make machine learning useful by developing tooling, infrastructure, & processes for data scientists at Mailchimp.

Prior to Mailchimp, Miki's worked as a data scientist and analyst in a number of industries like solar, 3d modeling software, anti-piracy tech, health tech and real estate tech for companies like Autodesk, Teladoc, WalkMe, etc.

In her spare time, Miki mentors, speaks, and writes about her experiences bootstrapping her learning and succeeding without a Master's or PhD. Her goal is to help shatter the myths around breaking into data science and machine learning and encourage public learning through LinkedIn.

Both Miki and I come from a mixed Caucasian and Asian homes, and we talk a lot about how finding ourselves between cultures was both liberating and alienating. She also touches on how she was able to find herself after college by treading her own path that her parents didn't quite understand. Finally we touch on how and why she transitioned from data science to machine learning engineering. This is a loaded episode as we also touched on her experience going through a data science bootcamp.

Escaping a Cult to Pursue AI (Kurtis Pykes) - KNN Ep. 75 Nov 24, 2021

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Kurtis Pykes. Kurtis is a self-taught ML Engineer from London England but describes himself as a global citizen. He currently works as a freelancer for various companies and also maintains his own Medium blog. In the past year, he was voted to have some of the best medium blog content by his peers on linkedin. In his spare time, he likes to read, exercise, and play chess (even though he's pants).
Kurtis has a Fascinating story. We talk about tragedy derailed his professional football career, his scary experience as part of a cult, and how he found purpose and personal growth through the study of machine learning and writing.
I loved chatting with Kurtis, and I'm excited I get to share our conversation with you all.

Olympic Level Athlete to Sports Analytics Researcher (Liz Wanless) - KNN Ep. 74 Nov 17, 2021

Dr. Wanless researches advanced analytics application to various aspects of sport organization operations from customer relationship management to the diffusion of natural language processing (NLP). In 2021, Dr. Wanless was awarded the Ohio University College of Business Excellence Intellectual Contributions Award as well as the Outstanding Teaching Recognition. Dr. Wanless published more than 20 peer-reviewed publications in outlets including the Journal of Sport Management, Sport Management Review, Journal of Sports Analytics, Journal of Strength and Conditioning, Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics, and International Journal of Sports Science and Coaching. Additionally, she has given over 60 peer-reviewed and invited presentations at conferences including the North American Society for Sport Management, INFORMS spORts, Sport Marketing Association, Applied Sport Management, Annual Fund Analytics & Execution Symposium, and the National Sports Forum. Prior to her academic career, Dr. Wanless competed for Nike, Asics, the New York Athletic Club, and Team USA as a professional track and field shot putter maintaining top 20 in the world for 5 consecutive years. In 2004, Wanless was recognized as the NCAA Woman of the Year for the state of Maine.
In our conversation today, we talk about how Liz was able target find the same passion for data that she had for athletics, her own experience with impostor syndrome in the male dominated field of sports analytics, and why there aren't more women working in the domain. Liz has an awesome story, and I really enjoyed my chat with her.

Can You Learn Data Science From a Book? (Tyler Richards) - KNN Ep. 73 Nov 10, 2021

We are actually giving away 4 copies of Tyler's book! Comment on the YouTube video with why you want to learn streamlit for a chance to win one of the copies! You can also win by commenting on the twitter post, my instagram post, or my linkedin post related to this podcast!
Tyler is a data scientist at Facebook who recently published a book on the Python library Streamlit called 'Getting Started with Streamlit for Data Science’. He graduated from the University of Florida in 2018, and worked on election integrity problems for nonprofits and research labs while there.

Finding Your Voice in Data as an Introvert (Karen Jean-Francois) - KNN Ep. 72 Nov 03, 2021

As an analytics manager, Karen is passionate about how data science and analytics can support businesses and help them better understand their customers. While she finds digging into data fun, she believes that it comes with responsibility, and her uncompromising focus on data integrity enables her to build trust and strong relationships with stakeholders. Most of all, she strives to help others craft their own path to personal and professional fulfilment. She believes that focusing on personal development and having access to role models is key to having a successful career – no matter what your definition of success is. This is why she created the Women in Data Podcast in partnership with Women in Data UK. This resulted in an industry recognition as a Twenty in Data and Technology 2020, which awards visible and accessible female role models for the next generations of data professionals.

Are Buzzwords Ruining Your Ability to Communicate? (Scott Taylor) - KNN Ep. 71 Oct 27, 2021

Scott Taylor, The Data Whisperer, has helped countless companies by enlightening business executives to the strategic value of proper data management. He focuses on business alignment and the “strategic WHY” rather than system implementation and the “technical HOW.” As Principal Consultant for MetaMeta Consulting, he helps Enterprises and Tech Brands tell their data story. His book – TELLING YOUR DATA STORY: Data Storytelling for Data Management is available now.

An avid business evangelist and original thinker, he continually shares his passion for the value of data through industry events, public speaking opportunities, blogs, videos, whitepapers, podcasts, cartoons, puppets shows and all forms of thought leadership.

He lives in Bridgeport, CT where he often kayaks in Black Rock harbor. He can also juggle pins and blow a square bubble.

Retired Military Officer to Google Analytics Intern! (Al Bellamy) - KNN Ep. 70 Oct 20, 2021

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Al Bellamy. Al is a data analyst who recently retired from the Marine Corps. He just started working as a Senior Marketing Intelligence Analyst at Annalect, a Marketing and Advertising Analytics agency based in New York. Until recently, he was the social media manager for the How to Get an Analytics Job podcast. He lives in North Carolina with his wife and three sons. He and loves to write and talk about analytics, veteran transition, networking and personal branding. In this episode we go deep in to the lessons that Al learned from the military that he can translate into the data domain. We also talk about his experience breaking into the field as an intern in his 40's.

Why It Is OK to not be OK as a Data Scientist. (Mark Freeman) - KNN Ep. 69 Oct 13, 2021

Mark Freeman is a community health advocate turned data scientist interested in the intersection of social impact, business and technology. His life’s mission is to improve the well-being of as many people as possible through data – especially among the marginalized. As the founder of On the Mark Data, Mark uses this platform to share impactful ideas via content creation, as well as push for innovation through consulting startups. In this episode we dive we dive deep into mental health in the data science domain, something we both believe needs to be talked about more. We also talk about how community, systems, and culture can help breed resilience and success on our data science journey. I hope you enjoy the episode, I know I had a blast speaking with Mark.

Is There a Right Time to Leave Your Data Science Job? (Jacqueline Nolis) - KNN EP. 68 Oct 06, 2021

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Jacqueline Nolis. Jacqueline is a data science leader with over 15 years of experience in leading data science teams and projects at companies ranging from DSW to Airbnb. Today she is the Head of Data Science at Saturn Cloud. For fun Jacqueline likes to use data science for humor—like using deep learning to generate offensive license plates. In this episode we talk about some keys to breaking into the data science field, her book on the topic, and how she blends data and art in her side hustle. I hope you enjoy the episode!

Bored Accountant to Passionate Data Scientist (Nicholas Renotte) - KNN Ep. 67 Sep 29, 2021

This episode of Ken's Nearest Neighbors is Powered by Z by Hp. Hp's High compute, workstation grade line of products and solutions.
Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Nicholas Renotte. Nicholas is a Data Science Specialist at IBM with a bunch of experience in helping clients make the most of their data and leverage the best in Machine Learning and Deep Learning. But he didn't start out here, oh no, he actually started out as an accountant, built a startup and somehow along the way found himself loving all things data. When he's not eating pizza or running ultramarathons he's funneling all that data love into making tutorials that help people get started with Data Science, Machine Learning and Deep Learning on YouTube.
Nick has some of my favorite computer vision tutorials on YouTube and his channel is one of the first places I personally go to learn some new tools.

No Code Data Analyst to Python Lover (Shashank Kalanithi) - KNN Ep. 66 Sep 22, 2021

This episode of Ken’s Nearest Neighbors is powered by z by hp. hp’s high computer, workstation grade line of products and solutions.
Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Shashank Kalanithi. Shashank currently works at Nordstrom as a Data Analyst and was kindly introduced to me through John David over at the how to get an analytics job podcast. Shashank studied chemistry in undergrad and quickly pivoted into analytics after getting his first taste. He has a passion for spreading analytics knowledge and his experience in the data field through his YouTube channel.
In this episode we talk about how Shashank was able to carve his own path in his work to land his first role, how he fell in love with python from being a no code data analyst, and why he started content creation and consulting during the pandemic.

How To Create Data Science Opportunities for Yourself (Vin Vashishta) - KNN Ep. 65 Sep 15, 2021

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Vin Vashishta. Vin works in applied machine learning and strategy. He builds and brings projects to market with ARR in the hundreds of millions. He has spent over 25 years in tech and the last 10 working in the data science and machine learning field. Since 2015, he has been frequently recognized as one of the fields thought leaders. In this episode we talk about what the future of data science looks like based on its history, how new data companies may have an advantage on older ones, and how you can create opportunities for yourself in this domain.

Why He Left His Stable Data Science Job (Avery Smith) - KNN Ep. 64 Sep 08, 2021

This week I had the pleasure of interviewing Avery Smith. Avery is on a mission to help working professionals break into data science. He is also completely obsessed with data. He has a dashboard to track his iphone app usage and even analyzes his dog's fitbit data.
Avery is the creator of data career jumpstart and the founder of Snow data science. In this episode we learn about how Avery first fell in love with data science, the risk reward tradeoff he analyzed when considering leaving a good corporate data job to start his own consulting company, and about how you can use your brand to start a company or land the job of your dreams.

How has Data Science Changed in 20 Years? (Joe Reis) - KNN Ep. 63 Sep 01, 2021

Joe Reis is a “recovering data scientist”, CEO of Ternary Data, and a business-minded data nerd who’s worked in the data industry for 20 years, with responsibilities ranging from statistical modeling, forecasting, machine learning, data engineering, data architecture, and almost everything else in between. He’s the host of the popular data show and podcast, the Monday Morning Data Chat, interviews data celebrities on The Data Nerd Herd, and runs several popular meetups, including The Utah Data Engineering Meetup and SLC Python. Joe also teaches at the University of Utah, and is the co-author of the upcoming O’Reilly book, The Fundamentals of Data Engineering. When he’s not busy running a company, teaching, or creating content, Joe often finds himself rock climbing or trail running in the mountains around Salt Lake City, Utah. In this episode Joe talks about how the data domain has changed over the last 20 years. You also learn about why he considers himself a “recovering data scientist”.

The First Data Science Philosopher? (Harpreet Sahota) - KNN Ep. 62 Aug 25, 2021

Harpreet Sahota is a friend, a father, a data scientist and a fellow content creator that hosts the artists of data science podcast. He also has built an incredible community around his twice a week data science office hours.
Harpreet mentors over 2500+ aspiring and early-career data professionals because wants to see them level up in this field. He holds himself personally responsible for their career advancement by providing the best quality mentorship and technical guidance.
Harpreet is also constantly learning and is not intimidated by the prospect of applying newly learned tools to big, messy, complex, real-world data problems.
In this podcast Harpreet talks about the power of reading, how he faced himself and changed course when he started going down the wrong path, we also get deeply philosophical about purpose, work, and growth.

Insights from a Tech Industry Analyst (Hyoun Park) - KNN Ep. 61 Aug 18, 2021

Hyoun Park is the CEO and Founder of Amalgam Insights, an industry analyst firm focused on managing data and the finance of technology at scale. Over the past 20+ years, Park has been at the forefront of trends such as Moneyball, social networking, Bring Your Own Device, data monetization, and the Subscription Economy working with startups, large enterprises, and the investment community.
Park has been quoted in USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, Barron’s, and a wide variety of mainstream and technology press sources. Although he primarily works with enterprise technologies, Park has a soft spot in his heart for new and innovative technology startups and is dedicated to supporting greater gender and cultural diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Park has an MBA from Boston University and a bachelor’s degree in Women’s and Gender Studies from Amherst College.

Navy Submariner to Data Analytics YouTuber! (Luke Barousse) - KNN Ep. 60 Aug 11, 2021

Luke is a Mechanical Engineering undergraduate from Ole Miss who served 7 years as an officer in the U.S. Navy as part of the submarine force. For the first half of his career, he was stationed on the USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23) leading engineering teams and deploying 4 times. For the second half of his career, he was part of the training department for the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program sending trained students out to man the fleet. After the military, he returned to school for his MBA and specialized in business analytics. After school he landed a job in an international-based chemical company and started as a business analyst, slowly transitioning his career into a full on Data Analyst.

How this High Schooler's Data Helped Break Twitch Streaming Records (Will St. Hilare) - KNN Ep. 59 Aug 04, 2021

Will is a junior in high school, he has been super involved with data science. He is innovating the data collected on twitch and esports. He self taught himself how to code from a young age and is now using what he has learned to create tools for esports and analyze data from twitch.

Writing the Book on Pandas (Stefanie Molin) - KNN Ep. 58 Jul 28, 2021

Stefanie Molin is a software engineer and data scientist on Bloomberg's Security Data Science team, which researches and develops solutions using data and machine learning to help improve and automate Bloomberg’s information security processes. She focuses on identifying and answering security-related questions using data and developing software to address them. She holds a bachelor’s of science degree in operations research from Columbia University, and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in computer science, with a specialization in machine learning, from Georgia Tech. She is the author of “Hands-On Data Analysis with Pandas,” now in its second edition.

From C Student to Data Scientist (Greg Watson) - KNN Ep. 57 Jul 21, 2021

Greg Watson is a content creator and sports enthusiast currently living in the Washington DC area. By day he is a data scientist working for the IRS, where he uses machine learning to detect fraud. After that he can be found at local happy hours, watching the game and figuring out where to travel to next.
In this episode we learn how Greg landed a data science job with a less than stellar undergrad GPA. We also learn some differences about working in the public and private sectors.

Deep in the Mind of the Deepnote CEO (Jakub Jurovych) - KNN Ep. 56 Jul 14, 2021

Jakub Jurovych is a founder and CEO of Deepnote, where he and his team are developing a collaborative data science notebook. Jakub studied Computer Science at Cambridge University, focusing on Human-Computer Interaction, Machine Learning and Computer Vision. As an engineer, Jakub built tools for JavaScript development and worked on Firefox DevTools. Later on in his career, Jakub became the CTO of Operam, a company using machine learning for better marketing at companies and Hollywood studios. Jakub is also a YC alumnus and Forbes 30 Under 30.
In this episode we have an awesome conversation about project management of data science. We also talk about some of the similarities and differences between data science and software engineering teams. At the end, we dive deep into the origin of his company Deepnote.

Bayesian or Frequentist: What does it mean? (Chelsea Parlett) - KNN Ep. 55 Jul 07, 2021

Chelsea is a full time faculty member teaching undergraduate Data Science and Computer Science, and earned her PhD this year in Computational and Data Science. She also does casual statistical consulting at the Chatistician which aims to empower people to do their own statistics well. In her free time, Chelsea makes educational and just-for-fun statistics memes, TikToks and art.

Is Finance Ready for Machine Learning? (Vivek Viswanathan) - KNN Ep. 54 Jun 30, 2021

This week's guest is Vivek Viswanathan. Vivek is the portfolio manager of the Rayliant Quantamental China Equity ETF and is the Global Head of Research and Portfolio Management at Rayliant Global Advisors. He has a Ph.D. in Finance from UCI, a Master’s in Financial Engineering from UCLA, and a Bachelor’s in Economics from the University of Chicago. He has worked 15 years in quantitative investment management.

From Rocker to Data Talker (Ale Koretzky) - KNN Ep. 53 Jun 23, 2021

Special thanks to Allie Miller for introducing me to this guest! I met Ale Koretzky soon after I moved to Hawaii and we became fast friends. I was hooked on the stories that he told me each time we met. From traveling to the US from Argentina to pursue his fascination with signal processing, to landing his band's music video on MTV Latin America, the passion the has for music and machine learning bled into every conversation that we had. I love how Ale can go from laid back and relaxed to intense and passionate instantaneously when he gets excited about an idea. Currently, Ale is the head of machine learning and audio science at Splice where he is a thought leader at the intersection of ML, signal processing, and sound a few things he knows quite a lot about. In this interview, we learn about Ale's experience learning the signal processing field, his music career, and the main reason why some ML projects fail. I hope you enjoy the episode!

Who is the @Data Professor ? (Chanin Nantasenamat) - KNN Ep. 52 Jun 16, 2021

Chanin Nantasenamat is a good friend of mine and an incredible teacher. He is probably best known for his educational videos about data science and coding on YouTube via the Data Professor and Coding Professor channels.
Chanin’s research interest is at the interface of biology, chemistry and computer science (encompassing interdisciplinary areas such as bioinformatics, cheminformatics, chemogenomics and proteochemometrics) for exploring the underlying origins of protein function and its modulation (i.e. inhibition or activation). Such understanding holds great implication for the discovery of novel bioactive compounds with therapeutic activity. His research group also develop bioinformatics databases, softwares and web servers for addressing perplexing biological problems. In this episode we talk about how someone can break into data science we also touch on the content creation journey and the incredibly wholesome story of how the Data Professor came to be.

What Makes a Great Data Story? (Joseph Perez) - KNN Ep. 51 Jun 09, 2021

With advanced degrees in computers and secondary education, along with several IT certifications, Dr. Perez brings more than 35 years' experience to the podcast as an IT/higher ed. professional. Having served as Business Intelligence Specialist at NC State University and currently serving as Senior Systems Analyst/Team Lead at the NC Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS), Perez stays active in the IT community with more than 11,000 LinkedIn followers. In addition to his fulltime leadership role at DHHS, Joe was named Chief Technology Officer at SolonTek corporation in October 2020. A highly-recommended international keynote speaker, data analytics/visualization expert, and specialist in efficiency/process improvement, he is indeed a much sought-after resource. When taking a break from work, Joe sings, plays the piano, composes songs, does guest appearances on nationally-recognized podcasts, and has performed PSA's & voice-overs for schools and other organizations. He also serves as speaker, interpreter, & music director to his church’s Hispanic ministry and (if there's any time left) enjoys publishing a monthly military newsletter. "I’m a firm believer that if I’m not innovating, I’m stagnating," says Joe.
In our episode we talk about how to get over the fear of public speaking and how important the story is for conveying data science insights.

What is Ken's Story? | 50th episode special with Christina Stathopolous Jun 02, 2021

Welcome to Ken's Nearest Neighbors 50th episode special! Today we are going to mix it up. One of our favorite guests, Christina Stathopolous volunteered to turn the tables and interview me today. Super excited to get to share a bit more of my own story with you. I also always love chatting with Christina! Before we start, I have another bit of great news. the KNN team has signed an exclusive sponsorship with Z by HP. This sponsorship will allow us to expand our capabilities and continue to improve the podcast listening experience. I'm so excited about this news, and I'm happy we can share it on our 50th episode!

Landing a Data Science Job at LinkedIn - After 5 Tries... (Aash Viswanathan) - KNN Ep. 49 May 26, 2021

Aash Viswanathan is a Senior Data Scientist at Atlassian with a focus on monetization. He was previously a Product Data Scientist at LinkedIn supporting new feature development on LinkedIn Learning. Aash was also a Data Analyst at scooter-rental startup Lime, where he worked on fleet analytics. He holds a degree in Economics from the University of Chicago. In this episode we learn about Aash's biggest challenges breaking into the analytics career path. He actually applied to LinkedIn 5 times before landing the job. We also touch on the psychological side of success in this field and how obsession can be either a positive or negative force. I hope you enjoy our chat!

What are The Skillsets Needed to be an Effective Data Scientist (Eugene Yan) - KNN Ep. 48 May 19, 2021

I had the pleasure of interviewing Eugene Yan. he works at the intersection of machine learning and product to build pragmatic, customer-facing ML systems. He also writes & speaks about effective data science, data/ML systems, and career growth.
Currently, He is an Applied Scientist at Amazon shipping ML and recommends systems to help customers read more.
On his website, he shares what he’s learned on shipping ML systems, with a pragmatic and product slant. He’s written 119 posts and 215,291 words so far!
In this episode, we learn about how Eugene broke into data science from a psychology background. We also go through the challenges of breaking into the US job market. I learned quite a bit about the visa process and how different countries can have different visa quotas. Finally, we touch on the importance of end to end data science and how sharing your work can help you to make your own luck. I had a great experience getting to know Eugene better through this interview, and I hope you learn a lot from this episode!

Can Machine Learning Keep Your Computer Safe? (Edward Raff) - KNN Ep. 47 May 12, 2021

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Edward Raff. Edward a Chief Scientist at Booz Allen Hamilton where he leads their Machine Learning research group. He’s also a Visiting Professor at UMBC where he works closely with the DREAM and IRAL labs, and teaches courses in the Data Science department. He received his PhD in Computer Science from University of Maryland, Baltimore County (2018) while working full time. Edward is the author of the JSAT which is a java based machine learning library, and is interested in applying machine learning to malware, fairness, and biometrics. He has also written the book “inside deep learning” where he focuses on finding the perfect balance between math and implementation of deep learning algorithms. In this episode we learn about how Edward’s career in machine learning was kicked off by a happy accident while studying abroad, how machine learning is being applied to malware detection, and how a data career contracting for the government may be different than one working for a private company. I hope you enjoy!

Is Design the Future of Data Science? (Ovetta Sampson) - KNN Ep.46 May 05, 2021

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Ovetta Sampson. I co-teach a grad student course called Designing Ethical AI Sysetms with Ovetta. As a Principal Design Director at Microsoft, she works with a team of talented researchers, data scientists, designers and engineers that work with large-scale customers to visualize a clear path to digital transformation that starts in the now and builds towards the future. Ovetta is an IDEO alumna as well. While working there, her sweet spot was the intersection of humanity, business and technology. Combining her M.S. in Computer Science (HCI) with her BA in Communications, Ovetta is always thinking about how to visualize humanity’s future and how serve people through digital and intelligent products ethically and with compassion. In this interview we learn about how Journalism and influence from her father launched her interest in design and technology. We also learn about the world she sees where designers and data scientists join forces to make positive change in the world. We end with a fascinating conversation about ethics related to AI, and how we can use design to better understand our human bias. I hope you enjoy this episode!

From Photographer to Landing his Dream Analyst Job at PlayStation! (Christian Bourdeau) - KNN Ep.45 Apr 28, 2021

Christian is a Sr. Business Intelligence (BI) Engineer @ PlayStation. Previous he has worked in BI at Nike, Warner Brothers, USC, and Machinima (Ma-shin-im-ma).
He took the tech world by storm when he joined Clubhouse and quickly grew to 23k followers as of today. He runs rooms around Data Science and Analytics and how to get your first job. He has helped thousands of people on Clubhouse to improve on their Linkedins, data projects, networking, salary negotiations, and more.
In this video we talk about how Christian made the transition from photographer to data analyst. We also highlight his bootcamp experience, and how he was able to create a massive demand for himself during the job hiring process. Finally, we touch on how he has been able to leverage the clubhouse app into multiple new opportunities.
Links: Christian Bourdeau
https://linkedin.com/in/christianbourdeau/
https://joinclubhouse.com/@christianblife
https://joinclubhouse.com/club/data-science-analy
Twitter: @christianbdata

Answering Questions About REAL Data Science Job Application Data (Jeremie Harris x2) - KNN Ep. 44 Apr 21, 2021

This episode of Ken’s Nearest Neighbors is going to be a little different. For this one I had my friend Jeremie Harris back on the show, he was on for episode 15 of the podcast. His company, sharpest minds has collected data on the success rates their mentees have had in the data science job application process. The team was gracious enough to share the findings via a blog post. I highly recommend watching my most recent YouTube video where I go through the findings before listening here. In this episode we talk through some questions I had about the findings and also some of the actionable things that you can do to improve your chances in the data science job market. I hope you enjoy!
Video on @Ken Jee Referenced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ONQ628CXKQ
Previous Interview with Jeremie (Ep 15): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VcdvSyoxnc
Article Referenced: https://towardsdatascience.com/when-should-i-hear-back-and-other-painful-questions-answered-with-data-cd06edb1976a

How Project Management Can Empower AI (Greg Coquillo) - KNN Ep. 43 Apr 14, 2021

This week I had the pleasure of speaking with Greg Coquillo. Born and raised in Haiti, Greg is an Industrial Engineer with a Master's degree in Engineering Management who's been leveraging data to solve complex business challenges in operations, supply chain, quality and product management. After 8 years of applying Lean Six Sigma and Continuous Improvement, Greg recently transitioned to a tech company where he works with Data Scientists and uses AI to positively impact the lives of millions of customers.
Greg's motto is: "Let curiosity be your fuel for growth". In this interview we talk about greg’s experience growing up in Hati, his thoughts on project management in AI, and how he expects AI to impact countries like hati in the future.

Have You Heard of Cardboard Calculus? (Brennan Ruby) - KNN Ep. 42 Apr 07, 2021

Brennan has 8 years experience as an analyst in the Finance and Talent Acquisition spaces. Most of his time is spent building SQL queries or visualizing data inside of Power BI. Brennan's love for sports collides with his passion for data on Instagram @Cardboard.Calculus and http://rotogrinders.com/. When not crunching numbers he his chasing his 16 month old son Grayson around or spending time with his wife Brittany. In this interview we learn about the incredible things Brennan is doing with analytics in the trading card space, we also touch on nft's, time management, and about how he was able to get paid to write about his sports analytics passion on rotogrinders.com

How She Built a Data Empire Working Abroad! (Lillian Pierson) - KNN Ep. 41 Mar 31, 2021

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Lillian Pierson. Lillian helps data professionals transform into world-class data leaders and entrepreneurs. To date she’s educated over 1 Million data professionals on AI, and over 10% of the data entrepreneurs have landed 6-figure contracts within the first 7-months of working with her. In this episode, Lillian shares the story of her early affinity towards data. As a child it was fun and easy for her to begin working with spreadsheets. We also touch on her hands on work using data analytics to help design reaction protocols for substituting Hydrogen with Deuterium atoms from within nucleic acids. Toward the end, we explore how she made the transition into data entrepreneurship and we both discuss our experiences growing as content creators and educators.

Coding In Python with Microsoft Excel (Jake and Aaron) - KNN Ep. 40 Mar 24, 2021

This episode is brought to you by Pandio, more on them later! Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Jake and Aaron. These two brothers are on a mission to make advanced analytics accessible to all. This is the first time I’ve had two people on the show, so it should be twice as interesting. Jake, Aaron, and their friend Nate founded Mito, a low code jupyter lab plugin that allows you to use excel commands to generate pandas scripts. In this interview we learn about how Jake and Aaron learned enough programming to bootstrap this project together, we also hear about their experience in Y Combinator, and at the end you get a sneak peak into each of our startup ideas that never made the final cut.

Is His Company Creating a Safe Skynet? (Josh Odmark) - KNN Ep. 39 Mar 17, 2021

On this episode I have the opportunity to speak with Joshua Odmark. Josh is the founder and CTO of Pandio. He started his first company at the age of 15, sold his first company at 18, and has been a serial entrepreneur ever since. He is passionate about bringing artificial intelligence to the masses and dreams of a world where AI has a positive impact on the entire world. He is currently building our data-driven future at Pandio.com. In this interview we talked about how the data collected from Josh’s early company fed his fascination with engineering and data science. We also talk about Skynet, and the future of technology.

SPSS, Open Source, and Why Data Science Tools May not Matter Much (Keith McCormick) - KNN Ep. 38 Mar 10, 2021

Today I had the pleasure of speaking with Keith McCormick. Keith is an independent data miner, trainer, speaker, and author out of North Carolina who’s LinkedIn learning courses have been viewed over 500,000 times. For the last several years, the focus of Keith’s work has been to improve how analytics leadership runs their teams and how they hire and nurture new talent. Keith actually started his analytics journey as an SPSS instructor, and in this interview we talk about the rise and fall of the software. We also talk about his thoughts on the future of machine learning tools and his ongoing fascination with personality types. I hope you enjoy the chat!

How are College Sports Teams Leveraging Analytics? (Matthew Edwards) - KNN Ep. 37 Mar 03, 2021

This week I had the chance to speak with Matthew Edwards. Matthew is the Director of Football Analytics at the University of Virginia (A school that I happen to be an alumni of). Football and math have always been a huge part of his life. While at BYU, he majored in Math and has a master's degree in Public Administration. He also played Tight End on the football team there from 2008-2011. After a few years coaching, he transitioned to Analytics in his current role with UVA. He started the Master's of Data Science degree at UVA this semester, and is excited to learn more about Data Science. He is married to MaryBeth Edwards, and has two boys: Luke and Shea who are already starting to get interested in college football, or at least the team mascots. In this interview we learn how Matt made his way into analytics from the player and coaching route. We talk at length about how someone can break into sports analytics as a career, and we also touch on why he decided to go back for his masters in data science at UVA. I hope you enjoy!

How this Data Analyst Divided LinkedIn with a Single Post (Alex the Analyst) - KNN Ep. 36 Feb 24, 2021

On this episode I had the chance to speak with Alex. Alex the analyst is a friend of mine and is currently a data analyst at a Fortune 500 company. He also happens to have a YouTube channel where he talks about his experience as a data analyst and gives advice on how to break into the field. In this episode, you will learn how Alex got his start as a data analyst “coming from a non-traditional background”, his thoughts on data science versus data analytics, and how he is dividing all of LinkedIn with his posts.

How His Project is Simplifying Data Science (Adrien Treuille) - KNN Ep.35 Feb 17, 2021

Today I had the pleasure of speaking with Adrien Treuille. He is co-founder and CEO of Streamlit which is pioneering next-generation tools for machine learning engineers. Adrien has been VP of Simulation Zoox, lead a Google X project, and was a Professor of Computer Science and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon. He gives talks around the world, including to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and has won numerous scientific awards, including the MIT Top innovators under 35. Adrien and his work have been featured in the documentaries "What Will the Future Be Like" by PBS/NOVA, and "Lo and Behold" by Werner Herzog. In todays episode we talk about Adrien’s experience moving from academia to industry, how Streamlit was inspired by hardware used to create electronic music, and the philosophy that guided most of his career decisions.

Can You Make a Living as a Data Science Contractor? (Andrew Jones) - KNN Ep.34 Feb 10, 2021

This week I had the chance to talk with Andrew Jones. Andrew has spent over 13 years in Analytics & Data Science at companies including Amazon & more recently Sony PlayStation where he developed and prototyped Machine Learning based features for the PlayStation 5 - several of which have been patented by Sony.
Throughout his career he has interviewed & screened hundreds of Data Science candidates, and in 2019 authored "The Essential A.I. & Data Science Handbook for Recruitment" Andrew now runs DATA SCIENCE INFINITY, a full program for learning & excelling in Data Science.

Learning Deeply with NVIDIA’s Head of Developer Programs (Will Ramey) - KNN Ep. 33 Feb 03, 2021

This episode I had the pleasure of speaking with Will Ramey. Will is a senior director at NVIDIA, where he leads global teams responsible for the NVIDIA Developer Program and Deep Learning Institute. Since joining the company in 2003 he has served in several technical and leadership roles, including several years as the first product manager for CUDA and NVIDIA's developer tools. Prior to joining NVIDIA, he managed an independent game studio and developed advanced technology for the entertainment industry as a product manager and software engineer. He holds a degree in computer science from Willamette University and completed the Japan Studies Program at Tokyo International University. Outside of work Will enjoys playing piano, learning Spanish, and open water swimming.

Doing Data Abroad! (Christina Stathopoulos) - KNN Ep. 32 Jan 27, 2021

In this episode I have the chance to speak with Christina Stathopoulos. Christina is originally from the US but has been based in Madrid, Spain since 2012. Working as an expat and dedicated to the world of data, she has followed a unique path to make a name for herself in the field on a global level. She is currently working as an Analytical Consultant at Google, Adjunct Faculty at IE Business School and Guest Lecturing, all while maintaining quite an active schedule as an international speaker and thought leader. Her core work at Google involves empowering top advertising clients to make data-driven business and marketing decisions. While her academic work focuses on teaching analytics topics to MBA students. She is also passionate about pushing for more diversity in tech, as well as a love for travel and books!

A Data Science Instructor's Insight into Learning the Field (Michael Galarnyk) - KNN Ep. 31 Jan 20, 2021

On this episode I have the chance to speak with Michael Galarnyk. Michael is a Python and Machine Learning Instructor for Stanford Continuing Studies, LinkedIn Learning, and more. You can find him on Twitter @GalarnykMichael, through his blog on Medium, or through his Youtube channel. In this conversation, I spoke with Michael about his philosophy on formal vs informal education, how he teaches/learns data science, and you will also hear about one of the crazy locations that he filmed a course!

What is Algorithmic Trading Really? (Jacob Amaral) - KNN Ep. 30 Jan 13, 2021

On this episode I have the chance to speak with Jacob Amaral. Jacob is the co-founder of WeTradeHQ, an online marketplace of day traders and investors. He also builds automated trading bots that invest his own money into market automatically and for his clients as well. Jacob loves to automate everything and has found a passion with combining software with finance. Hope you enjoy!

Data Science VS. Software Engineering: Which is better for you? (Forrest Knight) - KNN Ep. 29 Jan 06, 2021

On this episode I am speaking with Forrest Knight. Forrest graduated with a Computer Science degree and worked as a full-stack software engineer. He documented his journey along the way and continues to do so while sharing what he's learned on YouTube. In this podcast we talk about how Forrest built his lifestyle from programing and the differences between data science and software engineering!

The Man Who Makes Statistics Fun! (Joshua Starmer AKA StatQuest) - KNN Ep.28 Dec 30, 2020

On this episode I have the chance to speak with Josh Starmer. Josh is the founder and CEO of StatQuest (https://www.youtube.com/user/joshstarmer), a YouTube channel that teaches Data Science topics like Statistics and Machine Learning. Prior to StatQuest, Josh was an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. At StatQuest, Josh makes Data Science topics clearly explained. Bam.

The Man Behind the Data Science Tutorials (Keith Galli) - KNN Ep. 27 Dec 23, 2020

In this episode I got to speak with Keith Galli. Keith is a data science YouTuber who focuses on in-depth library tutorials & real-world projects. Outside of YouTube, Keith works at conversational AI start-up Posh Technologies where he has worked in roles from NLP to project management. Keith holds his bachelor’s & master’s degrees in computer science from MIT. Enjoy!

From Lawyer to Data Scientist! (Greg Jacobs) - KNN Ep. 26 Dec 16, 2020

On this episode I got to speak with Greg Jacobs. Greg recently made the transition into the data science industry after spending over 10 years in private practice as a business attorney. Greg is a self-taught programmer who took the bootcamp route into landing his first data science role. He is passionate about the field and currently is in the process of integrating himself into the data science community on a variety of social media platforms. Greg was an early subscriber to my channel, and I am excited that I can talk with him about his journey.

How Do Companies Teach Data Science? (Mike Kelly) - KNN Ep. 25 Dec 09, 2020

On this week's episode I am speaking with Mike Kelly. Mike got his degree in Aeronautical Engineering, but found his passion in technical training. He has spent the last 6 years in the healthcare industry working for Optum, a large analytics and technology provider owned by UnitedHealth group. He is a principal data scientist working on machine learning projects and training UnitedHealth employees on the technical and business aspects of data science and AI.

This Spotify Data Scientist Can Learn Anything! (Jeff Li) - KNN Ep. 24 Dec 02, 2020

On this episode I had the pleasure of speaking with Jeff Li. Jeff is currently a senior data scientist at Spotify focused on forecasting problems surrounding ads. He got into data science, initially, by trying to earn a living playing poker and previously spent two years at Doordash on the core ML team, working on a wide variety of problems such as improving experimentation power, personalization, supply/demand forecasting and driver pay.

Everything You Need to Know about Data Science Consulting (Gleb Drobkov) - KNN Ep. 23 Nov 25, 2020

In this episode I have the pleasure of speaking with a friend of mine from high school, Gleb Drobkov. Gleb is a senior data scientist at BCG Gamma, the advanced analytics practice of the Boston Consulting Group. His career spans consulting and the financial services industry, and these days, he typically focuses on using data and machine learning to help brands and retailers connect with consumers in more personalized ways. In our conversation, we talk about the unique opportunities and challenges of working in data science at a management consulting firm, and the breakdown of time spent on a typical analytics engagement, as well as much more.

His Machine Learning Models Can See (Richmond Alake) - KNN Ep. 22 Nov 18, 2020

On this episode I had the please of speaking with Richmond Alake. Richmond is a Computer Vision Engineer based in London. He has a MSc in Computer Vision, Machine Learning and Space Robotics. Richmond believes in sharing of knowledge, and you can find some of his Machine Learning based articles on Medium where he's been a top writer in Artificial Intelligence for the majority of 2020. When he isn't working on deep learning or writing articles, Richmond spends his time exploring new technologies and side projects, one of which is Moretion, a smartwatch app that can track the proximity between your hand and face, and sends alert when your hand is touching your face, an application created for maintaining cautiousness in the COVID era. In this episode we will talk about his unique masters degree, how he went from a full stack developer to a data scientist, and how he builds incredible projects in his free time.

Data Science Without All the BS (Richard Bryant) - KNN Ep. 21 Nov 11, 2020

Richard is a data scientist from the Greater Detroit Area. He started off his data science journey when he was in graduate school by landing consulting gigs through his network. Since then he has had several roles in small, mid-sized, and large firms in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. He started a YouTube channel last year for a couple reasons. The first reason is out of a passion for teaching and motivating others. But the main reason he started the channel is to bring a candid perspective to people who are breaking into the field - to cut through the hype and provide no-nonsense takes on the field and its future, as well as practical tutorials on statistics and programming, with emphasis on how they are used in practical settings.

She Uses Machine Learning to Control Your Brain (Jordan Harrod) - KNN Ep. 20 Nov 08, 2020

Jordan Harrod is a PhD student in Medical Engineering and Medical Physics at the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program. She works at intersection of non-invasive brain-machine interfaces and deep learning for clinical pain and anesthesia under Dr. Ed Boyden and Dr. Emery Brown. Her YouTube channel focuses on engaging the public on artificial intelligence and algorithms. She received her Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering from Cornell University in 2018. You can follow her on Twitter @JordanBHarrod.

Spilling the Tea on Data Science (Sanyam Bhutani) - KNN Ep. 19 Nov 08, 2020

Sanyam Bhutani is a ML Engineer and AI Content Creator at H2O.ai. He is also an inc42, Economic Times recognized Machine Learning Practitioner. Sanyam is an x1 Master and x2 Expert on Kaggle, ranked in Global Top 1% as well as an active AI blogger on the medium, Hackernoon, with over 1 Million+ Views overall.
Sanyam is also the host of Chai Time Data Science Podcast where he interviews top practitioners, researchers, and Kagglers. The podcast has been streamed for 40k hours across 110+ countries for 120k+ times
In this interview I speak with Sanyam about how he was able to build his Chai Time Data Science podcast. I also get his insight into kaggle, how to reach out to influential people, and his plans for the future.

Half Man, Half Machine Learning Engineer (Jeff Charbeneau) - KNN Ep. 18 Nov 06, 2020

In this episode I had the pleasure of speaking with Jeff Charbeneau. Jeff is a friend of mine from Chicago, who works on the machine learning engineer side of data science. He is probably one of the most passionate people about machine learning pipelines and ml ops out of anyone I know. Jeff's road to the present began in statistics.
After several years in academia, first as a biostatistics graduate student, then as a staff biostatistican, he left to do quantitative things at a now defunct intellectual property startup. Next came data science consulting using crowdsourcing (don't do it). Then things got really interesting when he started working with software engineering teams.
Over time, he developed a passion for building things that work and automating them and came to view well-engineered infrastructure as often needing to precede higher level efforts like data science, machine learning, so-called artificial intelligence, etc. He thinks Prefect is incredibly interesting and has compared it to Airflow here.

Advice From a Data Analytics CEO (@How to Get an Analytics Job) - KNN Ep. 17 Nov 06, 2020

In this episode I had the pleasure of speaking with John David. He is the founder of Silvertone Analytics, a consulting agency that helps organizations make the most of their data. He also sits on the Advisory Council for Business School at Greensboro College, teaches Analytics classes at Greensboro College and High Point University. He Co-Hosts the "How to Get an Analytics Job" podcast."
In this video we focus on how to break into analytics, the difference between data science and data analytics, and how to demonstrate your worth in the interview. Now on to our conversation

Why Data-Viz is so Darn Important (Kate Strachnyi) - KNN Ep. 16 Nov 05, 2020

In this video I spoke with Kate Strachnyi from @Story by Data about the importance of data visualization. We talked about how Kate learned data visualization, why it is important, and a bit about how you can build a brand for yourself.
You might have seen the linkedin live that we did a few weeks ago together! Kate is the Founder of Story by Data, DATAcated Academy, and the DATAcated Conference which is coming up October 27th, I’ve linked to the sign up page in the description.
She’s an advisory board member for the Initiative for Analytics and Data Science Standards and the International Association for Data Quality, Governance, and Analytics. Kate is also an author, data visualization specialist, and was named as a LinkedIn Top Voice in Data Science & Analytics in 2018 and 2019.

His Startup Will Land You a Data Science Job (Jeremie Harris) - KNN Ep. 15 Nov 05, 2020

In this episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jeremie Harris. Jeremie is the co-founder of SharpestMinds, a data science, machine learning and analytics mentorship program that's free until you get a job. SharpestMinds is a Y Combinator backed startup, the world’s largest mentorship marketplace for data science, with mentors from companies like Google, Tesla, Airbnb and Shopify. He's also the host of the official Towards Data Science podcast, where he talks to world-class data scientists and machine learning researchers about everything from data careers to the future of humanity. I was actually on his podcast a few weeks ago, so definitely go check that out after this (linked below)
Jeremie has an incredibly unique perspective on the data science job market from his work at Sharpest Minds. In this interview we discuss some of the metrics associated with the data science interview process, some of the parallels between entrepreneurship and data science, and a deep dive into his incredible journey.

Hedge Funds, Startups, and Data Science Oh my! (Andrew) - KNN Ep. 14 Nov 04, 2020

In this episode I had the pleasure of speaking with Andrew from dataleap. He is data scientist and youtuber who is providing a great resource free industry education. He breaks down complex data science concepts with his own unique brand of comedy sprinkled in. You also get to enjoy some corgi time with his wonderful sidekick meatball. If you want to see Meatball, be sure to check out the full video interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq9dkZu0bpg
In college, Andrew was grinding for an 80 hour a week job as a management consultant. He had never written a line of code until his junior year. During his masters when he found out about the great opportunities in data science, he was able to teach himself the skills and land a job in just six months. Since then he's bounced around a lot of industries: from cutting edge startups, to billion dollar hedge funds and FAANG companies. Each time he swapped roles, he was able to increase his base compensation and the amount of freedom in his work.
In this video, we will talk about how he learned the skills, how he conquered the interview process, and how maybe you can follow in his footsteps. After the interview, if you want to learn more about Andrew, check out his Youtube channel.

Land a Data Science Job in a Different Country (Vijay Pravin Maharajan) - KNN Ep. 13 Nov 04, 2020

In this episode I had the pleasure of interviewing Vijay Pravin Maharajan. Vijay Pravin Maharajan has had quite the impressive career in data science and as a speaker. He was named on the top 40 Data Scientists under 40 in India, and he was the first Indian to be invited to give a Ted X talk in Germany below the age of 30.
Vijay came from a electrical engineering background and currently works for the German Branch of Siemens as a data analytics expert. If you’re interested in learning more about him after watching this interview, you can find some additional details on his LinkedIn (where he boasts over 33k followers).
In this interview we focus on how to transition into data science from less traditional majors like electrical engineering, how to break into data science roles in other countries (a much requested topic), and how to get comfortable with public speaking.

From IndyCar Racing to Data Literacy (Alex Castrounis) - KNN Ep. 12 Nov 04, 2020

In this episode I had the pleasure of interviewing Alex Castrounis. Alex has had an incredible career in both sports analytics and data science. He started as a IndyCar engineer and eventually managed the data science program at Andretti AutoSport.
Now, Alex is the founder of InnoArchiTech and InnoArchiTech Institute, as well as the author of AI for People and Business. He helps companies create and accelerate their data-driven success, while also helping individuals become more data literate. During his career, Alex has presented to business leaders from many influential organizations such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft, and has explained the benefits of data, analytics, and AI to thousands of people.
Subscribe to Alex's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4grp4LnKaVvL-6lr6nCh4w?sub_confirmation=1
Alex’s Book - AI for People and Business (O’Reilly)
FREE CHAPTER DOWNLOAD - https://www.aipbbook.com
Grab your copy on Amazon - https://amzn.to/3h5jI9a
SIGN UP for the InnoArchiTech weekly newsletter curated by Alex Castrounis
https://www.innoarchitech.com/newsletter

How She Dominated the FAANG Data Science Interview (Tina Huang) - KNN Ep. 11 Nov 04, 2020

In this episode I had the pleasure of speaking with Tina Huang. Tina recently landed a data science position with one of the FANG companies. She also happens to have a data science Youtube channel where she gives tips on how you can dominate the FANG data science interview as well.
In our conversation, Tina talks about how she got started in data science from her initial interest in bioinformatics, she also talks about why she chose to do a Masters in a CS program. She goes in depth into how she landed her internships and she highlights the things that set her apart from other candidates. Finally she explains the techniques she used to beat the FANG data science interview.
Her channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2UXDak6o7rBm23k3Vv5dww
#66DaysOfData : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXLnbdHMf8w
Becoming a good student: https://blog.usejournal.com/learning-to-learn-how-i-went-from-dunce-to-life-long-student-3a7c7c98794c
How Tina got her first internship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx1i1J4m4MQ

Inside the Mind of the ULTIMATE Kaggle Grandmaster (Abhishek Thakur) - KNN Ep. 10 Nov 03, 2020

In this episode I interviewed Abhishek Thakur. He is the first ever 3-time and 4-time kaggle grand master. Abhishek takes us inside his unique mind to understand how he performs so well in the kaggle competitions.
He also talks about how he got his first data science job, the importance of data science projects, and also about getting a job in another country.
Abhishek's Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBPRJjIWfyNG4X-CRbnv78A
His new book: https://amzn.to/2YBxGcu

How a Subscriber Landed a Data Analyst Job in Less Than a Year (Ray Ojel) - KNN Ep. 09 Nov 03, 2020

In this episode, I interview Ray Ojel one of my long time subscribers. Ray recently landed a data analyst job. He did this only 5 months after learning about a data science role and 7 months after learning how to code.
I think this is an incredible accomplishment. In this interview, we carefully go through how he learned the data analyst skills, how he applied for his role, and how he succeeded in through the interview process.
This interview will be useful for anyone looking to break into the field of data analytics and data science. Although, it is very rare to break into the field at this speed, Ray's story shows that it can be done!

The Data Science Twitch Streamer + Sports Analytics (Nick Wan) - KNN Ep. 08 Nov 03, 2020

In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Nick Wan. Nick streams data science content on twitch, but also has worked in sports analytics with the Cincinnati Reds. His work there allowed him to pivot recently into a data science manager role at KFC.
In this interview I talked with Nick about his experiences learning data science, breaking into sports analytics, and streaming data science content on Twitch. He also gives some awesome advice related to interviewing for data science roles and learning as you go. At around an hour in Nick and I talk about what our projects look like and how they have grown over time. Here I even bring up some of my grad school work as an example. If you want to see the video version of the podcast so you can see what Nick and I are referencing check out the Youtube video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_CuB__nsmI.
Follow Nick on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/nickwan_datasci
Follow Nick on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nickwan

What is the Future of AI at NVIDIA? (Anima Anandkumar) - KNN Ep. 07 Nov 03, 2020

In this episode I had the privilege of speaking with Anima Anandkumar about the her background, her work at NVIDIA, and how she views the future of Machine Learning and AI.
Anima is the Head of ML and AI research at NVIDIA. She also is a Bren Professor at CalTech. She has been honored by multiple organizations for her contributions to the field of AI research and she has given multiple talks on topics ranging from the future of AI to ethics in the data science community.
Her Ted Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkJ5lEuGQDw
Her YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/animakumar82
Her Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnimaAnandkumar

Should You Have a Data Science Mentor? (Danny Ma) - KNN Ep. 06 Nov 02, 2020

In this episode, I spoke with Danny Ma about value and mentorship in data science. Danny progressed from humble beginnings in data entry all the way to starting his own data science consulting company. Danny also has a tremendous social reach through linkedin and loves mentoring people interested in the field.
Danny's Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGYPQz_qySbPESTK8k2ky5g
Danny's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dannykcma/

Uber Driver to Machine Learning Engineer in 9 Months (Daniel Bourke) - KNN Ep. 05 Nov 02, 2020

In this episode I interviewed Daniel Bourke, a content creator and machine learning engineer. I get his take on learning machine learning and data science and taking an experimental approach to life.
Daniel's Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr8O8l5cCX85Oem1d18EezQ
Project From Sratch: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2zq7klxX5ASFejJj80ob9ZAnBHdz5O1t
Resume Reviews: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2zq7klxX5ARwEq13TVSxcKmx6pVv2R2B
2020 Roadmap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHiMN_gy9mk

Should You Major in Data Science? (Jaemin Lee) - KNN Ep. 04 Oct 30, 2020

In this episode I talk with Jaemin Lee (Import Data) about if you should major in data science. Jaemin switched his major from CS to data science and recently landed a job as an entry level data scientist. He talks about his experience with his major, interviewing for data science jobs, and with creating content through youtube.

How to Land a Data Science Job at FAANG (Jay Feng) - KNN Ep. 03 Oct 30, 2020

In this episode, I talk with @DataScienceJay about how to get a data science job at a FAANG Company (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google) and bay area startups. Jay has worked as a data scientist at multiple data science startups in the bay area and has started interviewquery.com. He has a tremendous amount of experience with the FANG interview process and on his youtube channel he has multiple mock interviews with real technical questions from these companies.

NASA Physicist Turned Data Scientist (Tim Bowling) - KNN Ep. 02 Oct 29, 2020

KNN Ep. 02 - In this episode I interview my friend Tim Bowling who transitioned from a NASA Physicist to a Data Scientist.
Tim's work focused on simulating asteroid collisions and understanding the possible impacts that these could have on planet habitability.
Before entering data science, he attended a data science boot camp in Chicago called metis. He believes that these could be helpful for some people entering the field, but not for everyone.
I talk with Tim about his expectations about data science versus reality, and about how his previous experience have made him successful in the field.
We also talk at length about what someone who is new to data science should do to achieve success in their first position in the field.

Notorious KNN - KNN Ep. 1.5 Oct 29, 2020

We finally have a name! Ken's Nearest Neighbors was proposed by Cillian Raftery, and was an easy choice. It was the most requested name by popular demand, and it was the best fit with the mission of the podcast.
We are happy to announce Ken's Nearest Neighbors to the world!

Hello World. Who am I? - KNN Ep. 01 Oct 28, 2020

KNN EP. 01 - This is the first episode of the Ken Jee podcast (Now renamed Ken's Nearest Neighbors)! I talk about who I am, what you can expect from the podcast, and why you'll want to stay tuned for future episodes.
So what is this new podcast thing I’m doing? To put simply, this podcast is a more formalized version of the interviews that I have been doing on my channel for some time now. I wanted to make them easier to listen to on the go and bring you all increasingly exciting and diverse guests.
If you aren’t familiar, my name is Ken Jee and I am the head of data science at a sports analytics consulting firm. I am probably better known for my youtube channel though. A staple of my career has been learning through examples. I think there is tremendous power in stories, and this podcast was formulated to bring the most interesting stories I could find about data science, sports analytics, productivity and learning philosophy straight to your ears. Hopefully, I will have the opportunity to bring in some of my idols from data science, sports, and maybe even the authors from some of the books that I’ve read.
This first podcast episode is named “who am I?” because I have yet to come up with a name. I thought it would be awesome to have the various communities that I am a part of come up with a fitting title. The winner will get a shout out, 30 minutes of my time for data science advice (or just to chat), and a prize based on their region. Comment below with a name, on the twitter post, or on my community post which I have linked below. Hint: I like puns. I would love for you all to be involved in this endeavor with me!
This podcast will be available on all of the main channels, spotify, apple podcats, etc. and will also have its dedicated youtube channel. I will also have a podcast clips channel for if you only want the juiciest of clips and hottest of takes.
The first 10 or so episodes will be bulk uploaded at the beginning of November. These are duplicates of the interviews on my youtube channel. From there, it will be a fresh episode every week only available on the platforms I’ve mentioned before. I highly encourage guest recommendations, topics, and feedback to make this the best platform possible.
Again, thank you for tuning in, and I look forward to learning with you on this fun new journey!

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