Merlin Star's Website

This is mainly going to be a ramble of some on my thoughts. As you may know, I am looking to break into being a data scientist or a data analyst position more aligned with what I want to do. While I am technically a data analyst, this job primarily uses SAS, followed by SQL. The SQL experience is important, but my focus on SAS means that I cannot put down years of experience for Python or R. It puts me in the spot where my best bet of going more technical than my current position would be to pivot to pharmaceutical, but I would prefer not to do that.

I have a couple of years of academic experience of using R and I am beginning to pick up Python. I have a bachelor’s in mathematics and a master’s in quantitative psychology. To me, I will be in a good spot to try my attempt next year. If you want details, see my post on my plans for my portfolio.

Now, I am thinking how I want to do this navigation. This is where race becomes relevant. I want to try and avoid companies that are going to have massive problems against me. Lot of big tech companies known for not being very inclusive towards Black folks. I would prefer to work with a small tech company that focuses on ethics or such. The problem is that most of those places are not going to be hiring too much at the entry level. They need someone that this isn’t their first rodeo because they are small and do not have many people to count on. I could also try big tech company, then little tech company, but I would rather just avoid all big tech companies.

My preferred pivot would be doing some small work freelancing, then pivot to small tech company. Or maybe freelance and just build the income entirely that way. I also do not have the metacognition yet to fully assess the extent of my skills. To me, I am fairly technically minded. I can do joins in SQL, I can do regression in SAS, and I know some of the mathematical foundation for statistics. But is this enough? Will it be enough to go to a different spot? Will showing how I handle ethics, survey design, data analysis, cleaning data, and my thought process be truly enough for something entry level?

For most data science people, this level of detail would be more than enough to land an entry level job. But, Black people never get the benefit of the doubt. Even with this level of detail, I worry that it might not be enough. I don’t know at what point it will be good enough. My bachelor’s degree is relevant. My master’s degree is also relevant, but unless someone sees it with human eyes, they won’t know that. I could explain that my degree directly deals with survey design and applying statistics to psychology, but given how little time people devote to reading resumes, I am not sure if it’s even worth the effort to include in my 1 page resume.

The worst part about this is not being passed up over repeatedly. I can deal with rejection. I love improving. The worst part is seeing other people that have put in less effort get selected and then they promptly bounce when it turns out that effort is required. I’m seeing people with less technical knowledge and less relevant degrees getting consistently picked over me. They are choosing a candidate that fits with their prejudice, not what is best for the person or someone that would be the most competent at their job given the current and future circumstances. That turnover not only hurts the person that was being hired, but it hurts the employer too. It’s a negative sum game that damages the ability for the company to retain people. And you might be thinking “Soft skills, work on those”, the issue is that I have been working on that and all that has caused is even higher social standards that exacerbate stress. I love to improve and do better, but I don’t want to be at 200% all the time. That is not sustainable.

I’m just thinking of what things I am willing to trade off to start breaking in. I am willing to put in at least 10-15 hours a week for improving my portfolio, making connections, and applying to relevant stuff. I am willing to admit I was wrong, look up how to do better, and thank someone for helping me to improve. I am not willing to tolerating being abused or work at a place where abuse is tolerated.

My “ideal” position would be to freelance until I made this a full time income, but I am not sure I even have the technical skills to do that, let alone putting myself out there and such. It feels like almost everyone in this work is more skilled than me both technically and with interviewing. Which I mean is true: Most people will have that because they outright have more experience in both. And I know comparison is the thief of joy, but when you’re already expected to be better than most people, go at this longer, face more rejection, deal with some people giving you crap, and expected to take all of this in a 100% positive manner of you can do it with no room to vent or you’re seen as undesirable, it can be incredibly discouraging. That will not stop me, but I am not sure of how to manage all of this without risking burnout or crashing.

Anyways, if you’re a Black person who broke into tech, let me know your thoughts please. Maybe I just need more hope or something. Maybe I’m already ready. I don’t know.