Spotlight: Meet Lucie, our data scientist
In our second spotlight interview, we met with Lucie to find out what it means to be a data scientist at datasapiens, how she handles remote working environments and what she does to recharge.
You are a data scientist; what does that mean exactly? 😊
To me, it means the ability to imagine a large amount of various data and project them in a clean, understandable, and insightful form. Many tools can help data scientists to achieve this (SQL, Python, R, SAS, and many others).
The ability to visualize the data is crucial for this profession. Einstein famously said: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while Imagination embraces the entire world and all there ever will be to know and understand.” And this perfectly explains data science as such.
Describe your average working day, so we understand your role in the team better.
I work in a Product team with my three other colleagues. Similarly, like other teams, we work in a 2-week sprint trying to use the best of agile project planning. We usually have longer-term projects rolling over from sprint to sprint and many unplanned ad-hoc requests from the clients.
The average day is very diverse depending on the phase of the project. In the initial phase, I spend most of my time on various meetings and discussions. In the execution phase, I dedicate 80% of the working day to deep work and programming. The rest are alignment meetings with other team members or across different teams.
You have been working remotely with datasapiens for years now. How has it been for you?
Before the covid-19 pandemic, I have been working semi-remotely. And hope for the same working schedule soon again. It meant that I travelled to the office once every other week for two days. I could enjoy both the physical presence in the office and the deep work that was mainly part of the remote work.
Having an office more than 300 km away from home brings some personal time without family.
You are a mum of two. How do you manage to combine a successful career with raising a family?
The magic is that I am not alone in this role. I am fortunate to work for an open-minded company that recognizes the importance of parenthood and offers part-time work.
And fortunate to have my closest family living close to us.
And fortunate to live in a small town where we found a community that runs friendly and caring kindergarten. All this together creates a balance.
What do you do to recharge?
Simply 3 things. Being with my family, stroll in nature (Roznov) listening to a piece of good music (Beyonce 😊).
You are a professional in a predominantly male field, has that affected your career?
I don’t feel affected in my career, but am proud I can participate in balancing the gender inequality IT.