At Insight, our commitment to Fellows doesn’t end once they land their first jobs; we’re constantly looking for ways to foster a vibrant alumni community. In late 2016, we gathered Insight’s NYC Data Science and Data Engineering alums for a panel on career advancement. The discussion was targeted both to those who had been in their roles for 1–2 years and the newly hired, still in the early months of their jobs but interested in laying a foundation for growth.

Our panelists included:

Tom Vincent (Insight Fellow ’14, Data Scientist @ DigitalOcean)

Josh Ainsley (Insight Fellow ‘14, Senior Director of Data Science @ Vroom)

Shani Offen (Director of Data Science @ About.com)

Yan Kou (Insight Fellow ‘15, Head of Health Data Science @ Insight)

We were also joined by moderator Deepna Devkar (Insight Fellow ‘15, Data Scientist @ Viacom) and Geneviève Smith (Insight Fellow ‘14, Head of Data Science NY @ Insight).

Top: Tom Vincent, Josh Ainsley, Shani Offen. Bottom: Yan Kou, Deepna Devkar, Geneviève Smith.

Climbing the career ladder can be challenging, and — much like transitioning from academia to industry — it’s hard to know how, when, and where to start. Our audience wanted to know:

•How do you demonstrate your individual contributions?

•What personal connections can set you up for success?

•How can your manager help you grow?

•When should you talk to your manager about your career plans?

•How do you manage your own professional development?

How do you demonstrate your individual contributions?

Understand where you fit

Put your work in context. What are the company’s high-level objectives? Which of those goals is pursued by your team? What were you hired to do? To highlight your most important achievements, from the company’s point of view, Tom recommended asking the question: “Is your team closer to its goals than when you started?” If so, how did your efforts help them get there?

Make your work visible

Tom’s next piece of advice: “Take the initiative to do a lunch-and-learn demo about what the team is building or something you own.” You can also speak up at an all-hands meeting, “to share how your team is making the business better.” If someone beyond your direct manager has the final say on title changes and promotions (like a CTO), invite them, too. In Josh’s words, “make sure the person who will ultimately decide about your advancement knows the work you are doing.”

Share your knowledge

Set aside time to mentor your junior colleagues or build documentation for best practices. For example, if your tech time keeps getting interrupted by requests to open files too big for Excel, teach your colleagues how to use Python. Tom added that with contributions like these, “the team will start to operate better, and people will recognize your role in that.” Bonus: increasing others’ technical competence helps them work independently, and can free up time for you to learn and execute more sophisticated tasks.

What personal connections can set you up for success?

Be buddies with your boss

Yan’s suggestion is to “form a personal and professional relationship with your direct manager. This person will be the biggest promoter for you at the company. They will make sure that other people know what you’ve been doing and give you credit for your achievements.” But don’t make it all about you — ask them what they find exciting about the company’s near-term growth. As she pointed out, their response will help you to “position or align yourself with where the company is going.”

Go across team lines

Beyond your team, your boss, and your boss’ boss, Shani advised “getting to know the other people in your company. Understand the larger business goals and where everyone fits in.” But don’t try to forge a relationship just for the sake of advancing — it will feel weird for both of you. One way to connect, offered by Josh, is to make yourself useful to those working in the sales or marketing team: “Show them the benefit of doing deeper analysis than what they’re currently doing.” You should learn from them, too. How can you integrate knowledge from their domain into your workflow and product sense?

Start seeing other people

Attending — and presenting at — industry events can help build your reputation in the wider community. However, many data science meet-ups focus on aspiring or entry-level data scientists. Yan has struggled to find groups aimed at helping people progress in their careers. “I’ve never seen a meet-up where it’s a room of managers and team leads talking about how they got there.” Instead, participate in conferences; these often feature speakers in senior-level or tech lead roles. Check out the happy hour or networking events to meet new colleagues and learn about their careers.

How can your manager help you grow?

Use your one-on-ones wisely

According to Yan, “since your manager is probably responsible for multiple direct reports, it’s a good idea to take the lead in your one-on-one.” Set an agenda, and don’t waste this time on status updates. Josh’s point of view is that these meetings should be used to tell your manager how they could be most useful to you. “Everything that you think they can help with — if you’re blocked, or if there’s something you want to learn, even if it’s six months away — start talking about it so your manager can start thinking about it and working on it, too.”

Request greater guidance

If your manager isn’t great at giving feedback, Geneviève proposed “reminding yourself that you two share the same goal. They want to help you hit your targets, they want to be a better communicator — but you often have to show them how.” Press them to provide specific and descriptive feedback where you need it most. Tom also recommended asking “if you’re converting your weaknesses into strengths, not just getting better at the things you’re already great at.”

When should you talk to your manager about your career plans?

Keep the lines open

Shani advocated for making the topic of your professional growth “a constant conversation, not a one-time conversation. Be open with your manager about what you like — and don’t like — about your job, what would make you leave, what would make you stay.” Don’t wait for a formal review to discuss how things are going. “Plant the seed early,” Yan added, “so that your manager knows what you want. That helps them help you get there.”

Review your work

On the ideal performance review, Shani’s perspective is that it shouldn’t be “just a recap of the things you’ve worked on since the last review.” Instead, she thinks it should answer the questions that will help your manager better manage you. “What challenges can you help me get past? What are my goals for the next six months? What do I want to learn? What do I want to do that I’m not doing yet?” Yan added that “a good review should also put your job tasks into three buckets: where you’re successful, where you’re not doing well, and your biggest pain points.”

Talk about your feelings

A manager herself, Geneviève said that “your manager’s biggest nightmare is that you’ll become unhappy and leave the team.” If you’re unhappy, it’s important to bring this up before your job satisfaction reaches a critical level. Shani suggested “pointing out what you’re worried about but also what’s good, and talking about how you can keep it that way.” It’s a difficult conversation, but one that helps both of you. As Geneviève brought up, “if you get so dissatisfied that you leave, your departure won’t reflect well on your manager — especially if it’s a surprise.”

How do you manage your own professional development?

Level up your skills

“The opportunity to grow personally comes and goes,” Shani noted. You won’t always have bandwidth to devote to learning new technical skills, especially when the team’s focus is on higher-level goals. If you want to learn something new, you have to commit to it, and it helps to get others involved. Use the ‘buddy system’ to keep yourself accountable, and establish a deliverable that will motivate you to complete the project — and provide evidence of your increased skill.

Know what’s out there

Ask your manager to define the more senior roles on your team and the competences they require. Tom highlighted the importance of “knowing what is expected of you at each step.” For example, if you’re currently a Data Scientist, you might learn that the ideal Senior Data Scientist is not just technically skilled but also has the capacity to collaborate with stakeholders and supervise projects. To move into a Tech Lead position, beyond being a strong coder, you may need to show that you can guide a small team end-to-end on a project.

Have a long-term plan

Where do you want to be five years from now? Yan posed an important question: “Are you aiming at being solely the best data scientist, or are you looking to move into a leadership position? Because the higher up you are, the less technical your role will be.” Leading requires spending a lot of time in meetings, improving the effectiveness of your team, and managing and planning projects — and you can start building these skills in your current job.

Being part of the Insight community connects you to data scientists and engineers at various career stages, for professional advice and technical mentorship. Insight alum or not, make sure you’re building relationships outside your immediate team and company. When you meet someone whose career trajectory aligns with your aspirations, ask them how they got there. Learning about the paths taken by your colleagues — the skills they developed and the connections they made — can help you pave the way towards your next data science role.