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How to build a data science team 20115.03.13v6
1. Teralytics Pte. Ltd.
261 Waterloo Street #02-24
Singapore 180261
23.03.2015 Phone
E-Mail
Web
+65 9873 7882
info@teralytics.net
www.teralytics.net
How to build a data science team
Confidential
Jardine OneSolution Big Data Seminar, 13th March 2015, Hong Kong
2. 223.03.2015How to build a data science team
Teralytics provides insights on human behaviour on a global
scale in real-time
350 Million
behavior profiles tracked
globally every day
180 Billion
events processed in real-
time every day covering
location, demographics, web
traffic etc.Offices in
New York, Zurich and
Singapore
with clients across four continents
4. 423.03.2015How to build a data science team
5
Answering questions from businesses and governments
• What is the mean and median distance residents take to travel from home to
work?
• How many people pass through the streets of Berlin and where do we place our
ads to reach our target segments most effectively?
• Which malls in Singapore have the highest number of visits from wealthy
female shoppers between the ages of 25 and 35?
5. 523.03.2015How to build a data science team
We need to form a data science team as we ship data
products
Data Sources
Human behavior data obtained from
location, consumption and financial
data
Powerful Analytics
Anonymization, aggregation and
analytics based on state-of-the-art
algorithms in a secure environment
Data-as-a-Service
Real-time and historic view of
actionable insights presented on a
beautiful web dashboard
Financial Data
Payment Processors, Credit Cards,
POS
Consumption Data
Browsing Activity, TV, Loyalty
Cards, CRM Data
Location Data
Mobile Network, WiFi, GPS
What we build
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Data science team in Singapore builds one of the three
products that is deployed globally
Singapore
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Is anyone in the room looking to build a data science team?
Data Tools
Data Scientists
Harvard Business Review: Data scientist:
the sexiest job of the 21st Century.
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Don’t hunt for the unicorn!
Maths & Statistics
• Machine learning
• Statistical modelling
• Experiment design
• Bayesian interference
• Supervised learning: decisions trees,
random forest, logistic regression
• Unsupervised learning: clustering,
dimensionality reduction
• …
Domain Knowledge & Soft Skills
• Passionate about business
• Curious about data
• Influence over authority
• Hacker mindset
• Problem solver
• Strategic, proactive, creative,
innovative and collaborative
Programming & Database
• Computer science fundamentals
• Scripting language e.g. Python
• Statistical computing package e.g. R
• Database SQL and NoSQL
• Relational algebra
• Parallel databases and parallel query
processing
• MapReduce concepts
• …
Communication & Visualization
• Able to engage with senior
management
• Story telling skills
• Translate data-driven insights into
decisions and actions
• Visual art design
• …
11. 1123.03.2015How to build a data science team
Build a team with different, overlapping skills
ModellingSoftware
Engineering
Data
engineering /
DevOps
Two other skills
missing here:
• Business analysis
(taken care by the
business team)
• Visualization
(taken care by
visualization team)
New York Times: For Big-Data
Scientists, 'Janitor Work' is
key hurdle to insights
Tech lead
1 1
1
2
12. 1223.03.2015How to build a data science team
Building the team
How to find
them?
How to
evaluate
them?
How to get
them to join
you?
How to get
them to work
together as a
team?
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How do we find them? Headhunter was the most effective
• Worked with six
different headhunting
companies (no more BI
folks please!)
• One company placed
four out of six of the
team members
Schools
Job
portals
Head hunters
14. 1423.03.2015How to build a data science team
Profile of the data science team in Singapore: no single
reservoir which you could recruit from
Nationalities Education Previous employers
15. 1523.03.2015How to build a data science team
How do we evaluate them? 5 stages of interview
First
interview
Take-home
test
Technical
interview
Co-
working
day
Reference
check
• Requires 12 man-hours in total from us
• Getting the team involved helps in integration of new hires
Two key benefits for candidates:
• They get to understand the work that they will be doing
• They get to interact with the colleagues they will be working with
16. 1623.03.2015How to build a data science team
How do we convince them to join you? Money is not
everything
• No need to be
high
• Pay sufficiently so
it is not a talking
point
Money? Team? Adventure?
• A-players like to
work with A-players
• Learn different
area of expertise
from other team
members
• Have access to a lot of
data / many different
forms of data
• Work on interesting
and practical
problems
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How do you get them to work together as team? Burn them
in through a delivery
• Clear goal and hard deadline
• Burn them in
• Deliver quick wins for the company
Give them a
project
Co-locate, co-
work and
communicate
• Sit them in the same location
• Get the modellers to do some of the work of the software engineers /
data engineers
• Get the modellers to talk about their models in team presentations
18. 1823.03.2015How to build a data science team
How long does it take to build the team? It’s possible to ship
a product and build the team at the same time
Product
development
Hiring
Mar
2014
Jun
2014
Sep
2014
Oct
2014
Nov
2014
Dec
2014
1st data
scientist
hired
2nd data
scientist
(tech lead)
hired
3rd 4th 5th 6th data
scientist
hired
Start
development of
v1.0 of product
Shipped v1.0
of product
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N = 1
This is my experience and I have only built one data science
team
20. 2023.03.2015How to build a data science team
Thank you!
Lin Zhihao
Head of Asia
Email: zhihao.lin@teralytics.net
Tel: +65 (0) 9873 7882
