This post is about my gripes as an industry insider, not intended to discourage anyone from pursuing it as a career. I'm forever grateful I have a job where I can do the one thing I enjoy doing and earn a solid living. His post doesn't have a single point, but goes through all the aspects of industry data science that drove him crazy. You should check it out. Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. I resonated with his post so much that I felt compelled to write my reasons for being frustrated with industry data science, and what I think you can practically do about it if you feel the same way. Having worked as a data scientist for seven years, I've grown weary. The standard new data scientist is typically an academically minded person who gave up about $500k in opportunity cost (versus had they gone into industry as a data analyst or software engineer) to first do academic research that qualifies them for roughly the same salary.

The Allen Telescope Array, used by Northern California's SETI Institute in its often difficult-to-fund search for extraterrestrial life.Redding Record Searchlight / Zuma Press This story was originally published by Undark and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Science is built on the boldly curious exploration of the natural world. Astounding leaps of imagination and insight--coupled with a laser like focus on empiricism and experimentation--have brought forth countless wonders of insight into the workings of the universe we find ourselves in. But the culture that celebrates, supports, and rewards the audacious mental daring that is the hallmark of science is at risk of collapsing under a mountain of cautious, risk-averse, incurious advancement that seeks merely to win grants and peer approval. I've encountered this problem myself.