Insider profil
Keen to receive questions about
Top Insider Advice
I think you should be aware that communication and presentation skills, motivation and the will to grow and further develop your abilities are not only buzzwords but skills that are often underestimated but quite relevant for the work of a Data Scientist. I often have to explain and present the approaches I used and the results I obtained on various levels of granularity to different audiences. For example, when discussing with other data scientists in the company I need to be able to explain how a method works in detail. In contrast to that I have to focus on the business implications of my modeling choices when talking to the business colleagues or to managers. For the latter audience it is usually more relevant to understand the general idea of an approach rather than the details of how it is working. It is not easy to switch between these settings and to find a proper way of communicating to each of these different kinds of audiences but keep in mind that this will be a relevant part of your work as a Data Scientist. Additionally, lifelong learning is not only a buzzword at TUI. You should be motivated to actually stay up to date with the current state of the art Machine Learning procedures and bring motivation and initiative to continue your learning process. As a team, we are deeply involved in decisions that concern the way we work and the tools we use. Therefore, we have to keep track of new developments in the world of Data Science and Machine Learning and need to be willing to adopt new methods or tools if we expect them to be useful for our daily work.
Career path
Data Scientist
TUI Group
Started 05/2018 to PresentCompany
What do you live about your job and the company?
I do not work in one specific business area but join different teams for some months to support them in setting up a data driven solution for a specific problem. It is very interesting to dive into a different business area every few months for a new project. As the requirements of the individual areas typically vary widely so do the solutions they need. I often have to teach myself new methods or dig deeper into the understanding of methods to check whether they might be suitable for my current use case. I really enjoy that my work is not only setting up the same model for each problem and that I often need to come back to my “classical” statistics skills to investigate whether my product is working as expected – and if not why. To keep up with the changes and progress in the machine learning world, I am always motivated by my manager to spend time on learning more about topics that might help me with my job. This might be Udemy or Coursera online courses to learn more about new methodological approaches and the theory behind them or courses to improve my skills to work with the common tool set. For example I spend some time to improve my programming skills in terms of making more use of object oriented functionalities or design patterns.
Greatest achievements
I am really happy that one of the major objectives in my Data Science team is to bring solutions into production and it makes me proud to see products I built with the project team being actually used by the business colleagues as part of their daily work. On the personal side I am very proud of having adapted successfully to rapidly changing business requirements and the technical landscape in terms of tooling and ways of working. After doing research at the university it was quite hard for me to switch the setting and to cope with the fact that working in practice requires a reordering of priorities. That is I had to accept that a good solution does not have to be the best solution in theory but the one that yields useful results while being stable and reliable in a productive environment. Furthermore, with the help of my colleagues I have managed to build up a community for Data Scientists all over the company in the last years. This allows people from different areas to get into contact and exchange about what kind of projects they are working on. We organize regular events like workshops on code improvements or the use of common infrastructure and deep dive sessions on the methods used in specific projects. We also organized a Hackathon in the last year to collect ideas for the further development of on an actual Data Science project. All in all, I can say that I have developed and improved many of my personal competences since having started as a Data Scientist at TUI: I have improved my knowledge about tools and infrastructure (especially on working with cloud resources), refined my programing skills and enhanced my organizational skills when it comes to collaboration with my direct colleagues in the Data Science team but also with colleagues in specific project teams.
Chrys S
Volume Assessment Team Leader
Top Insider Advice
I would like to think the key thing to remember is that we are individuals, and as individuals, we share a common passion for travel. My best advice to any potential candidate is BE YOURSELF! I have always brought my personality to work and always made friends all over the world in each destination I've worked in, to date. One other piece of advice I'd give, is use your nerves to your advantage; the reason we get nervous is because we are doing something far outside of our comfort zones. Starting a career with us means you'll eventually overcome those nerves the minute you step foot on the plane when you're travelling to your new destination. Keep an open mind, learn new languages, cultures, experience different things and you'll see just how big the world really is!
Matt R
Senior Trading Manager
Top Insider Advice
Letting your passion shine through, and letting your personality come out in your work is, for me, really important. When you enjoy your work, it is great to let that show as it helps others see that passion, and shows you are motivated and engaged by what you do. I also think it is really important to be open and honest at work at well. Let your manager and colleagues know how you are feeling, and don't be afraid to ask questions - especially in Trading, asking questions is so important in helping you learn and understand the role.
