#datacareer - Join the AI Guild coaching program - 2020-08-21-Marija and Dania

Learn about the requirements and benefits of the AI Guild #datacareer coaching program that offers you accelerated professional development to the senior level.

This introductory workshop offers you the following:

- An overview of the key elements of the coaching program and of the benefits for the participants
- Information on how to apply and how the selection process is done
- A preview of the AI Guild certification as 'senior practitioner'

Target participants

Practitioners in the first 5 years of their professional life. The program focuses on roles such as data analyst, data engineer, data scientist, and ML practitioner.

Proof-of-concept

The AI Guild is the go-to community for data scientists, data engineers, data analysts, and machine learners in startups and industry - as well as business professionals advancing AI adoption.

The AI Guild is engaged in #datacareer coaching for its members and supports career development.

- AI Guild career coaching running for junior and senior practitioners since early 2019, with a yearly capacity of 240 appointments
- 100+ senior members leading on industry use cases, leading training; and leading on consultancy and freelance services.
- The AI Guild community with 350+ members

Transcript

1. TOWARDS THE SENIOR PRACTITIONER INTRODUCING THE #DATACAREER COACHING PROGRAM
2. #DATACAREER “No matter who you are, self-improvement is one of the most important and most overlooked attributes of young AI talent. It only takes four years of experience to become a senior…, or five years of experience to lead... The determination and discipline to improve both the hard and soft skills continually will be the deciding factor in (any)… career.” Adapted from Jean-François Gagné, co-founder of Element AI
3. HOW DO WE ENABLE PRACTITIONERS TO BE THE BEST SENIORS THEY CAN BE?
4. Link to the article on Medium https://medium.com/ai- guild/the-datacareer- competency-profile- 8681d4a1dfae
5. Dr. Marija Vlajic Wheeler Senior expert Data scientist since 2013 PhD Astrophysics (Oxford) LinkedIn
6. Dânia Meira ML models for forecast and recommendation #datacareer since 2012 Former bootcamp teacher AI Guild GmbH LinkedIn
7. THE AGENDA • The coaching program • The competency profile • Structure of the program • Accreditation • How to apply
8. THE COACHING PROGRAM • For practitioners in the first 5 years of their professional life. • Designed for empowering you to accelerate your career and advance AI adoption. • Focus on specific roles such as data analyst, data scientist, data engineer, ML engineer. • Highly suitable for freelancers. • Supports you principally with your existing role, tasks, and commitments. • Structured program for cohorts with a yearly review.
9. BENEFITS FOR YOU AS COACHEE • Guidance on what to prioritize in your professional development. • Coaching sessions designed to accelerate your career. • Challenges to support you in being a senior. • Individual annual review and career planning. • Yearly progress certificate.
10. REQUIREMENTS • You have been in the field for 12 months or more. • You are clear about your motivation and goals for the career coaching. • You have the ability and time for continuing professional development. • You have the willingness to build a portfolio for a senior role.
11. LEARNINGS FROM THE CAREER COACHING Specialization and differentiation of roles Rising value of product and domain expertise Increasing focus on deployment Senior in terms of independence and leadership is the key benchmark
12. THE #DATACAREER PUZZLE • Career paths are not well understood and often ending early • Quality standards for senior roles are not established widely • Competency profiles for the data roles are only emerging
13. SETTING THE STANDARD NOW For you, the practitioner in the first 5 professional years, we achieve the following: 1. Assess your competency profile based on your CV, portfolio, and continuing professional development. 2. Provide guidance on what to prioritize in your professional development to achieve senior status as soon as possible. 3. Offer accreditation by the AI Guild that you have achieved the senior status.
14. THE AGENDA • The coaching program • The competency profile • Structure of the program • Accreditation • How to apply
15. #datacareer competency profile Professional mission Data skills Business impact
16. MISSION STATEMENT EXAMPLES “I continually invest in improving my production capability through training and new challenges. I have been up skilling to Data Science based on my experience in large-scale IT and data infrastructure.” “I am bringing machine learning skills to the energy industry to help decarbonize the supply of heat and electricity.” “I am a data scientist with deep domain expertise in economics and statistics. My focus is on e-commerce and I am particularly interested in recommender systems.”
17. DATA SKILLS PROFILE OVERVIEW Task Understand business case, build features to train predictive models for such use cases Skill Statistics, SQL, programming (e.g. python, R), ML & DL techniques. Data Scientist Task Business and data under- standing to report on what happens Skill Descriptive analytics, SQL, statistics, dashboarding and visualization tools Data Analyst Data Engineer Task Build and maintain infra- structure and pipeline to collect, clean and pre-process data Skill Distributed systems, databases, software engineering Task Optimize, deploy and maintain machine learning models in production Skill Software engineering, devops and systems architecture ML Engineer Task Build new machine learning algorithms, find custom scientific solutions Skill Research, presenting at conferences, writing publications AI Researcher
18. BUSINESS IMPACT CONCEPTS Project management Peer communication Pair- and teamwork Resolution of road- blocks, glitches etc. High-quality delivery Product development Users, UX, and UI Scrum (Non-)technical communication Bottom-line impact Analytical skills Thought leader Domain leader Product leader Company leader
19. PORTFOLIO Your portfolio are the use cases you are working on and contributing to, and these are very much interrelated with your professional mission, data skills, and business impact. Based on your work as employee, freelancer and/or volunteer; always respecting confidentiality and, where possible, supporting open source code, open repos, and open data. Practically speaking: Some public or open work helps very much but if your circumstances are such that you can describe the use cases only in the abstract, that is fine too.
20. WHY COMPETENCY PROFILES? Professional mission, data skills, and business impact describe the core competencies in an ecosystem characterized by the scarcity of expertise. Companies and practitioners need to scale use cases in the next decade. The question to you is: ”Are you building the competency profile for leading on the product and domain use cases?”
21. SETTING THE STANDARD NOW* We are committed to building competency profiles for data careers across roles in tech, product, and business, starting from ▪ Data Analyst ▪ Data Scientist ▪ Data Engineer ▪ ML engineer ▪ NLP practitioner ▪ Computer Vision practitioner *We recommend a look at the pioneering work by Michelangelo D’Agostino & Katie Malone “The Care and Feeding of Data Scientists. How to build, manage, and retain a data science team”
22. THE AGENDA • The coaching program • The competency profile • Structure of the program • Accreditation • How to apply
23. PROGRAM STRUCTURE Dedicated communication channel Accountability partner from your peer group to help you reach your goals Two sessions per month: ▪ A monthly check-up on your goals and progress ▪ A live and recorded session on professional or personal development by a fellow practitioner, manager, career coach, or similar
24. RUNNING THE PROGRAM Head Dedicated coaches On-demand coaching Structure of the program Admissions Annual reviews and career planning Annual reviews and career planning Dedicated sessions Guidance on role specific competency profiles + professional development Individual coaching sessions on demand Progress monitoring on demand Extra sessions on demand
25. EXPECTATIONS FOR COACHEES ▪ Work effectively on professional development, with the cohort peers, and towards high-quality delivery ▪ Accept feedback from coaches, seize learning opportunities, and achieve accelerated progress every year ▪ Accept one challenge per year to enhance the sense of professional mission ▪ Accepts a second challenge to display and utilize data and/or business skills associated with the senior level
26.  #datacareer barriers  Gender bias  Immigrant glass ceiling  Boring roles  Management failure WE ARE AVAILABLE FOR LISTENING…
27. ▪ For the annual review we ask you to hand in a full CV with your competence profile ▪ If relevant, we will look at repos and online profiles ▪ You will be asked to provide a one-slide career plan with your key priorities and suggestions N.B. Your annual review will be every 12 months for as long as you participate in the coaching program. YOUR ANNUAL ASSESSMENT
28. WHAT IS FREE Application and participation in the #datacareer coaching program is free of charge.
29. FEE BASED  Two independent reviews (annually) of your progress based on the competency profile, portfolio, and professional development  Personal guidance and career planning feedback based on the review  Certificate of individual progress  Individual sessions or extra feedback on demand, supporting you in making progress with your professional development On-demand coaching Annual review and planning
30. IT’S YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENT, NO MATTER WHO PAYS Ask your company to cover the cost  Certified and tracked development of your technical and business skills  Quality assured career progression for you  Written feedback and planing for your specialist skills development  Yearly review of what to prioritize to be recognized as senior  Enhanced freelance standing with certified quality assurance to clients  Dedicated personal support for your career development needs Pay from a training or development budget You fund it on your own
31. THE AGENDA • The coaching program • The competency profile • Structure of the program • Accreditation • How to apply
32. For senior practitioners, available from January 2021 ▪ Present and defend your case to a board of independent senior experts ▪ Be accredited by the AI Guild as a senior practitioner ▪ Move on and be a leading practitioner advancing AI adoption ACCREDITATION
33. THE AGENDA • The coaching program • The competency profile • Structure of the program • Accreditation • How to apply
34. KEY DATES FOR THE #DATACAREER COACHING PROGRAM ▪ Apply by 31 August for October 2020 ▪ Apply by 30 November 2020 for January 2021 ▪ Apply by 28 February for April 2021 ▪ Apply by 31 May for July 2021 and so on
35. WHAT YOU NEED TO APPLY* *Applications for all of 2020 are open via www.theguild.ai/career
36. The AI Guild is the go-to community for data scientists, data engineers, data analysts, and machine learners in startups and industry - as well as business professionals advancing AI adoption. 1000+ conversations with 350+ practitioners at 50+ events COMMUNITY #DATALIFT Join the Support the