In August I left Spotify. It was fascinating to see how sophisticated machine learning is done at such a large scale, and I learned a great deal about the music industry. But I had an opportunity to work at a startup focused on something I care deeply about — children’s education.
I’m now at Sawyer, a platform for children’s educational activities. At this point, I have experience at a variety of tech companies, and I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t, particularly for data teams. With this in mind, I wrote a post on Locally Optimistic with advice for the first data hires at early stage startups: Building a Data Practice from Scratch. I hope someone finds it helpful.