False Advertising - Data Scientist Capital One Employee Review

1.0
Apr 25, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Flexible work hours and convenient downtown location.

Cons

3 out of the 60 DS actually do work that resembles industry standard DS work. These are the folks that are sent to public and recruiting events to make it sound like we all do real DS work. Don't be fooled! Most of the business leaders do not know what DS resources are or how to use them. They think Data Scientists' core job is to write SQL scripts for business analysts and process managers for "controls". Instead of investing in proper tech resources and fixing processes, leaders choose to use Data Science resources to write SQL script based "controls" designed by business stake holders who know nothing about data or SQL. You don't think you will be writing SQL scripts for data pulling when you sign up for a job description that throws out AI Machine Learning and PhD requirements. It's outright outrageous false advertisement. There are frequent breakdowns in processes that impact our customers. The in-house euphemism for this is a "risk event". Data Science resources are used regularly to fix these risk events by adhoc query writing to pull data for process manager who were not able run their processes properly. No wonder more than a dozen data scientists have left the company in the last few months. Turn over is insanely high. The gave every DS a big fat raise recently hoping to stop the bleeding. Did not help... The kind of problems the business is trying to solve do not require data science, machine learning or even basic statistics. Just some reliable data and SQL developers / Data Analysts would be more than sufficient.

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Cons

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Cons

Never heard more nonsensical topics during meetings; people sharing their sexual preferences, flaunting overly dramatic personal lifestyle decisions, diversity to the point of failure, etc. Hearing the term "white guilt" in a professional setting was, well, pretty unprofessional. Stack ranking for performance reviews is a mess. Someone has to have an "F" regardless of their performance because that is what their line of business is allotted. Be prepared to be held responsible for actions any Sr Leadership would just sweep under the rug under their own circumstances. If a manager doesn't like you, regardless of your productivity, you're toast unless you're able to find another LoB to support. HR / AR are just a check in the box and will most likely point you from one to the other and back again without resolving any issues. You'll find yourself curious as to what leadership does as they continue to scrape managerial responsibilities from their plate, to yours. Last but certainly not least; you may find yourself working hard on a project; nights and weekends, just in case that work life balance is feeling a little too perfect. Fret not, someone will surely assist in taking credit for the hard work you've put in. I'm sure none of these things will happen to you, though. Best of luck!

4
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