The Happy Engineer Podcast

067: How Data Science and Machine Learning Lead to Optimizing Your Life with Kristen Kehrer

What does the future of data science and machine learning have to teach you about life?

How can you take the best parts of your work life and use them to optimize your home life?

In this episode, we follow the data and learn as we go with Developer Advocate at CometML, Kristen Kehrer. She has been awarded “LinkedIn Top Voice” in data science and continues to share remarkable content with her audience of over 88,000 technical leaders.

Her passion for machine learning is mirrored by passion for optimizing her life, and we explore both together today.

Kristen is a former Data Science instructor at UC Berkeley Ext, Faculty/SME at Emeritus Institute of Management and Founder of Data Moves Me, LLC. Kristen holds an MS in Applied Statistics from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a BS in Mathematics.

So press play and let’s chat… it’s time to take a look at the data of our lives and iterate to the next level!

 

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WATCH EPISODE 067: HOW DATA SCIENCE AND MACHINE LEARNING LEAD TO OPTIMIZING YOUR LIFE WITH KRISTEN KEHRER

 

LISTEN TO EPISODE 067: HOW DATA SCIENCE AND MACHINE LEARNING LEAD TO OPTIMIZING YOUR LIFE INTERVIEW WITH ZACH’S DEBRIEF

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Previous Episode 066: Q&A #3 with Zach White – The Best Morning Routines for Engineering Leaders and Advice for Student Engineers

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HOW DATA SCIENCE AND MACHINE LEARNING LEAD TO OPTIMIZING YOUR LIFE

 

There is one simple but important point that came up early in my conversation with Kristen that I want to recap with you here. 

In the beginning of our chat, Kristen made a comment that there was a point in her life where she became obsessed with the idea of optimizing her life. 

I love the parallel between how she approached optimizing data systems and all the technology she worked with, and her approach to optimizing continuously learning and taking new actions in her life.

This leads me to my challenge for you today.

STAY CURIOUS.

Curiosity is one of those traits that engineering leaders are naturally drawn into, especially early in our careers. 

I want to challenge you to tap back into that part of you today and tomorrow. 

In every situation, curiosity can be a really powerful energy, attitude state, way of being to come back to.

When you’re furious, get curious.

I say that not because I think you’ve lost it. 

I say that because I know firsthand how the bureaucracy of the business that you deal with and all of the non-core engineering. 

I get it. I’ve been there. I’ve built my career in engineering. I understand there’s a lot of things that we must do in our jobs that are not aligned with our deepest passions, for the technology, for the products, for design.

I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing that we have non-engineering work as part of our roles, but what can happen is we forget to tap into the part of us that drew us into engineering in the first place. 

So I hope you had fun today and go get curious, be a little kid again, be like that kid in the sandbox, who’s just playing and having fun. 

The sandbox of your life is right in front of you, right? 

So go out and have fun. 

Be curious, learn something new today, not by scrolling Facebook and Instagram, but by digging into something that genuinely ignites your passion for life, enjoy doing it. 

And along the way, don’t forget to crush comfort, create courage.

And until next time let’s do this.

Question #2

From Maria, student of engineering.

What advice or tips do you have for those of us still in college? Is there anything that you would do differently based on what you know now?

1) Reconsider just going after the grades

Something I wish I had done differently is not focusing so much on always pursuing the high grades. 

While that served me well in some ways, it also left A LOT on the table because I could have used more focus on really understanding the principles and how to apply the material.

In summary, allow yourself to fall in love with the principles and the material. 

2) Go to office hours. 

I see so many engineers nowadays that are afraid of speaking to superiors. At school, office hours are your opportunity to practice just walking in the room with somebody who you see as a superior and realize that you just can have a chat.

Don’t be afraid to hang out with your professors. 

I wish I had done more of that because it helps you discover how all that you do as homework actually plays out out there in the real world. 

3) Fewer groups, bigger impact.

Back in my Whirlpool days, I did a lot of hiring of college grads. And one of the things that I saw a lot was resumes packed with activities.

And here’s the deal.

If all you’re doing is showing up to a bunch of parties and member meetings and different things for all these groups you paid your dues and you got your permission to put it on your resume, but you didn’t actually move the needle on anything of impact in those organizations. 

To me, that’s not impressive.

Instead, show me (imagine I was to hire you) something meaningful you accomplished. Something that came as a result of you having put your heart and soul into it.

4) Look at yourself as a whole person. 

You will not just be your engineering career. You will (or might) also be a parent, a spouse, and you will have interests outside of your profession.

At OACO we do coaching for engineering leaders around the concept of how to create career success without suffering burnout and becoming one dimensional, working too much, or really only achieving success in your career, but your marriage falls apart or your health falls apart.

So, if you’re still in your youth and these things are not an issue yet, my advice is to start looking at yourself as a whole person in all the different facets of your life, not just you the engineer.

 

ABOUT KRISTEN KEHRER

Kristen Kehrer is currently a Developer Advocate at CometML sharing about the importance of reproducibility and model monitoring in machine learning.

Kristen was a LinkedIn Top Voice in data science and since 2010 has been delivering innovative and actionable statistical modeling and machine learning solutions across multiple industries, including eCommerce, healthcare, and utilities.

Previously Kristen was a Data Science instructor at UC Berkeley Ext, Faculty/SME at Emeritus Institute of Management and Founder of Data Moves Me, LLC. Kristen holds an MS in Applied Statistics from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a BS in Mathematics.

 

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Please note the full transcript is 90-95% accuracy. Reference the podcast audio to confirm exact quotations.

[00:00:00] Zach White: All right. All right. Welcome back Happy engineers and super pumped to be with you today, Kristen. Thanks for making time to be on The Happy Engineer Podcast. Welcome to the show. 

[00:00:11] Kristen Kehrer: Thank you for having me. I’m super psyched to be here.

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