First impressions

Opportunities to learn seem boundless, be it free or paid. Estimated learning time before starting in a company is about 3 months (full-time conservative?). Money is lot better than what I am doing now. Allows some scope for direct working. It looks like this could be an option if earning-to-give is not really the primary option, although I suspect I should be able to do 50k$/ year within the next 10 years if I am at the top tech firms. Personal fit wise, this appears to be the closest to what I can migrate to work wise.

Diving into the details

Skills obtainable: Problem-solving, programming, large data-analysis, statistics all of which are transferable.
Connections: No idea. But my friend in DS who worked in MuSigma India, now in Apple seems to have worked with big-shots. If direct work is my goal, I should network with the right people, say within 80k hours team. But to reach them I need to be a high achiever. In other words, connections are good, nothing out of the normal.

I suspect it would be possible to meet the best people at the best places, like Google, Facebook, or in start-ups.
Credentials: The impression I get based on what 80k hours DS profile says, is that the success is tangible, although not as crystal clear as in marketing/sales. So basically, it should be possible to explain to future employers based on my progress and level of problems solved and achievements and $ saved/made for an organization.

At my current job as a design engineer, I can’t really boast of crazy achievements for a future employer.
Runway: Actually I am not sure what I am expected to do with this. I will always have enough runway for 12-18 months. Salary wise it is expected for a graduate in the US to be paid ~ 100k $. In Holland if it is a large company I will be paid 46k Euros at start and ~40k Euros if it is smaller company as I will be a fresher. Growth from there on is not sure, but I would like to migrate to the big companies and slowly find myself in the US in the real valley.

This is decent paying job. I should have enough runway and more to give, than what I am doing now, but say after 2 years. I suspect I need to clock a few years before I can ask for the big buck. Also experience would count then.

Best ways to gain career capital for DS

Working in reputed organizations: Should be possible. Everyone is interested in DS nowadays. Even flight companies. Maybe in the start it is possible to work already with the big ones. But to go to Google and others I suspect it takes a few years ( at least 2 years to gain some solid experience)
Quantitative graduate studies: Masters in the US/Holland/Germany in DS is an option, this way I can get to go to US. Either do studies in stats or pure DS as my friend in apple would suggest.

Only problem is I am not sure I can fund my own education and be at the risk of not getting paid for 2 years followed by not getting a job. Would be ideal way to go to US but the shot is not for sure.
Valuable transferable skill: Yes I will know more about programming, and will get better at problem solving, statistics. These appear to be transferable to other jobs. It is predicted that the market grows in size by 18% from 2010 to 2020. Not sure what that means, but the fact that 80k hours says it, informs me that it is worth investing in it.
Taking opportunities which allow you to achieve impressive and socially valuable things:

Possibly within the top tech firms or with NGO’s such as Center for Disease Control, Google, Khan Academy, Bayes Impact and DataKind
General: Reasonable working conditions (40-50 hrs in US), Intellectually satisfying.

TBD…

TODO by next week

Speak to people who are in DS in Netherlands and how they got there(vaidehi and tim van der linde)
Speak to someone in the US to know about the scene
Write part 2

P.S

Spent 1.5 hrs writing and reading and re-editing max with more than 1.5 hrs of break in between. Horrible. Rushed to finish the essay due to mass procrastination.