Data scientists turn raw data into something that is actually meaningful to businesses. They are in popular demand, but not everyone understands what they do and why their role is so important. So, why would young women consider a career in this area?
Ash Salim, Associate Data Scientist at Moonpig, shares her experiences so far as an early career data scientist, the challenges and opportunities she’s faced, as well as how companies can influence more young women to join the tech sector.
hello everyone thank you for tuning in as always I am Katie Bateman the content director at chican code and today we’re
talking about data science data scientists turn raw data into something that is actually meaningful to
businesses they are in popular demand but not everyone understands what they do and why their role is so important so
why would young women consider a career in this area today I’m joined by the amazing Ash Salim associate data
scientist at moonpig to share with us her experiences so far as an early career data scientist welcome Ash hello
thank you so much for having me very excited thank you so much for joining us today now for those that don’t know Ash
actually featured on one of our recent webinar panels as she was discussing her
career transition into Tech so we’re going to touch on that a little bit later today in this podcast but for now
Ash can we start with a little bit of background about yourself please yes so
um currently I’m gonna as a data scientists however I recently finished my masters in Ai and data science and
during this time I actually worked as a customer service advisor for the gift
experience company and that moon pig recently acquired and during this time
there’s a town hall meeting and I managed to ask for an internship here
and they offered me an internship in data science and cyber security
and now I work a full-time yeah I mean I was going to go on and ask you how did
you land your homepage actually you you just yeah you just put it out there didn’t you you just said you can’t have
an internship and I mean they say you don’t you don’t actually don’t get and and that’s what happened I take it you
know they were just very open to you know hearing about your story and coming on board
yeah so a main factor I actually really enjoyed the town hall meeting was because I was really interested in
technology and they were just explaining how that the tech in um at moonpig
worked and I just thought wow like I’m really interested in this um I want to know more about it and I
was just asking the senior leadership team questions about how the tech works at the company and I thought you know I
do do my masters in AI data science I do understand what um is happening kind of
thing so I just asked and I was like actually I’m really interested in it I like to kind of see it in action and
um I just went for it yeah do you think I mean because you took um well sounds like a technical degree
but is it perhaps you you hadn’t made you hadn’t made the connection maybe
into what careers you could you could go yeah we hear that a lot I suppose
there’s that you do what you think you need to do at Uni and perhaps nobody has come in and actually explained to you
this is what your job would look like is that something you found absolutely I
thought um there’s so many different options like for example um a few of my friends did software
engineering um other people did project management product management and I just didn’t know what to do with the degree I had
and it was really technical it was data science and artificial intelligence so I wasn’t too sure should I go into
artificial intelligence should I go to today’s science maybe there’s something else out there and um I just fell in
love with once I heard about the tech news that moonpig how they actually Implement data as a data driven company
I thought this this is perfect this is exactly what I wanted to get into and it kind of like sparked that inspiration
yes and a great degree to how did you have that thought was there something
did you what did you want to be when you were younger was there something that led to that degree path
yes so when I was younger I was really really interested in computers I really
liked how computers worked and I really like picking apart our family computer and like and seeing what what what works
in what kind of thing breaking everything you’re popular in your house yeah exactly exactly and um so I
actually initially then wanted to transition into medicine I wanted to be a doctor and I thought wow like such a
professional career and like I see myself potentially doing like becoming a doctor and however it was in a levels I
thought I I really like biology but I really like computer science and I
haven’t done computer science at GCSE level maybe I can try and explore it here in my a levels and the teacher I
had was just like no I don’t need to do computer science I don’t think it’s for you kind of thing and I was like but I I
really want to try and do it as a degree because it’s near like the ending of like a levels where you pick out your
University choice because I really want to do it and she’s like no I I just don’t think it’s good for you like I
think you should just maybe do medicine kind of thing or like something sciencey and I remember having this conversation
with my parents being like I don’t know what to do I’m in a bit of a pickle I really like concise but I’ve never done
it before and I’ve been told not to do it what do I do and they were like let’s
have a look and that’s where we saw um a university offered computer science and Neuroscience
so I did my undergrad in both where it gave me that element of computer science like exposure into the actual Theory
foundations of it but I also really did enjoy neuroscience and that gave me more
insight on how the human brain works how can I try and combine this gap between AI between neuroscience and computer
science and this is where the whole AI thing fell in from it and then I was
like wow I’m doing that pick my masters in Ai and ended up also taking data science because they’re very
interconnected um both both both of them degrees are very interconnected so it was just
perfect that I just landed in data science after yeah oh amazing that is amazing and and lovely that you found a
university that enabled you to at least keep your options open in your mind so you weren’t you know closing yourself
down and just picking something it’s interesting that you went from medicine to Tech as well because I speak to a lot
of ladies on here who say a lot of people don’t realize that when you go into the tech industry yeah actually
doing something for good you’re helping people and a lot of people just think
it’s going to be quite dry your day-to-day is quite boring but actually you solve a lot of real world problems
yeah or businesses and people and and it’s lovely to hear that actually you
you had that mindset years ago where you thought you know what I want to be in a career where I help people exactly yeah
and you did get there in the end yeah no I absolutely love it and I think
um jumping from like a medicine mindset to a computer science mindset was quite easy so a lot of the skills are quite
transferable in terms of critical thinking in terms of like thinking of Creative Solutions you tend to do that
as a doctor um but also as a computer scientist you try to think from different perspectives
and I think it worked out very well like the jumping across into that mindset yes
yeah definitely um and admin Pig can you give us a little bit of an insight into your
day-to-day uh you hear data science you think it’s going to be dry yeah you
don’t sound like you have a boring what is your day-to-day life yeah so I’ve
been to people know moonpig is a online card and gift retailer so we want to
send you a love one a card you go moonpig and you shoot them the best card but we also sell gifts attached to the
card and I work a lot with these um recommendation algorithms that try
and finding you the best card for example for your mom you want to buy her a really nice card that’s quite
different to everything else you’ve seen you like a supermarket and we want to give you the perfect gift for that so I
work very closely optimizing these algorithms and personalizing it just so
it’s the ultimate like gifting companion and I so I really enjoy what I do it’s
really like creative trying to think of like different perspective oh how can we improve this actually oh we’ve got this
how can we then change it into what we want to do it for later so yeah amazing
it’s so interesting when you when you like I said when you hear data scientists I think people get the wrong
impression as to what your your job will be but most people will be able to relate to moonpig as a company and
actually how all of that feeds through to us being able to to get the right
products exactly um in terms of skills and qualifications yeah do you think you you need for that
that sounds incredibly complex um but yourself obviously you know you
you come from um quite an impressive background and you went through Ai and data science have you heard from other
colleagues as well there are other ways that you can get in does it have to be as technical as it sounds yeah no I
think definitely there’s so many different resources that offer so a lot of the scientists work with um python or
r or SQL so get all the data from SQL then you put it into a python script and
you work off that python script to create models for your algorithms and
um at first obviously learning the theory side of it to um my master’s degree but it’s really different in the
industry so it’s very fast paced and there’s a lot of um different elements of it that it’s quite
simplified at University but I think going from a lot of resources that I’ve
seen online that provide um courses in sequel or python
offer you this like uh segmented elements where you pick up
different pieces of code and you try to create something like bigger out of it and I think I wish I knew that a bit
earlier because it was a it’s really useful I’m still consistently like
learning new ways of improving my coding knowledge you don’t have to know it all to get into it and I think just having
that Curiosity okay this works from with this so I’m going to try and do this how can I do that where would I find this
um just just adds it all up together and it makes a lot of sense yeah yeah I and
and you just saying that you know actually when you get into the industry things are very different so that is
internship then that must have really bridged that Gap you do you think you would have how do you have felt if you
hadn’t been on an internship and you just been thrown in the deep end you know yeah that it was invaluable really
to go through that yeah I think definitely I used to panic about it I
just like I don’t have any industrial experience I don’t know like a lot um you know all some of my peers were
getting internships back when we did undergraduate levels so I was like panicking thinking oh God I have all
this theoretical knowledge which is great but how can I apply it to a business how can I tell the business
this is what they need from me and this internship was such a like a fantastic
opportunity but I also know not a lot of people would have access to internships so I think shadowing or asking
um for like maybe a week’s placement can get you that uh like bridge that Gap as well for a lot of people and I also
think that having um bigger data sets that some of these courses provide give you that um like
mimics that feel of an industry like other business and standard so I think definitely a lot of people could look
into that if they haven’t got an internship opportunity yes yeah definitely uh and and I love that
because there are just so many ways in and I’m assuming you know do you have a
lot of colleagues as well that that probably feel exactly the same way as yourself yeah they’ve made their way
into the industry and and like you said they might have a lot of um knowledge in terms of theory and and they’ve got the
qualifications but actually they’re not quite sure until they get into the job and and you know yeah what about people
do you have any colleagues um like yourself they might have transitioned into Tech and you know they they might
not actually have as many technical qualifications and you know they they might be sitting there thinking oh my
gosh what what have I done but I’m assuming Pig are by the sounds of it a very supportive company yeah anyway
regardless of how you make it into the company yeah definitely
um I think what surprises a lot of people that in a tech company not every role is technical so I have some
colleagues that work in non-technical roles such as like product management project management and I was speaking to
one of my colleagues um recently who transitioned from the law industry into
um the technical product management industry and she was just like saying there’s so many transferable skills that
you pick up in like a previous career that you can just utilize and I think having that supportive Network around
you um in the company allows for that for you to grow and develop a lot more so it
made me feel comfortable like confident that wow I’m not I’m not the only person here who you know maybe hasn’t had
experience here in Tech um but also I work with a lot of people who are great and had have had many
years in the tech space that are really good at what they do but they’re also consistently learning with me as well if
I for example come across something new I’m just like hi um have you seen this new thing like how does it work and
they’re like oh no I’m not too sure but maybe we can try and do it together and I think having that support for my
managers for my team really like allows me to grow as well as allow them to grow
yes all that yeah that’s a really nice environment to be in and and to retain
Talent as well within a company you know if you got summer and you felt that you worked very siled and you worked on your
own you’re not going to stick around long are you exactly exactly
um in terms of uh your time so far as data scientists have you faced any
challenges um and if so how did you overcome them yes definitely the biggest challenge I
had was how fast-paced everything was at the start it was such a shock like oh my
God there’s about seven meetings this week that I have no notes on because it’s gone so fast and
you know I’m trying to get business context but I haven’t been in the business long and it’s like oh God I
wonder what that word stands for or you have a lot of them feelings but I think
just slowing it down taking a breather just messaging people hey um we were in
the meeting earlier can you just um quick please just summarize a few of these points and just having that
reassurance from my team my managers from our cross-functional teams and having that space to ask the questions
like hey sorry I didn’t pick up lost me in can you just explain what that was again
um just allows you to overcome these challenges and it has allowed me personally to overcome a lot of them
yeah I suppose there’s a lot more I think when we all reach the world of work as well is that baptism of fire if
I’m in work and it’s not always um the technical side of things sometimes like you said with the pace
it’s just getting into the rhythm of the company that you’ve joined
um and I’m you know after a little while you’re absolutely fine and and you know this will be asking you
um have you got this and have you got that because sometimes catch up but yeah sometimes I think it’s just that
getting into somewhere and realizing how they work because some companies love
meetings about meetings don’t they and the place is very different and then
some companies are joining it’s like we’ve had one meeting and we’re you know also yeah yeah exactly exactly yeah
how do you keep up you know with that it’s just yeah yeah I I think definitely
organization just like organizing yourself to the way that suits you say
for example if it for me a Google Calendar sometimes doesn’t work in terms of my personal organization so I try to
look for more visual resources I can just try and jot down everything that was said maybe have it like organized
according to what’s due next for me personally what tasks do I have to do any questions The Wider team asked and
that I think allowed allows me to prep to be like yeah yeah I don’t know what everyone was on about last time next
time I’ve got you and that takes practice isn’t it because I love the fact that you just said that
being being organized and I think sometimes as well it’s when you go into
what into the world of work you’re not you don’t realize it you’re allowed to prioritize your own day and your own
workflow and it’s almost like you’re waiting for somebody to say I need to do this next and that next and and there’s
permission to move your day around and then actually when it dances on you I
can keep up with this place it’s fine because I’m allowed to be yeah organized my day prioritize my day
um she’s not something you know when you first hit the world of work you know you’re just you’re always waiting for things yeah I think for me the funniest
story I have about that was on my first day at Munich of my internship uh I
would I think it was like around lunch time and because in my previous job we always had lunch time at a set time and
because at University we always have lunch at set time as well so it’s just like um do I do I take lunch now like I’ll be
back in an hour like can I take lunch then they’re like yeah like it’s okay like it’s your lunch please take your
lunch like it’s okay you can move it around to how it suits you yes okay like
panicking on the inside thinking oh my God like what if I leave now are they gonna think I’ve just left but no it’s
like it’s okay go take your lunch yes and then once you’re you’re far more calmer about how the company works at
your team as long as they know actually
didn’t know it was going to be like this I think exactly we’ve all felt that way um now you’re into your role um and you
know what you’re doing and and yeah probably helping others behind you that are joining now
um what do you love about your role now I think the best thing about my role
definitely has to be how creative it is I think a lot of people who think about
data science have like preconceived notion that it’s boring and Bland and it’s just numbers and spreadsheets and
you know coding but I love how creative I can be in my role and think of
different new methods and approaches that aren’t normally used within our business
but I can go have a look online find different resources and be like actually I think this could work really well here
maybe we can try and implement it into one of our recommendation algorithms and see how that works and it’s having that
freedom just think creatively and think outside that theoretical sense and
that’s the best thing I love about my role and I think another thing I really enjoy is working with loads of
cross-functional teams so I collaborate with such brilliant people who know so
much about what they do in their team that I’m I love hearing about and how it impacts my work and my projects and my
team and I just think that was so fascinating and I know at University many of us would have had like
um Team projects where it’s like one person just tries to conduct it all or like we try to spit amongst us but this
is just like people who know what they’re talking about people who are great at what they do collaborating and talking and listening and you know in
these meetings I always try to be like oh actually I really enjoyed that so how does this work for this and hearing
people speak about what they do it’s just always fascinating to me and I
think the last thing I love about my role and my company I work for is the
diversity inclusion committee that I I’m on and the ability to my active as like
a black woman in Tech impact like help like help impact business in a positive
way and to help impact um my even like day-to-day role of
thinking how we can apply recommendations to customers
um from different backgrounds so it’s always working on exciting projects and like again using that creativity and
that Curiosity to work yeah yeah and it sounds like in a couple of the points
you said there that you have a lot of responsibility but that you’re
trusted to have that freedom and to to do what you want and to bring about change whether it’s you know on the
diversity Network or actually within your role you know I mean saying that
Tech is creative is great to hear um because as you said we don’t hear
that a lot in data science but also that you’re just trusted to you know you were hired because you know what you’re doing
and you can be as creative as and as free as you wish because
um you’re really trusted to to to do that I mean mental mental health wise that must be you know you’re probably
not thinking oh you know I’ll stay here for maybe another two years maybe look for something yeah that
really would help to to retain yourself and lots of other talents I’m assuming yeah everyone I know and everyone I work
with and myself personally feels valued and doesn’t matter where you’re from you
know what race gender ethnicity you’re valued in what you say and even if you
have a question when I when I when we work with our teams there’s no such thing as a stupid question it’s always
open floor in our town halls that we have it’s always open floor you can ask
anybody anything there’s that no sense of like a difficult hierarchy where you think oh God like how can I can I just
ask you know this question they’d be a bit awkward here and I think that’s made me so comfortable coming from like
University where I’ve never worked in the industry before to a company that loves to hear what I have to say and
actually values what I have to say and yeah I think it’s fantastic having that like Support Network
yes yeah and make a huge difference to to your day-to-day and in terms of you
know our listeners do you have any advice for them or do you know they’re looking to get into Tech or more
specifically data science yeah I think the best thing I’ve ever heard I know this is a bit cringe
network is your net worth always asking people um questions always being curious and
always thinking oh how can I do that I wonder how this works and how can I
improve this element of this thing and always just asking that question and thinking oh there’s always more out
there um it’s definitely the best advice I have uh other two good things great
things I’ve heard was be resilient because sometimes you get let down on or
you get told no or one door closes and you feel disappointed and you think I
can’t do it or sometimes it worked really difficult and you think I feel like I’m not good enough to be here just
be resilient you know you may deer here or you’re going to make it there like it will all work out in the end
and the last thing I definitely have to say is stick to the core values you have
personally so find what works for you and what you would like the company to
represent in like yourself and stick to them be true to who you are you know
like everyone always thinks I I always want to you know work and I always want to try and get into this industry but I
think working for a company you actually like and really enjoy the work makes such a big difference so sticking to the
core values you have for that is really important I’d say yes and that they align with everything that you do day to
day because you’re right it must be so destroying to work for a company where you think absolutely yeah what I want to
do in life doesn’t align with with what you think then it’s just a job I love the fact that you said be resilient and
let work sometimes is hard because that is absolutely true not every day is sunshine and rainbows and
sometimes work is very hard and um like you said if you’re on a team
that you know helps each other through those hard times of you know having a project that’s quite challenging
um and just being able to help each other through instead of throwing each other under the bus and I think you know
how can we learn from this um this makes such a difference to your day-to-day and obviously to the company
um and your future at the company as well because they can’t handle those challenges but you’re right I think some
people think actually you hit a bump and that’s it that’s it yeah but there is so
much more yeah and I think I’ve definitely felt that at some points like in my early
career where you know it was like people my age at University have already sorted
out like graduate opportunities and I was like oh God I haven’t got a graduate opportunity what do I do and uh it all
works out in the end and I’ve had instances where teachers that teachers and lectures have been like I don’t think you’re good enough for this I
don’t think you should do this I don’t think you’re great for it or I think you should change what you want to do and if
I listen to them I wouldn’t be where I am now I wouldn’t love what I do now and so definitely be resilient it’s the best
thing I’ve ever heard and will always say yeah and I I I can’t believe that I hear
that you know teacher said to you no no you know you don’t want to do that I mean I had teachers tell me certain
things and I think you’re right if you unless it’s somebody that’s coming in and speaking to you as a student that
works in the tech industry you know so some teachers just don’t understand
um yeah it’s a big problem with the tech industry people don’t understand the roles and how great they can be
um then yes sometimes you just have to follow your own heart and uh yeah what you want to do like go for it there’s no
one stopping you go for it yeah and and as well you know you you’re a great
example of that if you if you want to change and do something else if something doesn’t work yeah then you can
try something else and and like you said you know when when you thought oh my God I don’t have like a grad opportunity
it’s like you get that root in your mind that you have to do certain things that everyone’s doing and and if you don’t do
it that way you start to feel like I’m maybe I’m failing maybe yeah something about this is not going to work
um but you know we speak to ladies on here so often and and the panel that you spoke on about career transitions people
change career or all the time all the time you know all stages in their careers so try something new um and
that’s okay you know something doesn’t work just try something new exactly and I think a good a good like
um way to show you that was when I even did my internship I was I chose to do it
in day at the data science team and also at the cyber security because I was like I don’t know maybe I want to look into
cyber security maybe I want to look into data science I don’t know which one to look into I’ll do a bit of both see see
what works for me and there’s so many resources online to do that and to see
and to you know like look through company um job descriptions see what they have
in their job descriptions that aligned with what you know what you like what you will enjoy and I I think I wish
someone said to me as well earlier just go for it what you want to do what you enjoy just do it yeah yeah yeah I we
almost out of time and I got one last question for you um what more can companies do to encourage more women into Tech roles do
you think I think definitely what I would love to see more is
um more visibility and recognition um women working at the company both internally and externally so showing I
know Moon peak’s greatest showman people from different races and different like different aspects of diversity
um and showing them internally so on our company like portal as well as like
externally and it’s showing you know recognition and visibility um I think that’s such a great um path I
think as well more volunteering opportunities so I’d love to speak to someone from a different department back
when I was back at University I love I would have loved to see someone who worked at you know
um like cyber security and product management just to gain a bit more insight into what they do in their
day-to-day and I wish I attended um more opportunities such as you know like she can code and having seen that online I
wish I saw it back when I was um younger so I think having that allowing that um
more women from companies to speak out to like younger audience or different audiences is super important to
encourage that like more women get into Tech yes definitely and and I especially
love the point you said our visibility and even just somebody’s website looks like because if you’re going to apply
for a job and and you get on there and you think oh yes I I you can tell instantly companies culture just from
their website the images they use on their website and just being slightly more mindful about what people are
thinking and I think people expect far more from companies nowadays so those
companies that perhap you know haven’t you know given it a good thought through yet what what that you know how they’re
presented to the world you know good talent is that they’re going to be um choosy about where they go um and
you’re right they need to um you know make sure that uh the the great talent that is there is visible
um and um they recognized and rewarded as well um Ash we are already out of time it is
absolutely flown by no thank you so much for chatting with me today it’s been an absolute pleasure
thank you so much for having me and honestly guys be resilient you can do it
you’ve got this um anyone wants to like hit me up on like LinkedIn please do and I’m happy to
answer any questions lovely thank you so much it was great advice um and a lovely positive note to end on
so um to everybody listening to that as always thank you so much for joining us and we hope to see you again next time
