Moneyball Inspired Me to Become a Data Scientist: Noonies Nominee Otávio Silveira

Hey Hackers! My name is Otávio Silveira, and I’m the Data Scientist @ Hortifruti Natural da Terra (A retail company in Brazil).

First of all, a huge thank you to the HackerNoon community and staff for nominating me for a 2021 Noonies award!

As someone in the data industry, I believe that the most exciting technology is Python because it allows you to do so much in less learning time than anything else. Learn more about my thoughts and opinions on data science and my journey in the tech industry via the interview below.

1. What do you do and why do you do it? (tell us your story)

I’m currently a data scientist at a big retail company in Brazil. I’m also a freelance programmer and writer. I write mostly about programming and data-related topics.

This career led me to build some personal projects collecting and analyzing data, creating machine learning models, plotting every kind of chart you can think of, and keep looking for new things to learn. All this while writing about some of these projects, ideas, and codes on the internet. Eventually, this process landed me a job, and then another job, and then a Noonies nomination!

2. Tell us more about the things you create / write / manage / build!

I analyze huge chunks of data in both descriptive and predictive manners. Data cleaning and manipulation are a big part of my daily routine, as well as exploratory data analysis. I also work with regression, classification, clusterization, and optimization algorithms in order to create machine learning models. I also deploy these models online using containerized applications and APIs within DevOps environment.

I’m used to collecting lots of data from the internet using libraries such as requests, BeautifulSoup, and Selenium. I usually write a lot on the internet about the topics I mentioned here but mostly about collecting data and web scraping.

3. How did you end up on your current career path? Do you like it?

I went to college to study economics, but when I finally got my degree in 2018, I had a hard time finding a job and wasn't sure about applying for a Master's degree. I did not feel like I had enough tools to find a good job even though I had gone to a good university. Luckily, I was able to get a temporary exchanging job in the US to work as a soccer coach. This 4-month period was important to add an intentional experience to my resume.

Also, it was during this period that my interest in data and programming started. I was already studying to apply for a job in the stock market (even though I was not sure that's what I really wanted) when I started reading the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. It's a real-life story of an economist from Yale that helped to change the world of baseball with data science (it didn't have this name when it all happened).

I'm an economist, I love sports, and I realized that I had studied a bit of data science in college, only that they called it econometrics. I'm not sure being in a different country had any impact on this or if it'd be the same if I had never traveled, but when I got back to Brazil I decided to give up the stock market and dedicated myself to learning programming and data science. I started learning Python and SQL on YouTube, and then I discovered Dataquest.

After a one-month subscription, I was granted a six-month scholarship that allowed me to go through their entire Data Scientist path. I can’t put into words how important that was to me and my career.

This was when I did my first personal projects all by myself. This was also when I started writing. While reading those blogs and tutorials on the internet, I realized that I could (and wanted to) write articles like that too.

All these articles and projects helped me attract the attention of some companies either because they work as an advertisement of myself or because they’re good portfolios to show and talk about in an interview or cover letter. And then I got my first job.

After I got the job, I was pretty sure that's not exactly what I was looking for, but it was not an opportunity to miss. I had to move to a big city and was not completely happy about it, but I knew it had to be done. Although I was not a data scientist, the job did give me some real-world experience working with Python and SQL and put me in touch with a much bigger job market in a metropolis.

After about 6 months there, I finally got the data science job I was looking for. I now work for the biggest retail company specialized in fresh products like fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, etc., in Brazil. We're a fast-growing chain of almost 100 stores in the southeast region of the country, and the best part is I work from home in a small city in my home state, close to my family and friends, with no need to be far from home in a big city. No need to say I like where I am now.

4. What tech are you most excited or passionate about right now and why?

I still love Python, machine learning, and data analysis in general. Sorry, not much to say here.

5. What tech are you most worried about right now and why?

Working with the cloud (Azure, AWS) has been a bit challenging lately, but I wouldn't say I’m worried about it. It’s an interesting tool for a data scientist, and I'm figuring it out.

6. If we gave you 10 million dollars to invest in something today, what would you invest in and why?

Clean energy (especially solar and wind), because it’s abundant in my country and a big need for the future of mankind.

My parents have solar panels at their place, and I can see how good those things are in every possible way. And I can apply data science too. For instance, I’ve built a model to predict power generation every day at their place.

7. What are you currently learning?

Working with the cloud (Azure) and with the Lakehouse (Databricks)

8. What’s the best advice you’ve ever given someone?

Sit down and do it.

I’m only saying here that I gave someone good advice because the person told me that a few days ago.

Back in college, a friend was telling our group of friends how he was struggling with calculus. We were drinking in a bar. I told him: “Man, calculus is not easy. If you do not take the time to sit down and study this thing over until you get it, even if it takes all the weekends of the semester, you’ll be in this class forever.” He told me last month that this piece of advice helped him to focus and get it done.

9. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Trust the process. Not sure who told me that or where I heard it, but I take this for life. It was what kept me moving when I was learning to code. I was unemployed in the pandemic, and things were not good. But I knew the chances of success are higher when you do what’s right, and I was doing the right thing. Things don’t happen overnight. I trusted what I was doing, and I’m here now to tell the story.

About HackerNoon’s 2021 Noonie Awards

The annual Noonie Awards celebrate the best and brightest of the tech industry, bringing together all who are making the Internet and the world of tech what it is today. Please be sure to check out our award categories, nominate, and vote for the people and companies who you think are making the biggest impact on the tech industry today.

The 2021 Noonies are sponsored by: bybit, Dottech Domains, and Avast. Thank you so much to these sponsors who are helping us celebrate the accomplishments of all our nominees.