Coach Me If You Can - Diana Meneses Gustin - A 💚 Data Scientist
💖 The purpose of The Allyance is to help both companies and candidates: companies wanting to reach excellence in hiring and candidates wanting to find the perfect companies.
If we tell you… Colombia, Marseille, Python, Data Science. Who do you think about? At The allyance, we think Diana Meneses-Gustin.
She was looking for a Data Scientist role such as Ranajoy Banerji (do you remember?) when she started coaching sessions with Caroline Chavier. The result? Diana is a Data Scientist at Instapro.
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🔗 COACH ME IF YOU CAN N°5- Diana Meneses Gustin
Let’s meet Diana and understand how she landed a job at Travaux.com thanks to The Allyance!
Who are you? Tell us everything!
✔️ My name is Diana Meneses-Gustin, my background is in physics and I work as a Data Scientist at Instapro. Born in Colombia, I lived in Brazil for approximately 8 years. I completed my post-graduation studies there and had my first professional experience with data science.
At the beginning of 2020, my family and I decided to relocate to France. We are now enjoying the Mediterranean weather in the South.
🔢 In my path as a physicist, I conducted research on nano exfoliated systems from a theoretical perspective, which allowed me to learn advanced mathematics, scientific programming, and more importantly how to solve problems combining these tools. It was near the end of my Ph.D. that I realized that what I was truly enjoying during my degrees was solving problems using my coding skills, beating the bug, and answering the questions by tweaking the data that I have. That is when my career transition from academia to industry started.
What else? 🐱 Binario, my cat, is a huge Britney fan (he probably got it from me). Also, I enjoy reading novels in parks, which I find extremely French! 🍹 I like to reproduce some famous cocktails and to find the different flavor notes in them. 🙃 I shake my shaker!
How did you hear about The Allyance?
👁🗨 From the WIMLDS community! After I decided to leave academia, I started to attend many events related to Python and machine learning. During one of those events, I was introduced to the WIMLDS community.
A few months later, I volunteered to be a co-organizer of the São Paulo (Brazil) chapter and followed the main activities of some chapters. Of course, the achievements of the WiMLDS’ Paris chapter, are astonishing, and it is almost impossible to miss their activities and the organizers. As Caroline co-founded it, I contacted her.
What was your goal when you reached out to The Allyance?
Since I started my job hunting process in France, I realized that the European job market was different from the one I was familiar with. As is perfectly expressed in The Allyance’s website: "It's Dangerous to Go Alone!". Basically, I came from another continent, and during the pandemic… I was still building my network by step by step. I needed extra help.
Due to my technical background, I knew that I had to develop some skills that I was not trained for. As I was not aware of what the industry market expects from a candidate, The Allyance’s guidance was fundamental to get on the right trails.
How did Caroline help you find your current job?
🔊 She helped me focus my efforts in every step of the hiring process, but also appraise each achievement.
First, we had coaching sessions aimed to understand what I was looking for and what I needed to do in order to achieve my goals. Caroline speaks her mind straight, which makes everything faster: we went right to the point.
Then, we had other follow-up sessions. She guided me in the whole hiring pipeline. Thanks to her, I was finally able to understand what was expected from the candidate in each stage of the hiring process. Thanks to her guidance, I was able to improve my performance.
🔊 Finally, she was also kindly available to explain all the administrative details related to European companies working contracts. The Allyance supported until I started my job.
What made the coaching sessions with Caroline Chavier unique according to you?
🧡 She was soft and strong at the same time, super objective, but with an unique sensitiveness to details that I just cannot fairly describe.
Our sessions started with a clear objective and ended up with equally clear action points. Somehow, after each meeting, I felt closer to my goal despite the long to-do list I had to complete.
I think she masters how to push you to your limits because she can see potential in people. I trusted her because she gave me confidence.
Why do you like being a Data Scientist?
📊 Well, almost everything (yup, I don't like the meetings), I love to collect data and to look for patterns and non-obvious relationships .
I also love to create the conditions allowing the dataset to tell me its history, answer a question with another question… I love this feeling of satisfaction that comes with this dialog.
📈 I enjoy seeing the process (where this data came from) be enhanced by the predictions that my model has performed and when the business pipeline is optimized by the data analysis I produced. I feel that my job has a real impact, and this totally fuels me in my day-to-day routine.
How do you keep yourself up to date with Data Science topics and methodologies?
📚 Though I do read some newsletters, my preferred way to chase the state-of-the-art in data science is connecting with the community by attending meetups. I can share my secret list of groups:
All of WIMLDS’ chapters
Name a well-known person you admire. Tell us why you admire that person!
📍 If I had to pick just one, I would say Andrew Ng.
He has influenced many data practitioners through accessible and high-quality education, sharing his knowledge in machine learning foundations. When he created deeplearning.ai, he addressed his speech to "provide everyone affordable healthcare, accessible education, inexpensive and convenient transportation, and a chance for meaningful work for every man and woman" throughout AI.
Though I deeply admire his coherence and his efforts to democratize AI, I have some concerns about his opinion on productivity. I just cannot agree with his vision of hard-working, which is a big red flag of toxic work culture.
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A few words from Caroline, The Allyance CEO:
“💎 The first time I chatted with Diana, I was speechless by her kindness and humility. She is dynamic, skilled and passionate. She had everything to be a successful candidate but needed a strong support.
When we started to work together, she lacked confidence. Thanks to our sessions, I saw her evolving and she blew me away by her ability to apply my pieces of advice. Diana will have a brilliant career and will help her peers on the way.”
✔️ Want more?
➡️ If you are interested in knowing more about The Allyance Coaching Offer and the prices, feel free to read this complete piece on the matter or read the feedback from our coachees! You can also get in touch with The Allyance team and book a free conversation below.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
✒️ Léa C, The Allyance Contributor: “I joined The Allyance after Caroline and I met at a ionnalee’s concert! I am a freelance translator and content writer (French, English, Spanish and German). I also work as an administrative employee in the health and data science sector. So, I am not far from Caroline’s core topic! I am very active as a volunteer in social and environmental NGOs, where I always try to put intersectionality at the center of actions because I am convinced that every cause is linked to one another. It is readily apparent that Caroline and I share a lot of common interests, which is why we as friends decided to work together!”