Career Path of a Data Linguistic Analyst at Meta

Scott's career path began with a psychology degree, fueled by a desire to understand mental health in the context of pervasive social media, but evolved into a blend of computer science, statistics, and data science due to burgeoning interest in the field; this led to a Data Linguistic Analyst position at Meta, where the work aligns with their initial goals of using AI responsibly and contributing to the safety of language models, showcasing a career trajectory shaped by both initial passions and adapting to the demands of a competitive job market.

Data Science, Machine Learning, AI Safety, Career Pivoting, Project-Based Learning

Advizer Information

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Job Title

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Scott N.

Data Linguistic Analyst

Video Highlights

1. He combined a psychology degree with computer science and a data science minor, showcasing a multidisciplinary approach.

2. He actively sought hands-on experience through hackathons and data science projects to supplement his academic background, highlighting the importance of practical skills.

3. He emphasizes the significance of aligning personal values with career choices, eventually finding a role at Meta focused on the responsible use of AI in their language models which combined his interest in psychology and technology.

Transcript

Could you walk me through your career path, starting with your experiences in college and any internships or jobs you had before your current role?

Before college, I was working part-time jobs. In college, I pursued a psychology degree because I was really interested in helping people deal with mental health.

I saw the state of the world, with everyone having phones and social media becoming more pervasive. So I wanted to study psychology to understand the basis of what I thought was a real mental health problem.

Around sophomore year, I also recognized some issues with privacy in the Constitution, so I wanted to study computer science. As I got more into computer science, I started to like it more and more.

It was a pivot. I was initially very much in the liberal arts. As I studied more computer science, which I thought was super daunting at first, the more I enjoyed it and realized there's a huge world of knowledge to learn.

I ended up complementing that with a stats and data science minor. I think all of those three kind of combine into an AI space where you can understand cognitive processes but also have an understanding of computer science and statistics. I also got really into machine learning.

I took some extracurricular courses in machine learning through Coursera. Those were great online resources and super in-demand skills. But I learned recently there's actually a quite big saturation of people trying to do that kind of work.

When there are too many workers, it's almost an overdemand for that job, and employers will raise the bar in terms of experience levels. So, even though I was developing a good resume with my schoolwork and extracurriculars, it didn't mean much to recruiters from the perspective of actual experience.

I tried to focus a lot more on projects. I tried to get involved in hackathons and data challenges to get hands-on experience and problem-solving. You can learn a lot in just those short stretches about teamwork and problem-solving.

Recently, I was looking for a job. I've always been interested in linguistics, as that's a part of psychology and philosophy I find interesting. I saw a job application from Meta for their research team with their language model, which is a big part of AI development.

Specifically, the role was for their safety team. That kind of reconciled with my initial intention for studying psychology, wanting to be more conscientious and active in safety. Not so much mental health right now, but definitely using AI responsibly.

I think that's really important for me, and it's a way to build experience progressively. Meta is a very large company, so there are pros and cons to that. I'm sure I can go into other details about my job now as it relates to the other questions.

That's pretty much been my journey so far. I'm pretty new out of college, just about a year.

Advizer Personal Links

scottn66.GitHub.io