Database Reference
In-Depth Information
something gets upvoted. Other times, it's small projects like one that was just
exposing images from a list of images on another website. I also spend time
updating my website, trying out new HTML, CSS, and other web technologies.
That said, sometimes it is tough to get motivated—after all, weekends are
usually time for sleep, running, or friends.
One interesting aspect of my enjoying my work as much as I do is that I end
up doing work projects outside of work. Not like overtime or projects that
I have to do at home, more like I am interested in the data and want to explore
it further on my own. This is my time to play with my more outrageous ideas.
Sometimes it's building a mini-website to better understand how dresses go
on sale and how to best expose them online. Other times, it's more data and
math-heavy work.
Gutierrez:
What is the future of data science at Rent the Runway?
Smith:
Well, I have great things I've planned for data science here. Of course,
we'll build better models, have better data, and have better processes and
more insight. However, I think what will really help us to be successful is to
tackle getting communication better between teams. Working with engineer-
ing is sometimes an issue because we both end up defending our turf.
To make it a much easier space to be successful, we have to make the environ-
ment much more collaborative. Right now, I think they feel like all they do are
services for us because we can't do them. In return, I think we can be much
more open about them helping us do some of the fun projects we get to
explore. This then ensures that we both get help and learn from each other.
For us, learning how to really build and maintain systems that are robust and
won't fail every day would be great.
Beyond that, I'd like to start working on an internal data science blog or web
site so that we can publish things we're working on that we find cool and
interesting. Right now, the knowledge and insights we generate appear to be
thrown out here and there somewhat haphazardly. Instead, it would be great
to have a collection of them so people can be like, “What are they working
on? Oh, that's awesome. I would love to come help you guys and let's work
on that together.”
Gutierrez:
Sounds like you want to make data science part of more people's
lives, even if they aren't specifically data scientists?
Smith:
Yes. I know a lot of the people in engineering, and they are intrigued
about the whole new data science thing. They've told me that they're inter-
ested in what we're doing and that they have some ideas. So we need to get
them to share their ideas and not feel like they have to just fix bugs all the
time. Then if there's some project that they see that we're doing that they're
interested in, they can come join us. We can delegate responsibilities and
share the work and fun with them.
