> it doesn't matter, every data team is a cost-centre that unscrupulous managers use to launch their careers by saying they're big on AI. So nothing works, no-one cares it doesn't work
Yes. Lots of times the most important asset for these companies is actually contractual obligations in terms of exclusive access to data or customers. It doesn’t matter if the product works, you’ll have to buy the company to build a different one that does. But the (broken or nonsensical) product pushes up the value of mergers and acquisitions. If leadership completely makes shit up then they might go to jail, so, they burn X million on “work” and cloud spend as part of an elaborate argument that it should sell for 10X.
> the industry is just so broken at this point I don't think we can do what we did 30 years ago.
Well no, it’s never been easier to do high quality engineering, but mbas are in charge. They don’t think like philosophers or scientists and don’t traffic in common sense.
For anyone questioning their life / career choices because of this, it’s not about you. An individual working in an environment like this can still be a craftsman of integrity if they focus on small problems and solve them well, but you need to be able to get satisfaction from that, not from some overall mission (which again, is probably fake). If you’re most motivated to work directly on architecture, unification, etc, and want to change lots of things then you will probably be miserable.
But if you’re feeling shitty about the whole thing, it might help to realize that the actual nuts and bolts of adtech/martech data pipelines are much the same as the ones for cancer research or particle physics or climate science, so one can at least try and get transferable skills if circumstances are currently holding you hostage. Data isn’t a bullshit job. Leadership and management that just want to play games is the problem.
Yes. Lots of times the most important asset for these companies is actually contractual obligations in terms of exclusive access to data or customers. It doesn’t matter if the product works, you’ll have to buy the company to build a different one that does. But the (broken or nonsensical) product pushes up the value of mergers and acquisitions. If leadership completely makes shit up then they might go to jail, so, they burn X million on “work” and cloud spend as part of an elaborate argument that it should sell for 10X.
> the industry is just so broken at this point I don't think we can do what we did 30 years ago.
Well no, it’s never been easier to do high quality engineering, but mbas are in charge. They don’t think like philosophers or scientists and don’t traffic in common sense.
For anyone questioning their life / career choices because of this, it’s not about you. An individual working in an environment like this can still be a craftsman of integrity if they focus on small problems and solve them well, but you need to be able to get satisfaction from that, not from some overall mission (which again, is probably fake). If you’re most motivated to work directly on architecture, unification, etc, and want to change lots of things then you will probably be miserable.
But if you’re feeling shitty about the whole thing, it might help to realize that the actual nuts and bolts of adtech/martech data pipelines are much the same as the ones for cancer research or particle physics or climate science, so one can at least try and get transferable skills if circumstances are currently holding you hostage. Data isn’t a bullshit job. Leadership and management that just want to play games is the problem.