As businesses get data-literate and AI-curious, the roles of Data Scientists and AI Professionals (whatever you like to call it) take on new dimensions – helping clients navigate the change, adapt well and leverage data science to power business decisions !
Ranja Sarkar, our next pathbreaker, is a Data Scientist as well as Freelance Science Communicator who creates content focused on Data Science, Machine Learning & AI for those keen on navigating these career paths.
Ranja talks to Shyam Krishnamurthy from The Interview Portal about transitioning from a core research career to a full-time corporate career with organizations such as Datamatics, Deloitte USI and Shell.
For students, your greatest reward will be your own learning journey itself, and the self-confidence that you build in the process.
Ranja, can you share your background with our young readers?
The story starts from Guwahati (Assam) where I was born. 😊
My father was a Central Government employee and my mother a housewife. When I was 2 years old, we relocated to Dimapur (Nagaland). I started my schooling thereafter. I do not recall showing any early signs of being good at studies. I was rather more into drawing and singing during the 6 years of my primary schooling in Dimapur. My mother was enthused about music, and my love for music was instilled by her at a very young age.
Having started with a convent school (Holy Cross High), I did learn to be disciplined at what I do, and a love for the English language ensued. When I was 9+, my father was transferred to Kolkata. We again moved to a new state, I remember not being willing to move places at that time. It was especially hard thinking of the imminent change in school.
I went on to finish my secondary and higher secondary studies from schools (affiliated to the Indian Council) in Kolkata. I must mention that my liking for the subjects Mathematics and Physics was inculcated by my father. He made the whole process of learning concepts of science much easier by citing examples from everyday life. And gradually I became good at studies.
What did you do for graduation/post-graduation?
I graduated with Physics Major and minor subjects Mathematics & Chemistry from the University of Calcutta (Vidyasagar College for Women). I passed with flying colours (may I say!) not only in the major subject, but also the minor subjects.
I pursued post-graduation in Physics from the University of Calcutta (UCSTA – Raja bazaar), my advanced papers being Nuclear and Statistical Physics and managed to score well again.
What were some of the key influences that led you to such an offbeat, unconventional, and unique career from Research to Data Science?
I think I’m someone who is curious about what’s underlying, in other words, I chase the fundamentals. Like I mentioned before, I love Mathematics and this is the key driver to studying Physics for 5 years. One may ask why I did not major in Mathematics then. Honestly speaking, I was indecisive, few of my seniors from school and outside recommended Physics and I listened to them. They said, that way I not only get to understand fundamental concepts governing Nature, I also stay very close to Mathematics. My parents had no objection whatsoever I chose for myself and that was a blessing.
My Mathematics tutor at the higher secondary level was himself doing a bachelors in Statistics from Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) – Kolkata. He had suggested that I appear for the entrance exam of ISI, but I was not convinced I could ever make it there. Let me accept, there was not an iota of confidence in me. I’m so grateful to him for having built my foundation but, I cannot thank him enough.
How did you plan the steps to get into the career you wanted? Or tell us about your career path.
After my post-graduation, I pursued a scientific research career, the key influencers being my professors at the university who thought I had the research acumen. Although I was interviewing for corporate jobs and was selected for one too, I chose to listen to my professors. The two years at Raja bazaar Science College was perhaps my best learning experience, I have huge respect for my teachers there who taught how to learn, enjoy and stay curious about a subject.
Thereafter I moved to Pune, I was 23+ then, I passed an interview to get through a junior research fellowship (of 3 years) from Department of Science & Technology (DST)-India at the department of Physics, University of Pune. I eventually received a senior research fellowship (of 2 years) from Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR)-India. Upon completion of 5 years in research, I submitted and defended my doctoral thesis on theoretical Physics (Nonlinear Dynamics) and received my PhD degree in 2009.
Soon after my defense, I got a chance to do postdoctoral research at the department of Mathematics of Indian Institute of Science (IISc-Bangalore). Hence, I moved to Bangalore from Pune. The research associate (RA) fellowship therein came from DST-India for a year.
I took a career break after that, so I could plan a family. I relocated to Jamshedpur with my husband. I played the roles of wife and mother in the 2 years that I lived at Jamshedpur. I picked up a lot of life skills during this time (2011-2013). 😊
I had written a research proposal for the SRA fellowship from CSIR-India during that period, but it was not selected. I had paid a 2-day visit to the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc-Chennai) for a seminar talk on my doctoral research topic. I also got interviewed for a couple of lecturer positions in and out of Jamshedpur. I guess I wasn’t truly keen on taking up teaching as a full-time job, which reflected in my failure to get through those interviews.
I re-joined work as a postdoctoral research fellow at the TATA Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR-Mumbai) in 2013 and that was a turning point in my life. Not only had I shifted from Physics to Biophysics (or Chemical Physics) for research, but I also learnt a new programming language – python. Turns out, python is the only language in which I code presently. 😊
I was in TIFR from 2013 to the end of 2015, then joined the School of Computational & Integrative Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU)-New Delhi as an SRA with a fellowship from Department of Biotechnology (DBT)-India. In all those years, I studied proteins as networks, did molecular dynamics simulations and explored statistical methods to analyze the data using python (and its libraries). I was at JNU till mid of 2017 when the tenure of fellowship from DBT got over. In June 2017, we moved from Delhi to Mumbai. For me, it was circling back and for good. 😊
Can you briefly explain your PhD research and Post Doctoral work in Maths/Physics and what kind of work you did at Cactus, Datamatics, Deloitte, Shell, MathCo. How was this related to your earlier research work? Did your Maths/Physics/research background make it easy to become a data scientist?
My doctoral research was I’d say, about solving partial differential equations (continuous, discrete) governing nonlinear physical systems. I developed toy models to understand the interplay of anharmonicity in interaction potential and nonlinearity (of forms like geometry, structure of systems). For continuous systems, I used the software Mathematica and for discrete systems, I used numerical simulations (coding in Fortran). In the one year of my postdoctoral research at IISc, I studied stochastic systems, also used MATLAB for light computations. My research immensely helped hone my skills at advanced Mathematics.
By 2010, I had more than 5 scientific publications which include a couple of single-author papers. In the interim of my tenure completion at JNU-Delhi and joining Datamatics-Mumbai (as a Data Scientist) I worked as a freelance scientific editor for Cactus Communications. My editing work helped non-native English researchers get published in international journals smoothly. Overall, I can say my background of research, coding, and communicating made it a little easier to break into the nuances of machine learning and Data Science.
I began my full-time corporate career with Datamatics global services, went on to Deloitte USI as a technology analyst (Strategy & Analytics), then Shell plc as a Data Science consultant for upstream operational excellence, and then MathCo as a solutioning & delivery manager (Data & Advanced Analytics).
How did you make a transition to a new career?
As I picked up additional skills along the way, I not only thought about career transition but also took action on achieving it. After all, who doesn’t want a thriving as well as an opulent career. Eventually, I landed a job of a Data Scientist in the services & consulting industry. I became a corporati. 😊
I wanted to continue being a data and scientific professional while navigating the paradigm – academia to corporate. However, the transition was hard. By then, I was also hearing from a few of my friends in the US and Europe making a similar transition, that was pretty encouraging.
Back then, what I needed was an opportunity, and landing the first opportunity was a struggle having planned the switch after the age of 35. Here comes my ability to convince, that I can be trusted and that I’ll prove myself, given a chance in the business, something which is bolstered by my education. I’d rather say doctorate background – call it experience cum degree.
So how did you land the 1st job first in Datamatics? From Research to Science Communication to Data Science.
When I was in TIFR, I heard a few of my seniors working as scientific writers and editors, full-time or freelancing which seemed pretty interesting to me. I tried and I too got through as a freelancer in science communication. I did not intend to do it full-time though, my eyes were fixed at Data Science and so, at the end of 2016, I had my resume uploaded at the Naukri job portal. Fortunately, I landed my first corporate full-time job through Naukri at Datamatics starting August-2017.
What were some of the challenges you faced? How did you address them?
I have had my share of challenges while switching over to the corporate sector from academia. The environment, the mindset, everything seemed completely new to me. Nonetheless I was open and flexible. I learned new things on the fly. I learned every day from all corners – colleagues, mentors, seniors & juniors at work.
At the outset, I messed up but I could soon figure out workarounds and rework. I learned from my mistakes and became resilient, fast enough. I made sincere efforts to understand business processes, and dove into stakeholder and client management. I had to spend quite some extra time for all these but it was really worthwhile. I’m glad I learned it all the hard way.
Where do you work now?
Having worked in Data Science consulting at both service-based and product-based firms in a span of 5+ years, I got an offer from Packt Publisher to write a book on Data Science, which I took up in April 2022. 😊
My first book was published in September 2023. And my love for writing and communicating continued. That’s when I paused from a full-time role, which appeared overwhelming to me at that point in time. So, I engaged in something I thought I had a flair for. Writing is how I share my learnings with people in my field. I have felt that writing helps me work through the confusion in terms of concepts and codes, brings clarity and helps build confidence.
I write technical (conceptual) articles about Data Science in Substack. I also write about my professional journey from a Physicist to a Data Scientist.
How does your work benefit society?
As a scientist, I used to write to highlight the novelty of my research because a scientific paper was meant to get published in an acclaimed, peer-reviewed journal. It’s like writing about how I’m taking the scientific community forward with my contribution.
Writing in Substack is a more open act. I realized that maintaining a blog is like acknowledging what I know and what I don’t. I open myself up through these blogs to my readers/subscribers from the scientific as well as business community and get their criticism and feedback.
I am a (freelance) mentor too, mentoring executives interested in understanding Data Science, machine learning, AI and keen in navigating their career paths.
I’ve started writing my second book as well. It’s a confluence of biophysics, protein data science, and bioengineering. That is all I can reveal now. 😊
Tell us an example of a specific memorable work you did that is very close to you!
I have two memorable pieces of work – one in academia, another in corporate.
- The first time I published a single-author paper was at the end of my doctoral research (2008), when I was about to submit my thesis. This paper got published in Phys. Rev. E (American Physical Society) as a brief report. Soon after, I got an email from MathWorks asking my permission to use a couple of plots in my paper as demonstration of numerical simulations with MATLAB. I had written the codes in Fortran to generate those plots. This sounds small but then, it felt very rewarding.
- The web applications that I developed (and deployed) for the Materials & Corrosion Engineers at Shell when in use, were appreciated. The end-users were happy with the apps and I got good feedback. This work too is very close to me.
Your advice to students based on your experience?
My greatest reward has been my learning journey itself and the self-confidence I built in the process.
I never stopped learning, unlearning & relearning, upskilling, as and when needed. Nd that’s my advice to the students –
- Never stop learning
- Do what you love to do – it’s even better if you can make it your profession
- Stay flexible, embrace the career squiggle
- Celebrate small wins
Future Plans?
I think I have done well so far – I have seen the best of both worlds. And now is as exciting as it gets as AI is reshaping industries. Clients are getting data-literate, AI-curious, and their mindset is evolving rapidly. The focus is on adaptation, and our roles as Data Scientists, AI Scientists, or AI Engineers (whatever you like to call it) is of prime importance – helping clients navigate the change and adapt well. I will continue to mentor and write about Data Science plus my immediate next plan is to re-start working in a full-time role with a firm that adapts by embedding AI, delivering pragmatic and effective digital transformation with real-world capability. Fingers crossed!
I’ll finish with a quote I truly believe in –
“Nurture what you have built, or you will lose it in a chase for things you have not.”