New Employee Spotlight: Yashvin Jagarlamudi, Data Scientist
Yashvin joined PREDICTif as a data scientist at the start of 2021 and we’re very excited to have him on board. We “sat down” with him to get to know him a little better before he moves to Houston.
Can you share some of your background with us?
I was born in India, but moved to New Jersey early on and have lived there for most of my life. My hobbies include reading, playing video games and basketball, cooking, and traveling.
I earned my bachelor’s in computer science then decided to pursue a graduate degree in order to bolster my data science knowledge. I chose Northeastern University because it had one of the best data science programs in the country. Before PREDICTif, I worked as a data scientist for two years. My family was important in giving me the guidance and drive to pursue this career path as both of my parents and my sister also work in IT.
What are you looking forward to most at PREDICTif?
I’m looking forward to moving to Houston and getting to know my team better in a collaborative and constructive environment. One of the things that attracted me to this role is the ability to work more closely with all of my team members.
What are three things most people don’t know about you?
- I wrote a screenplay for a feature film and got it copyrighted.
- I have written some short novels, but I haven’t had anything published.
- I’ve watched hundreds of Japanese anime.
How do you recharge outside of work and stay inspired?
One thing I do is keep up with my morning routine of waking up and practicing yoga. I also relax by immersing myself in novels, playing video games, traveling to new places, among other things. I’m inspired by continuously learning new things.
Success is being able to wake up and feel content with your life.
What brought you to a career in data science and what has been the most interesting project you’ve done with it?
Data science intrigued me because it encompasses domain knowledge, statistics and machine learning as well as computer science. The most interesting project I worked on was a customer segmentation system that separated valuable customers from less valuable ones.
Do you have any advice for someone looking to get into the data science field?
My advice is don’t fall into the tutorial trap and just start messing around with public datasets and competitions on Kaggle.
Do you think schools should allow programming languages to satisy foreign language requirements? Which languages do you speak?
I think that programming languages should be offered as a language option because it’s also a way to express yourself. Programming languages are also better for a student’s resume. Aside from English, I speak Telugu, Hindi, and a bit of Spanish. Python is my favorite language to program in because it is the one I have the most experience in. Additionally, it has robust libraries and documentation.
What are your hopes for our industry?
My hopes are that data science will help gather insights for socioeconomic trends and be used by our government to make changes.