2025 Job Search Plan

What’s the process?

Find an opportunity Apply for it Get an interview Get an offer

Where are the opportunities?

I’ve been using LinkedIn, because it’s easy. Lots of jobs are NL language focused. I’ve had a lot more progress through my network, by reaching out to people or talking about my job search in person. For example:

• Konekti -> reaching out on LinkedIn
• House of Clouds -> Daan arts recommendation
• Karni link to expat site
• Grandpa contact info to connect with guy in Poland/Germany
• David Parker with pipeline engineer potential
• DeepConnect -> conversations with Brett through the year
• Tax Fraud -> Newsletter that went to Mike Algra + phone chat catchup
• DSP -> Ismail’s uncle
• Mubashir -> Rik from startup community
• ITCE Website -> Renske referred me
• BrightCape -> reaching out on LinkedIn
• Vanderlande -> Wesley, warm meetup

Reaching out directly to people has lead to more potential opportunities than anything else. Applying online feels good, but doesn’t actually lead to anything significant.

What works well during interview?

When I’m uncertain of what I want or trying to sell myself, I don’t get a good feeling about the conversation. When I’m honest about what I know, what I’m good at, and what I’m not good at, it leads to a stronger opportunity to progress. Konekti is a great example of that. Although we didn’t move forward, I feel I know Lotte well enough to engage and I think I can get support there.

Being honest has also helped me identify what exactly it is I want to be doing.

• Konekti -> learned that business development includes developing scope and understanding the customer
• House of Clouds -> opportunity exists as I was able to sharpen my knowledge via Konekti
• Vanderlande -> learned I’m lacking implementation experience. I need to either know how to do this, or work within a team where the skill exists.
  • small/developping team is not a good fit. I either need the space to make mistakes and learn from them, or an established enough team that I can get the guidance I need.
• BrightCape -> don’t have celonis experience, they said they weren’t interested. Gave me good insight into the shortcomings of the company. Got more info from Bart as well about the lack in senior leadership

What do I want to be doing?

Having a clear purpose of what I am looking for empowers people around me to help find something. If I’m unclear, I can’t be helped, as others don’t know what to give me.

I’m split at the moment. I want to go for an entry level data science role so that I can have my apprenticeship and develop my mastery of my craft. I can especially see that being able to put solutions into the work space where it meets the user where they are is essential. Building an ML model is useless if it isn’t being used. I’m learning all about serving solutions now using APIs, frontend and backend sytems, hosting, services, Django, React. This came from the meeting with Vanderlande.

I’m also inspired by what’s possible with the EKG LLM.

I love the idea from Toni to develop and launch lots of small things that work, and want to take the development we are doing with the EKG LLM and serve the small parts as working functions. This helps to test the market and also helps me develop my skills and expertise in bringing soultions to where the users are.

I’m still very open to the opportunity of working in business development, or with an established team to deliver a solution. This feels like it would be my ideal, as I would be able to slip into a position that feels like its calibrated for my seniority. But I wouldn’t understand all of the technical challenges that exist when going from beginning to end along the entire pipeline.

Data engineering is also really interesting. I really enjoyed working with SQL and can “see” the implications of quality issues with data. But what exactly does this type of role entail? It seems I would need to be able to connect things up between locations, which is not really something I’ve done or know how to do.

I am looking for an entry-level data science role where I can apply my theoretical knowledge in data model design, data architecture, building and testing machine learning models, and visualizing data. I want to learn how to integrate data science models into a useable ecosystem. I want to learn about modularization of data science scolutions, CD/CI and MLOps. I want to see Agile in practice and learn how to manage an IT project well. I want to learn how to estimate a project timeline and effort when working in Agile. I want to understand how to deploy solutions.

I am also open to continuing work with my company, building IT solutions for people. I need bigger projects though, something in the €20k+ arena.

What do I do next?

• Build a resume that:
  • highlights my skills in data science
  • showcases experience that supports full lifecycle thinking and growth mindset
• Communicate my search to the outside world:
  • 1-on-1:
    • TCE people
    • friends on WhatsApp
    • ITCE
    • Random Thoughts and Questions
    • U of C colleagues
    • U of C alumni network
    • Reach out to BDMA professors
    • Eindhoven startup groups
    • BDMA student WhatsApp groups
  • Shotgun:
    • Newsletter
    • Linkedin Post
  • Recruitment Agencies
    • find them

Hey, how are you doing? I’m looking for work and wondering if you might be able to help me out. I’m reaching out to people in my network to get connected to potential opportunities.

My target is an entry- or mid-level data science role.

Quick background: 8yrs professional experience in Canada’s energy sector (mechanical engineer, project manager and root cause analysis investigations). Master’s in big data management and analytics (2023), and 1.5yrs experience delivering data solutions through my consulting company.

If you know of anything, can you please let me know? 🙂

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