Key lessons that I'm picking up:<p>> <i>In year two I was internally transferred to the workforce analytics team, working to forecast job demand and build a job recommendation engine to move people within the organization.</i><p>I'm hearing this a lot from friends.<p>> <i>On the side, I continued self-learning. I picked up Python (love it) and took classes in machine learning. Spark, a shiny (pun intended) big data framework was emerging and provided free courses on EdX—I devoured these too.</i><p>I'm currently noticing this myself. I'm devouring content on Hack The Box. I'm currently making 16 hour days and am at 200+ hours within 2 weeks, and devoured half of their active boxes.<p>You don't need a background once you have 16 hour per day (every day) determination. There are people who need more than sheer determination, but enough don't. They simply need Elon Musk level determination.<p>> <i>They were struggling with accurate product categorization and had heard about my sharing on the Kaggle competition.</i><p>Use the right status symbols. It used to be university, now it is being at the top of a competition.<p>> <i>My family and closest friends thought it was risky. However, deep down, I knew I would regret not accepting the offer.</i><p>A potential pitfall that he avoided. I've been heavily hit by this and kind of stalled my life for a year. So yea, he could've listened to them. I know I shouldn't have, but I did. He didn't and pushed forward.<p>> <i>The failure and embarrassment was very public. But so was the recovery and success.</i><p>One that I know from my personal circles: go to a public embarrassment that isn't yours and no one dares to touch and make it into a success. It's not easy to do but if you can do it, then do it, in the right company this will transform your life. Or at least, it transformed the lives that I know of whom did it. They didn't do it consciously though, it's upon reflection that they realize.<p>> <i>But once in the field, there were PhDs with more experience around me—why did I get promoted above them?</i><p>When I read this I'm simply thinking that he didn't get promoted <i>above</i> them. Being a VP is something different, I imagine, than being a data scientist, so different skills are at play. Yes, you need technical competence but you also need VP skills. Let's see what he says.<p>> <i>The measurable value I created was 3x that of an average data scientist.</i><p>Well, he could also communicate that. Could the avg data scientist do that? I don't know, I bet half of them couldn't or wouldn't care.<p>> <i>I was promoted to be a role model and to mentor the team to deliver and communicate better.</i><p>Like I said, VP skills.<p>-----<p>To close:<p>I think he's right in his assessment, simply by looking at my successful friends, family and acquaintances and by constantly asking what they do.<p>I'd summarize his success as:<p>A) Get in (I'm struggling super hard at this part, "you can problem solve but have too little experience" is what I get, it's depressive, it's a key stage)<p>B) Create trust with <i>everyone</i><p>C) Be the best pick for the new position out of your team<p>From those key stages one can distill that technical skill is initially important and communication later.<p>-----<p>If anyone wants to hire me as a mix between a hacker and programmer anywhere in the world let me know! I have 1 year of work experience in software engineering (excluding the bootcamp I taught for a year). My Hack The Box profile is looking to be more impressive every day.