Data Explorer role at Periscopic
We are seeking a Data Explorer to join our amazing team. Qualified people will specifically have experience with visually making sense of data. Must be ravenously curious, logical, organized, a good communicator, unafraid of sharing half-baked ideas, and dedicated to good data science practices.
What the heck is a Data Explorer? It’s a person who can wander in the weeds of data and pull out the salient points. It’s a person with equal parts art and science – someone who can think creatively about data in order to distill it, draw out its essence, and communicate it.
This person works closely with our strategic and design teams to iterate on findings and visual concepts. They are on the front-line of each project, using the raw materials to define the shape of the data narrative. This includes data wrangling (gathering, parsing, cleaning, etc.), database design, visual analysis, and presenting findings to the team.
Even though this person is an explorer, they know the rules of displaying data, and they know when to break them. This person must determine and inform on the quality of the data (e.g., incompleteness, sample size, etc.) and protect the data from being misused. They also participate in quality assurance throughout the project life cycle.
In short, if you like playing around with data, this is a dream job.
Who you are: If you’re not already a Data Explorer, you might be a bored Data Scientist or programmer. You work with data and do analysis, but there’s something missing. You want to show data in new and nuanced ways to help communicate the underlying meaning. You’re creative and able to see the shape of data. Pen and paper augment your digital toolset and are well-worn. People probably think you’re weird for that little happy dance you do when someone sends you a new dataset or API.
Your toolbox definitely contains Tableau, SQL, Excel, R, a suitable programming language, and lots of hand drawing implements. It might also contain more programming languages like PHP, Python, Javascript, Processing, Pig Latin/MapReduce, etc. as well as specialized tools such as Trifacta, RAW, Gephi, import.io, etc. You are quite comfortable working with various data formats such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, CSV, JSON, NoSQL variant, etc. You have a good understanding of at least basic statistics. You have an arsenal of weird tools and techniques for prying data out of uncooperative formats.
You’re equally comfortable working independently and on small teams. You’re proactive with your time and education, knowing the landscape in data is changing constantly. You’re excited about making a positive change in the world through your work. Most importantly, you’re undeterred by the things you don’t know and proceed intrepidly.