@oldfort What role does one fill if one works in Big Data technology?
Does this seem like the kind of work where those hiring would be open to career-changers in their fifties?
Quality improvement is one area that uses Big Data, to see cost, benefits and satisfaction.
I was in quasi analytical strategy reengineering roles before I stepped out to handle kids (for mere 14 yrs) and got back in one of those reentry onramp kinds of programs - group I landed in is big data statisticians who can manipulate data but don’t know the business side to be able to translate the data insights into strategy. And communicate it to non-tech people. My analytic skills and ability to communicate has been my way into big data.
So does " big data" include those that are excel masters and those that are analysts or do you have to have both skill sets?
My last job ended in 2007 (I was 53). I didn’t think I could find another job in my field, and frankly didn’t want to so I didnt look. I did investigate quite a few different things, including franchises. If I had needed a job for a paycheck (and benefits) I would have gone into teaching. I think there are programs that could have put me in a classroom in less than a year. I think public education is important. I do some volunteer work in schools now and never taught in the classroom.
There are different roles in Big Data. There are architects, infrastructure engineers, data engineers, data analysts and data scientists.
A Big Data platform is used to ingest large amount of structured (legacy database), unstructured(text, voice, image), streaming(price quotes, home/car monitoring systems), public (twitter, FB, weather), 3rd party( and internal data. Traditionally it was too expensive to analyze such large disparate data sets, but with new advanced technology it is now possible. As this is a fairly new technology (open source), most components are still buggy and not always compatible. Architects and engineers are responsible to make sure all of those components work well together and easy to maintain.
Data engineers are responsible for ingesting data, transform and partition it to optimize usage. When it is done by a novice, a query could take hours instead of seconds. Data analysts know how to combine different data to gain business insights. Data scientists do modeling, machine learning, cognitive computing, etc.
Companies use Big Data for fraud detection (insurance, banking, retail), marketing (how successful is a campaign), 360 view of customer(tracing customer’s journey from digital, phone, to store), “Customers like me” (what do customers like me like to buy, watch, invest) …Just google and you can find a lot of usage of Big Data. Medical field (pharmaceutical and hospital) is a user of Big Data. Google, Amazon, Linkedin are all very advanced, as well as some big retailers.
Companies are hiring statisticians, industry subject matter experts, programmers, engineers to start their big data initiatives.
Yes, you can be re-trained and certified at age 50. It is very hard to find qualified people, they are in high demand. In the last few years I have been helping companies in setting up such platforms for them.
Not sure about NJ, but here in Texas you can earn a provisional certificate in a summer program if you have passed the content exam for your desired certificate and you transcript has the required coursework in the subject(s) that you want to teach. Finding that first job can be hard unless you are in a high demand subject area however. Age is less of a factor than in many jobs but you do need up to date tech skills.
@oldfort What kind of certification is required for this type of work? - I am thinking of positions on the business end of the picture, rather than the most technical - roles that “translate data insights into strategy” (per @amandakayak)
How long would it take for someone with a strong science and research background to retrain in Big Data? One year? Two? How excited will a Big Data employer be to hire someone who is pushing 60 - or even past 60?
Quick teacher certification is possible in some states, but not in others. Check the policies in your state carefully.
@fendrock - all I have is a non-tech MBA - basically everyone around me has MS in statistics or finance, or my boss has a biostat phd. I haven’t taken any coursework specifically to retrain for this role - but there’s alot out there (R, SAS) on coursera, JHU, UW… There are alot of programmer types that can do the analysis but much fewer people who can imagine what data they want and what to read out of what they get.
I changed my career in my mid. 30s but not because of income. I simply did not like engineering, gave it 11 years on the same job and said to myself “enough is enough”. I switched to CS and loved it from the day 1 at college. Since then, I had 9 jobs and loved them all, the last one is the best. It is rough to be out of job. I was out of job 9 times in very economically depressed city and unable to relocate. But I always was able to find a next job, maybe because I was willing to take on something that I have never done before and admit it at interview and take big cuts. I ended up with very wide range of experiences and all new places that I would step in during my numerous interviews had somebody who knew me, which I would discover during an interview. I am soo happy that I changed my career, I would not be satisfied with my life at the same level if I did not.
One thing I learned during my numerous job searches. Stay away from recruiters, they are deceiving bunch, they do not care about your interests at all. Most of my jobs I found from the local newspaper ads.
Bumping this for more ideas. Happydad is starting to job-hunt again, and may need re-training. He will need a job option that hires people who are (or soon will be) 60.