My name is Zack and I’ve been working in data for a while. I graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in cognitive science, proceeded to work in management consulting, found that it wasn’t for me, then went back to school for a masters in applied statistics at the University of Michigan (Go Blue!). Since then I’ve had a few different positions, and I’m currently the head of analytics at WorkStep. It’s a wonderful company and we frequently have both data and non-data openings if you’re looking for opportunities.

I’ve found ‘data’ as a field to be very rewarding. It almost always requires cross-functional collaboration, technical expertise, and regular upkeep with modern methods. While this requires a lot of work, that work is much more engaging for me than other types of work (e.g., selling stuff, designing creative, etc). Moreover, it’s a technical field which has made a good effort to welcome folks with unorthodox backgrounds. While this can be frustrating for newcomers because of the large number of folks looking for entry-level roles, I’ve found that a bit of hard work generally does pay off.

This blog will largely consist of my learnings and projects related to data, but not exclusively. I may stray from learnings/projects into more opinionated posts, or post about other interests like fitness, soccer, politics (although I’ll likely stay away from that publicly), and bearded-dragons.

Also - I’m pretty new to this blogging thing, so please allow for some lack-of-polish while consuming my work here. I have a full time job, an infant, and a reptile at home - so this is going to be a new hobby of mine…which is to say there may be the occasional typo here or there. Feel free to make suggestions! I readily reserve the right to revise blog posts after they’ve been pushed live, but I’ll make an effort to document any changes made (which will also be available on my github)

If you’d like to reach out - I figure email or LinkedIn, is a fine medium.

Additional Info:

Link to resume here

You can also find me on github!

Loading the data just for you.


“Thanks for Visiting!”

- Lil’ John, the bearded dragon

My office mate, Lil' John