An interesting aspect of data work is that you need to rapidly switch between being obsessively detail-oriented and the comfortable dealing with ambiguity and stretching (w/out totally breaking) assumptions Increasingly believe that’s a key differentiator is senior folks

Playing devil's advocate here: Hasn't that been the case since time immortal? Methinks you always need to balance attention to detail and the bigger picture.

Perhaps! May be my ignorance of other ways of thinking, but it seems like some fields are noted for comfort at one specific level or the other (eg strategy consultants need to think “big picture”, but no one wants an “Eh I’ll 80/20 this” surgeon (1/2)

But in data I feel like the number of times in an hour that you switch btwn, “Why does table x have 10M records and table y only have 10M - 2” and “Sure this data feels Normal-ish and iid-ish, and I know the risks in taking that bet” is notable But again - could be wrong! 2/2