What to Learn Next?

After having spent 200 hours learning technical interviewing and data structures, it reminded me how much I love learning.

I find myself deeply thinking about what skill set would be most beneficial and fun to learn and it has come down to Microservices and Data Science/ML.

Microservices: Thinking about making a sort of a generic sales aplication: Products, Invoicing, Shipping, Employees and use docker and all sort of frameworks and tools to make a full fledged app (leave front end last). Haven't decided what language but leaning towards nodejs/express/postgres.

Data Science: I love data and think its fascinating the insight that they can give you. I've already started:

Finding my new favorite song on Spotify

Eric Bonfadini ・ Jan 18 '18

#dataviz #dataanalysis #python #api

and have around ~100 dollars worth of books and videos for this topic.

What do you guys think has more worth?

(BTW, First post ever!!!! I've been following this site since I've started my career and love everything I've learned from here)

Comments

[Ben Halpern]

I really feel like Data Science/ML is a pretty fundamental skill/knowledge. It's applied stats and will only evolve. Microservices on the other hand are kind of a mishmash of the right tools for the job and specific organizational needs. There is certainly a lot going on there, but I'd be hesitant to learn it too far out of the context in which it would be applied.

So my vote would be the data science. I just don't know how much microservices should be a focal point outside the context in which they'd be best applied.

[Enrique Jose Padilla]

This is seriously great solid advice :)

Honestly yeah, unless that product would be transformed to a side gig, from a learning perspective more value comes from a generic skill.

[rhymes]

I just read a post on an italian newspaper's website. It talks about the gap between demand and supply in ICT jobs in the country. I don't know how they calculate these statistics but anyhow:

• in 2020 18% of job offers will go unanswered (in 2015 it was 9%)
• the demand for what they call "big data analyst" (and we call data scientists) is 90% on a yearly base

The article is more about the lack of skilled people in ICT and the demands of the market. I think the premise is weird because they make a direct link between the number of graduates in engineering and ICT degrees and the poor state of the market without keeping in mind that:

• not all ICT jobs need a specialised degree (it helps and sometimes it helps a lot but this type of info it's not usually picked up in general statistics)
• some IT companies here don't even screen candidates without the degree they're looking for or without a degree at all (paper before skills). Others put so many skills on the job description that they shoot themselves in the foot right at the starting line
• the median pay for developers working in companies (I don't know about the other professions in the market) is one of the lowest in western Europe

repubblica.it/economia/miojob/2018...

[rhymes]

Money wise I would say Data Science :-)

Just yesterday I was browsing Glassdoor to see the latest on pay scales and data scientists seem to make a killing :P

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