Work

I’m still at Vital Beats I joined after my Ph.d. I still haven’t gotten any of my code in production, but this is starting to bother me less. I’m more confident that I deliver real value to the company – code will get in production when the company is ready.

I took on the role of Head of Data Science. At the beginning of the year I was the only data scientist. We hired another and later took on two interns, reaching a total of four data scientist. However, the new hire went on maternity leave, the the internships came to an end. I was back to being the only data scientist when october came round. I see my self in a Data Science Manager role in the future and I look forward to getting a larger and more stable team.

The company manage to get quite a lot of soft-funding, all of which build directly on the work that I have done. We finished an EU funded project for €100k this year and got excellent review on another project that will bring in €300k from 2020-23.

All in all I feel that the company is a good spot, and next year should be very exciting indeed.

Personal

I finally decided to build my own gaming PC. I had been on the fence for years because I thought I wanted to have Mac, but they were too expensive. In the end I realized that I mainly used my current computer for gaming, so I build a gaming PC in an this SFX case. I’m very happy with the result and I am now playing through all the windows games I haven’t been able to play the last couple of years.

I got my mortage down to an acceptable level and finshed our major renovation projects. We got new radiators, closed a hole in the wall, got curtains that actually keep out the sun, and got a new kitchen counter.

I got a dog! We have known for years that I wanted to get a dog one day, but it never really seemed like a good time. We came to the realization that it would probably never feel like a good time. So we made the jump and we haven’t looked back. She is an amazing black mini poodle and she most definitely sparks joy.

Next year

I hope to:

1. Establish an amazing and diverse Data Science team.
2. Keep writing blog posts.
3. Go abroad less. I went abroad five time last year (3x London, Croatia and Japan) and I feel that planning conjures less excitement than it used to. I think this is a sign that I should hold back a bit so next year I plan to travel less.
4. Pay off my mortage. We would like to buy a summer house but the responsible thing to do is to pay off the current load first.

I’m looking forward to next year.