Mathias Schläffer - Data Scientist
Mathias Schläffer - Data Scientist
Talk about your background and how you ended up at Unacast.
After a first career in physiotherapy, I studied economics in Berlin and then "Spatial-, Transport- and Environmental Economics" in Amsterdam. After another year of research at the University, I decided to step away from academia and worked in consulting before taking an analytics position in Oslo. I joined Unacast because I was enthusiastic about the idea of working with spatial data products which have the potential to provide so much valuable information to decision makers in both politics and industry.
Talk about the things about your work that interest you most.
Location data is sometimes hard to work with and takes creativity to separate the signal from the noise. It is exciting to be on the forefront of this new technology and seeing something you worked on -from idea generation to implementation- being rolled out is incredibly satisfying. Especially if it is something nobody else has done before.
Tell us about a project you are especially proud of!
Working on our metrics for the social distancing scoreboard was obviously a highlight. All of us worked extremely hard during those weeks and came together as a team. Seeing some policy makers using our insights as decision support was a huge confirmation for the potential of our products and hard work.
Talk about the team and the culture -- what’s different about Unacast?
The people at Unacast are very ambitious and skilled. At the same time we don't have sharp elbows and every success or failure is experienced as a team. Working at Unacast, you get the feeling of contributing to and being part of a journey with some amazing people. It is seriously fun to go to work!
What do you do in your spare time?
I have many interests: from basketball and gym classes to baking, some gaming and occasionally drawing. I also spend a significant amount of time cooking and researching more kitchen appliances I can hoard in my apartment.
What is your favorite tech at the moment? (Or something around toolset - what is going on at work etc. make it work for your role)
Working with Google colab notebooks is making exploring and visualizing data so easy. You can run large bigquery queries to aggregate data and then use your favorite python tools to work on it without wasting a single minute on exporting data from one tool to another. Being a data scientist has never been more convenient.
Interested in joining the Unacast team? Check out our open positions: https://careers.unacast.com/
