👋 About me

Hi all, I'm Susan. I'm a technical leader of machine learning teams. My goal is to help others succeed in the ML field.

Currently, I'm a principal data scientist at Elastic, the company behind Elasticsearch and the ELK stack. Previously, I was principal data scientist at a fintech unicorn. I've also led and shipped ML in telecommunications, social platforms, and more.

My other adventures in software include founding and growing a video game studio, Quill Game Studios, which has shipped multiple games on Steam and consoles like Nintendo Switch, Playstation, and Xbox.

Machine Learning Interviews book

To share my knowledge in the machine learning field, I'm writing a book with O'Reilly: Machine Learning Interviews (est. publication end of '23 or beginning of '24). In the book, I aim to help folks join the competitive ML field, and help experienced practitioners succeed when they re-enter the interview fray.

About this blog

This blog was started in 2017, since I wanted to share productivity tips for how I manage my time and juggle many difficult initiatives successfully. Since then it's expanded to helping folks succeed in ML and design their careers.

Productivity

I worked full time while finishing up my master's degree, and also worked on my video game studio on the weekends. Now, I also speak at various conferences, including keynotes, around the world. At the same time, I am able to spend a lot of quality time with friends and family. This is thanks to years and years of refining my focus and productivity, and I often get questions about it which inspire my blog posts.

Career design

As I grew in my career, I also started to write more about career design. I was promoted to principal/lead level by the time I was 26 years old, but it was not an accident. Read more to see how I design my career and reach my career goals.

In my spare time, I also write DS/ML specific guides on my Substack and co-organize the 3700+ member Toronto Women's Data Group.