Comment by dsacco | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dsacco | Hacker News Reader

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>there is no 'programmer' role in the c-suite, but there are chief data scientists. data scientists have the ear of top management, and have direct interaction where that is rarely true with programmers, which leads to...

After working closely with dozens of tech companies, I have to say I've never seen a single "Chief Data Scientist." I also can't say I've even heard of a single company that has one (I'm sure some exist though). I have seen a Chief Technology Officer in virtually every tech company, which is essentially "programmer role in the c-suite" for the purposes of this discussion.

Furthermore, in the companies I've worked with that had in-house data scientists, they always treated them less well than the software engineers developing products.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that your statements don't match my experience, or the experience of anyone I personally know in this industry, and I'd be interested to see where your experience is coming from.

I've never seen a CTO write any code. That's not their job.

http://techblog.netflix.com/2015/09/john-carmack-on-developi...

John Carmack, CTO of Oculus and programmer extraordinaire, to bring our TV user interface to the Gear VR headset.

Well, honestly, John did most of the development himself(!), so I've asked him to be a guest blogger today and share his experience with implementing the new app.

I anticipated a comment like this one, which is why I explicitly said "for the purposes of this discussion."

You're right, a CTO doesn't usually write software, a CTO manages programmers who write software (or VPs managing teams of programmers, etc). But a CTO generally comes from a coding background, and how much data science do you think a "chief data scientist" is really doing, as opposed to managing other data scientists? People in the C-Suite typically don't really do anything other than manage people managing others in the same background they came from.

I think the spirit of my point still stands, pedantry aside. There clearly exists a commonly used and recognized c-suite role for programmers, whether they use their programming ability hands on or in managing others. It's not at all clear to me that there is a commonly used nor well recognized c-suite role for data scientists that would be distinct from CTO.

As a category of employee and work division, data scientists have not yet become distinct enough from cross-polinated disciplines to have that sort of representation.

I know that at least one former Amazon CTO was an excellent coder, although he didn't really do much (if any) while as CTO.

I don't know of many companies that have a "Chief Data Scientist" that reports directly to the CEO. In all honesty, they're more likely to report to a CTO.

Also, there's a reason why the C-suite people have the word "Officer" in their title as they're officers of the corporation and that implies additional legal responsibilities. It's not necessary that it be in their official title, but it typically is.

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