How Dataquest Helped Luiz Zanini Learn on His Own Schedule

Luiz Zanini, Data Scientist

Luiz Zanini was working as a Mechatronics Engineer when he decided he needed a radical career change. He was frustrated by corporate life, and knew he’d be happier as a programmer. When researching new career paths, Data Scientist stood out—he really liked Python and dreamt of a digital nomad lifestyle.

“I made a list of the fundamental skills I had to acquire to become a Data Scientist ASAP, and the quickest way to learn them.”

He tried Udacity, but quickly realized it wasn’t going to work—he didn’t have time during the day to watch full videos, and in the evening he wanted to spend time with his wife.

Learning with Dataquest

Dataquest’s courses perfectly fit the list Luiz had created, and its format allowed him to advance bit by bit whenever he had a few minutes to spare. “I used to always leave a tab open with Dataquest, it helped me learn on my own schedule with quick learning whenever I want.”

After finishing the Data Analyst path, he began applying to jobs, while pursuing the Data Scientist path at the same time.

A New Career

He was careful in his job search, wanting to make the right move into this new field. About Fun, a mobile gaming company, sent him a sample of their user data and asked that he analyze it and draw conclusions. Luiz impressed them by using tools they were familiar with—Jupyter Notebooks, pandas, and seaborn.

“At first I didn’t know where to start, and then I went through the guided projects which helped show me what to do.”

Luiz now works as a Data Analyst for About Fun. Most of it is writing SQL series, Python code, and machine learning models—he explores the data to discover why a user skips a step or stops playing. “The bulk of the work I do daily is data cleaning, all of which I learned at Dataquest.”

Advice for Learners

His advice to fellow learners is to move quickly: “Don’t wait too long before starting job hunting, there are a lot of companies who are prepared to help you further develop your skills.”