Data science at MBB (McKinsey, Bain, BCG)
Cross posting from tech lounge I'm seeing a lot of emphasis on data science recruiting from these firms. Can they pay competitively compared to the tech industry? Just looking for more details on what the jobs are like at these companies. I'm currently in data science at Microsoft, no PhD but I have multiple publications in ML at top tier conferences (ICLR, NIPS, AAAI, etc.). I like applied data science more than research. It sounds fantastic in my head to consult for other companies, see what their data/needs are, and build custom ML solutions for them. Is this close to reality? Pros, cons, comp info, etc. are all welcome.
Lol Nips
Lmao, no idea what they were thinking with that acronym...
Don’t do it. If you aren’t a consultant in MBB, you are second class citizen. Pay is lower relative to your consulting counterparts. Also, you are a consultant’s bitch. Have to do their analysis, build excel data sheets, and explain every technical thing to them while they exclude you from client meetings & micro manage you. They will pay a fresh MBA/PhD going into consulting side about $150k base, $25k sign on, and about $20-35k performance bonus. For an fresh PhD going into Analytics, $102k base, no sign on, and no performance bonus. Raises are around 10-30% for consultants while Analytics get 1-2%. If you like to travel, it’s awesome. Otherwise it’s depressing as fuck to see your tech counterparts get paid a shit ton more while you spend your nights working out of middle of nowhere hotels and only have weekends to hang out.
A lot of this might have been true a few years ago, but at least in the case of BCG, it does not hold true anymore. Pay is exactly the same for the data science track as compared to the classic consulting track. And the job responsibility is exactly equivalent to that of a classic consultant. In fact, in most data and ML intensive projects (which are abundant these days), the data science consultants usually have a more prominent role than most of their classic consulting counterparts. The pay itself is quite competitive with any other data scientist role, although is lower than what you would get let's say in an ML software engineer role at FANG. That means $170k+ total pay for a DS, ~$210k+ for a Senior DS, and so on. In terms of the work, there is very little of "excel data sheets" happening at BCG Gamma these days. Most of the work involves hard core data science algorithms and big data pipelines, all while having an eye on the broader strategic and business aspects.
I heard that consulting DS starts out with lower pay than its tech equivalent but career progression is faster. Is this true @BCG?
Cons - super busy travel (mon to thursday)
But to where tho (generally).
Wherever you’re needed. Sometimes it’s cool places like Seattle, NOLA, NYC, and Toronto. Sometimes you’re stuck traveling to somewhere in the middle of Ohio like I was for 8 months.