I am in the process with BCG GAMMA for a data scientist position with 1 YOE. I've made it through the hackerrank test, and the technical case. Next round is the business case, which is supposed to be close to the traditional management interviews. I would to know what to expect from that and how to prepare given the short preparation time available. Thanks #consulting #datascientist #bcg
Very misinformed opinion here^. Let me provide some more context: 1. The fact that there is a business case interview is very intentional, and this is what makes the BCG Gamma data science role stand out. If you make it in, you will be a hardcore data scientist working on most of the fun stuff you’d expect at “actual” tech companies (as Groupon terms them) - for eg building large-scale production-ready ML pipelines with algorithms ranging from simple random forest classification to multi-arm bandit experimentation to deep neural nets, and so on, using tools like Spark, Tensorflow, etc. (yes, believe it or not - no excel!!!!!!!! smh). BUT, what’s important to note is that you will also be a consultant, given you are working at BCG. Each project will be like a 6-12 month startup, where you have to help design the analytics pipeline for a new client, work with the client DS stakeholders, ensure your ML pipelines are producing tangible value and lift each release and present them to the client, manage sprints if you are senior, etc. 2. It’s important to know that the amount you’ll learn in a year here is huge. Most of the projects are truly transformation initiatives with expected revenues of anywhere between 5M to 100M+ per year, rather than simple features being added to an existing platform. The challenging/fun part is that each project can involve designing a completely different strategy, using a different DS tool set, building different algorithms and pipelines from scratch, etc., which means you will constantly be learning, and not using the same tools and algos for years. 3. In terms of pay, it’s at par with most tech DS roles, and probably a bit below ML software engineer roles. That means ~$180k TC for DS, ~$240k for Senior DS, ~$330k for Lead DS, and so on. And very important to know that unlike in “actual” tech companies (sorry Groupon), the promotion timing is generally quicker. Folks can go from DS to Lead DS in anywhere between 3-4.5 years, depending on performance. 4. Now to answer the actual question from the post, the business case will have a similar premise to the tech/DS case you cleared, but the focus will be on how you structure your approach, whether you can think of a breadth of possible approaches and solutions to solve the problem, whether you can provide a balanced answer including the potential pitfalls and drawbacks of your suggestions, some knowledge of finance and stats would be helpful. I would do a a quick online search for management consulting case books created by business schools, which are available online. They provide a good crash course in the main approaches and frameworks.
Wow this answer deserves an award
Haha BCG doesn’t have an idea of market comp. The average pay for Senior DS (the ones that do ML) is more like 300K+ in tech. And it’s more like 350-450K for FANG unless you’re talking about low tier tech companies in which case it is 250K sure. Pure Analytics DS (the ones that do Excel or Tablesu) are 250-300K sure but ML people get paid a lot more even at low tier tech on par with SWE. Why do you think I ignored BCG? You’ll be lucky to clear 200K TC for Senior DS at low paying consulting sweatshops. If you don’t believe me just check levels as well They’re also lying about building production grade systems. Consulting people have no clue what production means. Never worked in an engineering company, never done dev work. Never had to fix bugs or be on call. Cant write a line of production level code. You don’t do that in consulting. Work in a tech org as a ML Engineer if you want to build production level systems.
A few data points for reference L5 which is Senior
Why are you using L5 numbers, isn't that usually 5+ years of experience? Senior DS at BCG is one level below Project Leader, which corresponds to the Consultant level, which is a 2 year promotion if you joined as an undergrad. That's L4 YOE. Project leader is more analogous to L5 since that is a promotion after 4-5 years. Also, those L5 numbers seem high. Levels.fyi has the average as 225k at Amazon, 301k at Google. The Asana number is just one guy, and he seems to be an outlier at the company. Pinterest and Airbnb do seem to be around 400k average for L5 though.
Hey OP, I have just PM'd you
Can I DM you to ask a bit about the hackerrank assessment?
Hi, did anyone recently appear for BCG DS rounds after hackerrank? Would really appreciate your inputs on that. Thanks
Why are they asking for management interviews? It’s a red flag. Work at an actual tech company. These companies don’t know anything about DS that’s why they ask MBA interviews and they’ll probably pay you well below market rate to go with