A choose-your-own-adventure where the odds are stacked against you
Pros
Because of the small size, there are opportunities for even junior people to contribute ideas and in rare cases, bring in and lead (pro bono) projects. The office space has improved greatly over time, and individuals have a lot of say in shaping the culture and perks, but management is generally pretty economically minded. That being said, compensation is pretty reasonable, keeping in mind that titles at CKM tend to be inflated relative to hierarchies at more established companies doing data science operating within tech and consulting (e.g. Data Scientists are usually more like Data Analysts (tech), (Managing) Principals to (Senior) Associate/Consultants (consulting), etc.). CKM can be a good stepping stone to something better, but it depends a lot on the type of person you are. The burden is very much on you to push yourself if you want to gain skills or work on things that interest you specifically, and sometimes the politics won’t work in your favor. Technical mentorship is quite lacking (see Cons), so many things can only be self-taught, but there is room for taking time to do that for yourself within the job if you can demonstrate a compelling case for it. Support largely depends on your team/manager, and like anywhere, a bad manager can ruin your experience on a project. CKM does not foster a competitive culture necessarily (and far from cutthroat), but you will run into egos more and more as you move up.
Cons
It’s clear that management doesn’t believe in the importance of investing in technical leadership, which places a lower ceiling on technical growth. In recent years, CKM has relied more and more on filling manager positions with people that started out as entry-level hires at the company (mostly bootcamp and uni grads with some Master’s degrees sprinkled in) who have gained relative seniority through their longer tenures. The few folks who previously came in as more experienced hires (Ph.D, previous experience in other industries) have mostly left over time, yet CKM has seemed to prefer to bootstrap these types of vacancies instead of filling them with people who have comparable backgrounds. Over time, this has created a dearth of technical expertise and depth, which can lead to an incredibly inefficient pace of learning with little to no exposure to best practices. Exacerbating this, there is a concerning lack of humility in parts of the company, which can stifle growth and cause conflict when egos are threatened. Most of the people at all levels of the company are fairly immature in their careers, and it can feel cliquey and sometimes like playing favorites. As a result, the culture of the company can be a bit petty and childish. Management can be a bit buzzword-oriented at times, which obscures the reality that there is simply a lot of low-hanging fruit out there that CKM is simply well-positioned to tackle. Despite what you might be told in the hiring process, most projects will have you doing low-level work that would not likely qualify as data science in roles outside of CKM. If your goal is to do actual data science work, you’ll probably have to work much harder to teach yourself the same things at CKM that you would learn naturally on the job at a more established tech, finance, or consulting company (listing these industries, as this is where most people seem to come from/go at the company). At the same time, CKM also does not provide the same kind of top-to-bottom hands-on experience that one generally gets from working at a small startup, so I would not recommend CKM as a place for long-term growth as a data scientist.
