A Fun (if Volatile) Education in Tech - Data Scientist CKM Analytix Employee Review

CKM was my home for seven years. The company evolved significantly over time because leadership had the ambition and intelligence to identify where analytical software could transform operations. From the beginning of my tenure, CKM invested significant time and resources into training me as a full-stack Data Scientist. As the years went on, I was offered invaluable opportunities to lead projects with our clients, developing novel data analysis, dashboards, data pipelines and machine learning models. Eventually, CKM's flagship product became the main focus of my work, for which I and my colleagues had the independence to ship features that required solving challenging engineering problems and delivering value to our clients. I highly recommend CKM to prospective hires who enjoy being able to make a significant impact on the direction of a product, have relatively high autonomy and aspire to work on a technically strong and collaborative team. Additionally, the company is on a significant positive trajectory. As the product became more polished and tested against new customers in my last few years at the firm, the sales pipeline seemed to grow exponentially, which is a very good problem to have!

CKM is a small company, which, while allowing for more autonomy, means that some of the operational scaffolding that exists at medium-large size companies isn't necessarily in place yet.

With most of the staff in data science or engineering, there is a real sense of community here, in which people share similar interests and learn from each other. As others have mentioned, the company really encourages professional growth and collaboration, so there are ample opportunities to explore different aspects of data science and analytics. They also promote a company that is run by its employees, which allows you to influence what you think is important or exciting via the numerous committees they have set up. People are friendly and approachable, and you're really able to be yourself here. Overall, I think it's perfect for someone starting their career and especially for those that are interested in business and management. We have a really talented team, and really do provide a lot of value to our clients.

Things were shaky this year, as the company went through a reorg, becoming a corporation instead of an LLC, getting a name change, and investing a lot in product development - with many new engineering hires. The sales leadership they hired did not seem to work out, and as a result, there were few projects to keep people really busy. Due to all the changes, and general timing around bonuses, there were several departures, which had a big impact on morale. Most of the above has subsided, and there is a much better business outlook, but it had a lasting impact on the culture which we are still recovering from.