Firstly, it seems to me that the online course enabled you to reach top 3% of a Kaggle project which led to a series of career opportunities. However, I believe that being able to reach the top in Kaggle competition is not an easy feat. This kind of process is not really replicable especially for the people who are just starting out in Data Science. In that case, what would you recommend them to do?
And secondly, what is the end goal of a data scientist or at least for you as a data scientist? Would it be going into research? Continue to climb the ladder till you reach the top of the company? Data science and engineering in general are great as a form of intellectual challenge. However, personally sometimes I feel that there is a lack of meaning in the thing that I am doing as engineer/data scientist (especially if the culture of the company is very bottom-line driven). Just want to hear your thoughts! :)