Machine Learning Engineer, Researcher, Data Scientist have the highest job satisfaction

KDnuggets poll finds that Machine Learning Engineer, Researcher, and Data Scientist have the highest job satisfaction. Job satisfaction usually starts high, but drops significantly after 4 years on the job. Data professionals in Asia and Latin America are most unsatisfied.

Is Data Scientist still the sexiest profession?

A recent LinkedIn study says that Machine Learning Engineer, Data Scientist are top US emerging jobs and Glassdoor says that Data Scientist is the best job in America, 3 years in a row.

However, a recent post Why so many data scientists are leaving their jobs by Jonny Brooks seems to have touched a nerve and brought a lot of dissatisfaction to the surface.

This post prompted the latest KDnuggets Poll which asked our readers about their current job satisfaction, how long in their current job, their job role/position, and industry.

The results, based on 635 voters, are very interesting and suggest that while Data Scientist may no longer be the sexiest profession, it is still very satisfying.

First, we converted the job satisfaction choices to numbers (2 : Very satisfied, 1 : Somewhat satisfied, 0 : Neutral, -1 : Somewhat unsatisfied, -2 : Very unsatisfied) .

The jobs with the highest satisfaction are Machine Learning Engineer, Researcher/ Professor, and Data Scientist - see Fig. 1. Software developers in this poll had negative job satisfaction - perhaps they wanted to become Machine Learning Engineers? The data is in Table 1 at the end of the post.

Fig. 1: Avg. Job Satisfaction by position.

Bar width corresponds to the number of respondents.

Next, we examined the changes in job satisfaction with years on the job. We see that the satisfaction (green line) drops with time, becoming close to zero after 4 years and staying low between 4 and 16, and rising sharply for the few people with over 16 years on the job.

Fig. 2: Avg. Job Satisfaction vs Years on the Job.

Green line is the avg job satisfaction (left vertical axis).

Blue bars correspond to the count of respondents (right vertical axis).

Since we only had 9 respondents with 16 or more years on the job, we merged this group with 8 or more years on the job for the following analysis.

We also found that job satisfaction changes differently for different positions - see Fig. 3, which shows results for the 4 most common positions (at least 40 respondents).

Fig. 3: Avg. Job Satisfaction by position and years on the job, for 4 most common titles.

Bar height and the number above it correspond to job satisfaction, bar width to the number of respondents. Color is green for more positive job satisfaction, red for more negative one.

We note that "Data Scientist/Statistician" job satisfaction drops relatively slowly with time, unlike Data / BI Analysts who become unhappy after 2 years on the job, and Software developers who are mostly unhappy.

Participation by employment type was

Industry/Self-employed, 75%, 0.49 avg. job satisfaction
Academia/University, 9.4%, 0.37 avg. job satisfaction
Government/Non-profit, 7.9%, 0.40 avg. job satisfaction
Other, 7.7%, 0.10 avg. job satisfaction

Regional participation was

US/Canada, 39%
Europe, 33%
Asia, 17%
Latin America, 5.0%
Australia/NZ, 3.5%
Africa/Middle East, 2.8%

Fig. 4 shows job satisfaction by region, with Africa/Middle East and Australia leading. Asia had low job satisfaction, and Latin America avg. job satisfaction was zero (Neutral).

Fig. 4: Avg. Job Satisfaction by Region

Next table shows details by position.

Source: HOB

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