Paulo Goeb - Senior Data Scientist at Ripple
1. Your title and what you do:
I'm a Senior Data Scientist at Ripple. I lead analytics initiatives for our core product called RippleNet.
2. Company you work for and what it does:
Ripple is building a payments platform that makes moving money cheaper, safer, and more efficient than legacy financial infrastructure.
3. Area of Fintech your company or role is in:
Ripple is involved in the payments space in general and the blockchain and digital asset (aka cryptocurrency) space in particular.
4. Years of experience you have within FinTech:
~6 years
I've been at Ripple for nearly 2 years. I was previously an Analytics Manager at Prosper, a company that runs a marketplace for consumer credit. I was at Prosper for about 4 years.
5. How did you get into Fintech and/or this role?
I studied math & econ in college and knew I wanted to pursue a quant-type finance role after graduation. My first job out of college was in litigation consulting, where I learned a lot about how financial services firms are run - their regulatory challenges, the nuances of their operations, and so on. After a couple of years, though, I wanted to be less focused on helping companies fix their problems and more focused on building solutions.
One of my colleagues at my consulting firm referred me to Prosper, and one of my Prosper colleagues referred me to Ripple. Networking is key! To me it's as important that you are fun to be around as it is that you do good quality work.
6. How has your experience, education or network helped you in Fintech?
Studying math in my undergrad days was really useful in transitioning to my professional career. I say this not because any of the theorems I learned or the problem sets I worked on, but rather because I had a lot of experience struggling with a problem, looking into all possible avenues in trying to find a solution, and staying patient and diligent in driving towards a solution. The material isn't something that I've necessarily carried with me, but the mindset definitely is.
I was lucky to get a lot of good training in technical skills early in my career. As my confidence in those skills grew, I was able to dedicate more time and energy towards the problems I was trying to solve. Most fintech companies are operating in under- or unchartered territory, so it's important to be comfortable dealing with ambiguity. That said, the experience you gain as a result is important to carry forward as you transition into new roles because your perspective might be a key value-add for your new company. In my case, that means understanding how the data problems I've solved before might help me and my team solve the data problems I'm facing now - this could be a certain method for running an experiment, how to structure/model/ingest data in a warehouse, or how to interact with an operational team. As someone transitioning from school, that might mean something you've learned in an internship or a case competition.
7. What advice would you give someone looking to build a career within the Fintech space?
Stay focused on the problem(s) you're trying to solve! A lot of folks learn all kinds of fancy technical skills but then don't know how to apply those skills to the real world. For example, don't build a complex model when something simpler might be 1) faster to do, 2) easier for stakeholders to understand, and 3) more scalable.
It's also hard not to overstate the importance of networking. In the era of Covid, people have a lot more time on their hands to entertain requests for informational interviews - take advantage of it!
