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Refactored.ai Wants to Train Everyone in Data Science
By: Rowan Walrath
Fueled by big data and artificial intelligence, demand for data scientists is soaring. A recent Indeed report showed a 29 percent increase in demand year over year, while IBM predicted in 2017 that demand would rise by 28 percent by 2020 — much faster than growth in other industries. Yet, because the field is both relatively new and highly specialized, it’s difficult for potential candidates to get their feet in the door.
Enter Refactored.ai, one of the startups from last year’s MIT Solve competition. Refactored.ai offers online job training in data science. Using artificial intelligence to analyze student performance, it also customizes that training for each individual.
“We are involved in reskilling and upskilling people who are on the other side of the track—people who are losing their jobs—so they can transition to careers in the data industry,” said Ram Katamaraja, co-founder and CEO. “We focus on primarily tech skills and human skills.”
The core tech skill is, predictably, data science and analysis; for human skills, Refactored.ai focuses on job placement and retention. Upon completion of the program, students earn certifications, e.g. “certified Data Analyst.” The program doesn’t have a set length of time, but most students spend about four to 12 months learning. About 70 percent of graduates go on to get jobs, and of those, nearly 93 percent stay in those jobs for at least a year.
Katamaraja got the first spark of the idea that would become Refactored.ai around 2012, when he was sitting at home in Arlington, watching TV. The screen showed veterans who were coming home from the Middle East. This was still in the middle of the financial crisis, and Katamaraja thought about how difficult it would be for those veterans to get jobs in the US. He is an immigrant himself, and he saw a clear connection between his own job search and the veterans’ upcoming searches.
“There were a lot of people who helped me in my path or advocated to get me where I was,” Katamaraja said. “I had realized my American Dream.” As he was musing, his young daughter pointed out: “Daddy, you could probably hire them.” That was the a-ha moment.
Katamaraja needed to hire a data analyst, so he started looking for potential candidates with both a military background and one in data training. He hit a wall. Along with a Marine Corps acquaintance of his, “We realized that access to talent is pretty difficult, especially military veterans,” Katamaraja said. “So we started the training cohort.”
About five veterans were part of that initial cohort, learning the basics of data analysis. Katamaraja ultimately hired three, and the others went on to find jobs elsewhere. Over time, the idea scaled up. There was no clear launch, Katamaraja said: “It grew more than we could have imagined.”
There are currently 16 people working on Refactored.ai’s core team, along with about 25 mentors connecting people to the program.
Students are not required to pay Refactored.ai until they land a job, at which point they pay in installments over a 12-month period. It’s a strong incentive for Refactored.ai to make sure the students’ training transitions well into the career world: “Unless they have a 12-month job, we are not getting paid,” Katamaraja said.
The fact that Refactored.ai has a strong online component lets the platform scale to serve many more students than a traditional bootcamp like General Assembly, Katamaraja said. In the last six months alone, 600 new students have enrolled, about half of them online. Others are served by programs partnered with Refactored.ai. So far, partners have included YearUp, the Texas Refugee Council, Veterans Coalition of North Central Texas, and several colleges. More “exploratory conversations” are underway, said Refactored.ai’s business development manager, Abby Jones. Refactored.ai is already recognized by the Texas Workforce Commission.
Although Katamaraja describes his company as “pretty solid in the B2C space” in terms of working with students, he’s hoping to partner directly with businesses over the next year, particularly workforce and job placement companies. The majority of students are currently unemployed or underemployed: “They may have some type of degree (community college or unrelated college degree) but lack the opportunity to switch careers or learn critical future of work skills (data/communication skills) given economic or time restraints,” Katamaraja told me in an email after our initial conversation.
As traditional blue-collar work is increasingly automated or outsourced—GM, for example, is laying off 14,000 people, Jones pointed out—technical job training is increasingly crucial. That’s front of mind for the company.
“These companies are working with people who are searching for jobs,” Katamaraja said. “The skills we are providing, especially data skills and human skills—these are the tickets for the new jobs.”
