Welcome back to the PolicyViz Podcast. This week, I’m pleased to welcome Elijah Meeks to the show to talk about his work as a Senior Data Visualization Engineer at Netflix and the state of data visualization jobs. Elijah sparked a debate in February with a somewhat cryptic tweet wondering why, in his experience, people in dataviz are transitioning to engineering or UI. His tweet rocketed through the dataviz community, and Elijah has since written a few blog posts, inspired some others, and talked on the Data Stories Podcast, among others.
In this episode, I chat with Elijah about the state of the field, as well as his work at Netflix. I think we cover some different ground than Elijah’s talked about elsewhere, and I push back a bit on some of his claims. In all, a really interesting conversation and one that certainly needs to happen as the field continues to grow and expand.
Also, be sure to check out the Memorial Day sale at the PolicyViz Shop. With the coupon code “MemorialDay2017” you will receive 40% off everything in the store including Graphic Continuum products and my new Excel 2010 step-by-step guide to advanced data visualization.
Episode Notes
Most people in #Datavisualization end up transitioning into data sci/eng or UI because there’s something wrong with the state of dataviz.
— Elijah Meeks (@Elijah_Meeks) February 18, 2017
Elijah | If Data Visualization is So Hot, Why Are People Leaving? | 2017 Data Visualization Survey Results
Digital Humanities at Stanford
Eric Socolofsky | Visualizing, The Field: Finding Our Way
Data Stories podcast episode with Elijah Meeks
Wall St. Journal | Battling Infectious Diseases in the 20th Century: The Impact of Vaccines
PolicyViz | Disclosure Rules for the Data Visualization Community
Books mentioned in this episode:
Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Information
Stephen Few, Now You See It and Show Me the Numbers
Jacque Bertin, Semiology of Graphics
Jon Schwabish, Better Presentations: A Guide for Scholars, Researchers, and Wonks
