What is a Methodologist?
Traditionally, methodologists are those who study research methods, both qualitative and quantitative. Modern day methodologists (methodologist-analysts, methodologist-scientists, and methodologist-engineers) are the wielders of multiple approaches to complex problems. They are also conversant in the tools and technologies available for implementation, though often work best alongside true specialists in these areas (such as cloud architects, software developers, or data engineers).
I’ve written previously about the creative and systematic work involved in analytic methodology as a discipline. With the right personality and the proper technical or analytical exposure, the methodologist can be the most impactful technical role in an organization.
So, when your organization is hurting for data engineers, data scientists, and software engineers, why would you hire a methodologist? Better yet, who would even self-identify as a methodologist? (I would argue this guy is.)
A methodologist is someone who:
- Has an interdisciplinary academic or professional background. This might mean multiple seemingly unrelated entries on a resume often spanning both qualitative and quantitative roles, and multiple industries. We’ve already accepted this notion in the ecology of team building—a successful team is an interdisciplinary one that promotes diversity of thought. I would argue that the same is true for the mind.
- Operates with the base assumption that every problem has more than one solution. A good methodologist understands that while there probably isn’t a ‘correct’ answer, there likely is a ‘best’ answer. They also use a brief but structured process to explore multiple approaches before selecting one. This mindset shift is slight but crucial: searching for the optimal fit as opposed to the right answer.
- Has a remarkable ability to learn. The most impactful skill on a methodologist’s resume isn’t Python. It’s the ability to become conceptually oriented and conversant in a new discipline, method, or technology quickly.
- Is curious about how similar problems are solved in different industries. Methodologists won’t be bothered by attending conferences outside of their field, so long as the content isn’t surface. Whether it’s a thinking strategy, an art form, a statistical method, or a programming routine, nearly everything can be useful when solving complex problems in truly creative ways. Often it is classes, workshops, lectures, activities, or conversations that encourage the mind in uncharacteristic directions that are most useful in creative problem solving. Methodologists often think and write in analogies.
- Has an alignment of objectives mentality. As methodologists advance in a career, it is common to see the methodology mindset extend beyond the original discipline and further into the ordering of the surrounding world. Methodologists are likely to pick up elements of business, finance, and the public-facing components of the industry because of that inherent curiosity and ability to learn. For this reason, a methodologist often excels at bringing all the pieces together for a program, a portfolio, or a business. In other words, methodologists are able to bring multiple competing objectives into alignment around an outcome—objectives of customers, investors, end users, and other stakeholders. The alignment of objectives mentality is about ‘optimal’, not ‘correct.’ And it is often akin to completing a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle using the pieces from many other 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles.
We’ve heard that innovation occurs at the intersection of disciplines, or the medici effect, credited to Frans Johansson. Methodologists solution at the intersection of disciplines. They serve as the connective tissue across operational barriers of an organization; the nodes with the highest betweenness centrality within the graph of conceptual thought.
Unfortunately, it is tricky to say with much fidelity where one can find methodologists. They are often buried in esoteric higher education programs, or deeply embedded in their industries. Ultimately, methodologists require broad analytical or technical exposure, but the title itself speaks more to a mindset than a resume, likely better identified in a culture fit interview than a technical one.
Looking to Build a Methodologist Resume?
Building a methodology mindset is all about acquiring a personal diversity of thought and skill. Conceptual diversity and analytical breadth is developed in a variety of ways, from formal education programs and bootcamp courses, to on-the-job experience, and extensive reading and conversation. “Applied” academic programs tend to produce better methodologists than theoretical ones as they are more focused on practical application of solutions. For example, my degrees are (loosely) in: linguistics (BA), analytics (MS), and simulation (PhD).
Linguistics hails from the liberal arts, and gave me broad exposure to anthropology, notions of culture and individual versus collective, grouping, subgrouping, and transmission. It equally filled my technical brain with ideas of formalized structure for seemingly unstructured things (i.e., speech), which conceptually translates directly to working on data problems. Linguistics even provided me my first contact with coding in computational linguistics.
To my degrees in analytics and simulation respectively, the former provided broad reach across many methods and their applications (i.e., geospatial modeling, time series analysis, cognitive thinking strategies, social network analysis, gamification, statistics). The latter took me deeply into a very specific field (agent-based modeling and simulation), one that intersected well with my professional work as a data scientist and solution architect which, in its own right, provided much on-the-job learning.
Meanwhile, through reading both fiction and technical articles, attending meetups and salons in the D.C. area, and interfacing with professors on esoteric topics at every turn, my personal interests grew in the directions of graph analytics, the evolution of complex societies, sociocultural history, sustainable agriculture and nutrition, videogame design, and advanced data visualization and storytelling. The background of the methodologist is not unlike the childhoods of exceptional people—exposed, challenged, and enculturated through a variety of means.
The biggest piece of advice I can offer to those aspiring to develop a methodologist resume is to find concrete opportunities (formal education programs, apprenticeships, bootcamps, meetups, salons, online communities, one-on-one conversations and mentorship) that tangentially relate to a cornerstone field of study or profession.
Then get good at the parlay.
For example, I studied analytics and was able to parlay that formal analytic training into on-the-job learning of AI implementation when broad applications of machine learning (ML) came to my industry. This, paired with a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification, earned me the title of technical program manager of AI implementation programs. Given this, I should have pursued a Ph.D. in ML or deep learning, but instead chose computational social science (CSS). This took my new technical knowledge and applied it to the domain of analysis where my journey started: linguistics and sociocultural study. ML is highly relevant in the field of CSS, but the simulation is the target of study, not the ML algorithm itself.
These pursuits are examples of expanding into areas tangentially related to my main focus area at the time—from a Master’s degree to a profession, from a profession to a Ph.D. These tangential explorations serve to expand one’s knowledge base while connecting to an individual’s cornerstone skills or domains. It is this increased connectivity—not too unlike a graph—that makes a methodologist.
Originally published in Towards Data Science.