The Reluctant Admin: motorsports, data science, & IT | Brijesh Chejerla | Data Science Hangout

ADD THE DATA SCIENCE HANGOUT TO YOUR CALENDAR HERE: https://pos.it/dsh - All are welcome! We'd love to see you! This week's guest was Brijesh Chejerla, Lead Data Scientist at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida (Florida Blue)! Some topics covered in this week's Hangout were how to transition into different industries (such as transitioning from academia into motorsports 👀🏎️), the importance of thinking like an architect and learning system design, and the impact of AI coding agents on the future of data science roles. Resources mentioned in the video and chat: 🔗 Posit::conf(2026) Call for Talks → https://posit.co/blog/posit-conf-2026-call-for-talks/ 🔗 Call for Talks Q&A Video → https://youtu.be/aKN8qlLjld4 🔗 Johnson & Johnson Positron Webinar → https://pos.it/j-and-j 🔗 R!sk Conference 2026 → https://rconsortium.github.io/Risk_website/ 🔗 Rainbow R Conference 2026 → conference.rainbowr.org 🔗 Think Like a CEO Book → https://www.amazon.com/Think-Like-CEO-reacting-control/dp/B09LGWT11C 🔗 Sports Analytics and Data Science Book → https://www.amazon.com/Sports-Analytics-Data-Science-Winning/dp/0133886433 🔗 Portfolio Presentation Walkthrough → https://jedmund.com/universe/portfolio-recording 🔗 Register for Data Science Lab → https://pos.it/dslab ► Subscribe to Our Channel Here: https://bit.ly/2TzgcOu Follow Us Here: Website: https://www.posit.co Hangout: https://pos.it/dsh The Lab: https://pos.it/dslab LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/posit-software Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/posit.co Thanks for hanging out with us! 💛 Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 03:01 "What team you support at BCBS of Florida?" 03:37 "Could you talk a little bit about your stint in motorsports analytics?" 05:23 "Favorite example of data science applied in football or sports in general?" 09:41 "Would you be able to provide some resources for people who are interested in machine learning and football?" 13:04 "How did you pick an industry?" 18:57 "What is the most commonly used ML technique and where does deep learning come into play in your day to day job?" 22:45 "What tools do your teams use?" 27:31 "How did you so successfully transfer that IT admin ownership over to someone else?" 30:53 "How do you think AI is going to impact data science roles?" 38:48 "How do you quickly become the data expert?" 43:49 "I've been told that I need to have a portfolio to get hired. How true is that?" 46:42 "What career advice has helped you in your career?"