I applied as SWE in 2018 an was asked whether I ever thought doing Data Science instead. I said I thought about it but it didn't appeal to me, for reasons simil

I applied as SWE in 2018 an was asked whether I ever thought doing Data Science instead. I said I thought about it but it didn't appeal to me, for reasons similar to the article. Still, I got hired as Data Scientist. The money was good, but I didn't believe in the field and was kinda ashamed of the title (though it did seem to impress people - I think rural Europe is a few year behinds). After 3 years I left for SWE SRE and my only regret is not doing that earlier. Decent grasp of SQL and a bit of handwavy knowledge about stats comes in handier than expected.