In Part One, I shared stories from the conversations I had with scientists and engineers that became “data people” and how they evolved their roles and career paths. These technical professionals stayed in core engineering and science roles but used statistics to amplify their impact within it.

But for others, the same pull toward working with data led to a more fundamental shift.

The conversations I had with those who made career changes were diverse in terms of why they made the change and how they made the switch. I spoke to some who viewed the change as more surface-level and others who saw it as a true leap.

What motivated me was the opportunity to help engineers apply statistics in their daily work and to contribute to projects where data-driven insights support decision making that can ultimately improve patients’ health and quality of life.

Monique Roerdink Lander, now a Systems Engineer at JMP, made the career change after more than a decade as a formulation scientist at Ecolab. Her role as a Systems Engineer now focuses on helping other scientists and engineers use JMP and statistical tools full-time. Her curiosity in statistics began during graduate work, when her advisor instructed her to present study data with a bar graph and standard error bars for a submission. The reasoning, she was told, was simply that standard error “looked better” than standard deviation. That moment stuck with her – specifically, the idea of applying a method without understanding its purpose didn’t align with how she approached problems.

It planted a seed that quickly took hold and grew when she started to work in industry at Ecolab as a scientist.

At the time she started at Ecolab, there were six statistics courses that were mandatory for all scientists. She devoured the content and applied what she learned in all areas.

It was like water to some someone who is parched.

When curiosity outgrows the role

For Rebecca Breuer, pivoting towards statistics with a new role was also about moving away from engineering. Breuer, now a Senior Statistician at Francis Medical, started her career there as a mechanical engineer.

Like many of the “data people” I interviewed, she was immediately drawn to DOE because of the systematic process of learning and making decisions. Her manager, Chad Negaeli, played a key role in promoting the use of DOE and statistical tools. She started to attend Mastering JMP webinars and reading textbooks to continue her learning.

Over time, she started to notice that the parts of her job that she liked the most were the ones that allowed her to work with data, while the parts of her job she didn’t like as much were the ones that involved making drawings and working out tolerances.

Her experience attending the JMP Discovery Summit conference in 2023 was a pivotal moment for her in taking a bigger step towards statistics. She says,

I saw all these people doing really cool things with data and statistics. And everybody was so excited about using data and statistics. It inspired me. And that’s when the seed was kind of planted.

After the conference, she started to research master’s programs in applied statistics that she could complete asynchronously. Motivated by wanting to know the “why” behind the statistical tools and leaning into this newly discovered field that excited her, she enrolled in Purdue’s program in 2024.

Over time, it became increasingly clear that she needed a career change to fully pursue what she loved. At first, Breuer carved out small changes within her engineering role by helping others design and analyze experiments and organizing a monthly Statistical Thinking for Industrial Problem Solving (STIPS) learning group. But the demands of an engineer responsible for bringing a product to market were high and much of her day-to-day work was made up of activities she did not find energizing. All the while, she could see a path just within reach – one centered on data and statistics – that she was eager to follow.

With Negaeli’s support, she began advocating for the creation of a statistician role at Francis Medical. She took advantage of the VP of R&D’s weekly office hours, using the time to highlight the critical problems that were being solved with data and statistics. In January 2026, she became a Senior Statistician at Francis Medical.

The conversation I want readers to have with themselves

If you are a “data person” thinking about how to evolve your career, I want to leave you with some questions to reflect on.

• What drives you at your core?

  • What kinds of problems or questions do you find yourself coming back to again and again?

• What brings you the most satisfaction at work?

  • Building a new product?
  • Discovering underlying mechanisms or insights?
  • Helping others uncover insights with data and statistics?

• Can you reshape your current role to include more of what you enjoy and less of what you don’t?

  • Would the incremental changes be enough or too little to be fulfilling?

• Do you need formal education to evolve your career (or explore the idea of evolving it)?

  • There are many affordable, flexible options for master’s degrees in applied statistics (e.g., Purdue, University of Michigan).
  • If not, Coursera, Udacity, ASQ, and JMP (to name a few) have many excellent opportunities to build your skills.

• Is it more important to you to be a statistician or to do statistical work, regardless of the title?

  • You’ll find far more engineers and scientists in job postings than statisticians (~16 million¹ versus 30,000 for statisticians²).

As you are thinking through these questions, it can be valuable to seek out other data people to trade stories and ideas with. Attending conferences like JMP Discovery Summits are a great way to connect with others who share a passion for data.

The experiment is yours

There are many ways to design a fulfilling career as a “data person.”

If you find yourself drawn to data and are prone to asking deeper questions or wanting to understand “why” just a little more than those around you, don’t ignore it.

Practical constraints that you may have (e.g., time, money, family commitments) will inevitably shape your path, much like constraints shape a well-designed experiment.

And like experiments, careers rarely unfold all at once – they evolve sequentially, with each experience informing the next iteration.

1. 15,786 million as of 2021 (STEM, with a bachelor's degree or higher, S&E occupations and S&E-related occupations combined; https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20245/u-s-stem-workforce-size-growth-and-employment)
2. 29,950 Statisticians as of 2023; https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes152041.htm#(1)