Should Data Scientists Have Agents?

An op-ed proposing that those who command six-figure compensation packages and are responsible for millions in corporate assets should have professional representation.

The following is a modest proposal that due to skyrocketing market demand and the proven, tangible value that data professionals add to organizations across a spectrum of industries, talent agencies should consider representing data scientists, data engineers and data analysts as they would entertainment clients. If data science is truly one of the most in-demand, one of the most lucrative and, yes, one of the sexiest jobs of the 21st century, then there would be both monetary and non-monetary advantages for both parties when it comes to taking on high-performing data and tech professionals as clients.

After spending time in the media world and being acquainted with individuals who were ‘repped’ (an industry term for agency representation), I’ve concluded that having similar representation could help new and established data professionals gain more agency over their careers, especially as the job market balance of power shifts from recruiters to candidates.

A Recruiter Is NOT Your Agent

Coming to the tech industry from the media world, I was somewhat familiar with the role of an agent. However, the notion of frequent, unsolicited contact from recruiters is new to me. I quickly realized that recruiters are not agents. Recruiters not affiliated with a particular company are compensated by multiple clients and paid by their firm.

Despite what a LinkedIn InMail message might say, there is simply no financial incentive for a recruiter to help a candidate find their ‘dream role.’ However, unlike a recruiter, a candidate-agent relationship would be symbiotic. An agent’s compensation, reputation and ability to gain further clients would be closely tied with their ability to get their clients quality, well-matched employment offers.

Instead of being paid by an unnamed client or recruiting firm, the agent is being paid by you, the candidate. Talent agents typically earn between 10 and 20 percent of a client’s gross income. By comparison, tech recruiters earn between 20–25 percent of a new hire’s first-year salary (paid by the firm, not the individual hired). Due to the fact that an agent’s compensation is paid directly by the client, a talent agent is much more likely to advocate for and subsequently fight for his or her clients.

The Numbers

With the median salary for a data scientist hovering at around $130,000 and median salary for a data engineer slightly higher at $145,000, at even a 10 percent commission rate, a talent agent would net a five-figure payday for landing one of these clients a job. At the upper-end of the spectrum, a data scientist with a decade of experience who has been working at Meta for ten years has a total annual compensation of over 700 thousand dollars, according to levels.fyi, a tech job data aggregator. An agent representing that candidate would make $70,000 off of one client.

When you consider the current client base for a junior agent, they would make a much higher commission off of a data professional in the 1–3 year experience range than they would a junior screenwriter or producer. Taking the Writers Guild of America minimum rate, $3500/week and multiplying it by a typical 20 week contract, an entry-level writer makes around $70,000 per year, a bit more if they can get another job in the same year (notoriously tough to do in Hollywood).

Conversely, a base salary for a first-year data scientist or data engineer can exceed $85,000. If you work for a public company, you can add another few grand to that base figure in equity, benefits and maybe an annual bonus.

From a pure numbers standpoint, first-year data science clients would be a lower-risk, higher-reward investment for talent agents than first-year creative clients would be.

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Data Advantage: We’re Non-Union

Agents representing entertainment clients have to work within constraints established by powerful unions like Writers Guild of America (WGA), Producers Guild of America (PGA) and Directors Guild of America (DGA). There are stipulations about both the minimum and maximum a client is allowed to be paid. In fact, for many junior creative workers, they’re not even allowed to negotiate a rate above the union base rate until they’ve worked for a few years and climbed the production ranks.

The tech industry is non-unionized. Sure, contract roles exist, but many positions are characterized as at-will employment, bound only by an offer letter and good faith that a candidate will ‘work out’ for a company investing money and time in their short-term acclimation and long-term development. On one hand, there is no unified body that sets appropriate minimum pay rates or polices companies taking advantage of workers. However, on the other, the sky is the limit when it comes to negotiation. Of course, this can be a double-edged sword.

Empowering Graduates and Beginning Professionals

At least in my experience, when I was job searching post-graduate school, I found it very difficult to determine which salary figures were accurate. The figures that sites like Glassdoor and Indeed provide are aggregated, usually average values. While a median value is a little more accurate, the credibility of those numbers is still questionable, since figures are self-reported (read: self-exaggerated). Having an agent would not only provide candidates a negotiating advantage, but it would also enable them to have access to an agency’s more accurate data surrounding client pay rates.

Data science agents could also help professionals with 1–3 years experience, those in the infancy of their data careers, navigate a sometimes overwhelming landscape of job requirements, interview styles and offers. If you’re fortunate enough to work in data and maintain at least a decent LinkedIn presence, you’ve probably received more than a few unsolicited job applications from recruiters.

As someone new to the field, unless such messages are originating from a large company, it can be difficult to gauge the legitimacy and applicability of the postings to your career goals. An agent could help not only filter out these communications (for a 10–20% talent fee, of course), but they could help you prioritize which messages and offers to take seriously during those crucial first few years on the job.

The (Potential) Downside

In addition to being advocates, agents are also gatekeepers. The downside to normalizing agents for technical workers would be exclusivity and an even higher barrier to entry for new data professionals. Even though the data industry is booming, with a nearly 200 billion dollar market value, a plethora of jobs and above-market salaries, it is still notoriously difficult to get that first job. For data scientists, many job postings require, at minimum, a master’s degree. Nearly 50% of data science candidates hold a phD and possess years of research experience. Nearly 80% possess a graduate degree.

While individuals are still hired off of the strength of their Kaggle standings, GitHub portfolios or Medium publications, these stories seem to be a rarity. The tradeoff for empowering existing data professionals with professional representation could very well be shutting the door behind many talented hopefuls still attending school or slogging through internships. Right now some employers tend to frown on recruiting firms that submit candidates. It’s possible that, if a data scientist having an agent is normalized, employers could move to a model that actually requires candidates to submit through an agent, just like producers do in the entertainment industry.

This Isn’t A Real Thing, Right?

Actually, it is.

At least for now it seems like this agency hypothetical is confined to the highest levels of the technical industry, typically reserved for executives. There are a few niche, boutique firms that cater exclusively to the representation of technical talent. Tech Talent Agency (TTA), claims it has successfully negotiated multimillion contracts for some of the biggest ‘free agents in tech’ since 2003. The agency claims to offer the following services:

• Company targeting
• Interview guidance
• Scheduling
• Negotiation
• Securing an offer

Another firm, Free Agency, markets itself as a Hollywood-style agency for top technical talent. It claims to have landed candidates a combined approximately 5,000 interviews and secured a combined 200 million dollars in accepted offers. Free Agency’s clients have been hired by the largest tech organizations in the world like Instagram, Netflix and Dropbox. From its available roster of success stories, it seems like the firm mostly manages executives. However, it handles engineering talent as well, placing highly qualified individuals at the aforementioned companies.

While, right now agency representation seemingly exists for only the most elite tech talent, it is not that inconceivable that sometime in the future, instead of speaking directly to a recruiter, you might say: Call my agent.

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