An experienced events producer, talented volleyball pro and quick-witted data integration engineer explains how all these roles can coexist in one.

Idan Shafat is a versatile and technologically savvy multitasker with a wide set of skills and accomplishments. This year he graduated from a Practicum program for data analysts and recently started working in Riskified — a publicly traded company that provides software as a service fraud and chargeback prevention technology. Read his inspiring life story below.

I was playing volleyball for the national Israeli team for 5–6 years so at the age of 21 I came to a point that making a decision to study meant to drop off my future in the national team. It wasn’t easy but I decided to study industrial management and engineering in Afeka which allowed me 4 years later to come to the army as an academic officer. My team was dealing with logistics and budgeting for the air force. Managing information systems and some of the project were related to a team that dealt with data analysis and data science for the units systems. I really liked the data field and was learning about creating dashboards, metrics and reports which i enjoyed.

Besides that, since I was 18 I have been working on different cultural events as a producer. Among other things I was involved in content and branding management, marketing, media and graphic designs, planning the strategy, booking of artists and organizing events in a very popular venue in Tel Aviv called Sputnik. I did parties in Barby and Block, launched campaigns on social media and basically worked as an art director making connections between communities and artists.

One day I saw a post on Facebook about Practicum from a friend of mine, Hila Shapira, who finished the 1st cohort and then an ad popped up, it was all over my social media. I asked her how it was, at that point she was one or two months in the program already and she was super happy. So I decided to do a free course on Python. I was interested in processing analysis but coding didn’t look attractive to me, so trying a bite to decide whether I wanna go the full way was a good option. In the end I really enjoyed the precourse, so I wanted more :)

Even though I was skeptical about the SBE model in the beginning, now I think that it’s a great idea. I finished my studies, I didn’t pay anything. While looking for a job, I got a constant support from Practicum and Masterschool. It was amazing to have an opportunity to talk to people on a daily basis and use their help. Now I found a job that pays really good money and the amount that I am giving to Yandex now — I don’t really feel it. This is just a small contribution that I can pay back to a project that I support, that I participated in, that I enjoyed and am still enjoying everything that I learnt there. It’s a great model. For me it worked very well.

When I just started looking for jobs, I addressed all of my friends, sent them my CV and hoped to get some positive responses but after 2 months nothing really worked. I would reach the last stage but then they would always choose someone more experienced. I had a long process with one of the biggest fraud analysis companies and it made me interested in the sphere. So I started to look for similar companies and found Riskified.

Riskified does fraud analysis and aims to find fraudsters and people that are abusing policies on the Internet. The main goal of the company is to help the merchants approve more orders without having a risk for chargebacks and bank declains. This is a field where no police, army, or government is responsible for. So Riskified partly takes this responsibility for securing international shopping and shipping.

I didn’t use any contacts to get to Riskified but once I got there I realized that I know more than ten people that work in this company. People that I wouldn’t even expect to meet there! Like my first volleyball coach, DJs that I know and other people in all different departments. So with many of them we became nice friends pretty quick.

For all the jobs I applied to it was the only one I thought I didn’t fit the requirements. They were looking for a data integration engineer and requested more knowledge than I had, like 3 years of experience in SQL or Python. I wasn’t really expecting to get there and continued searching for other positions in the meantime. And then I am suddenly in the 4th stage realizing — that’s it, I’m putting everything aside and concentrating on getting this position.

The first week at work was more about getting to know people in the team and waiting for an onboarding week which happens for all the new employees all over the world once a month. So it was a special experience too. We were 33 people from 6 different countries doing zoom sessions together. Then I started my training as a data integration engineer and now I am finally responsible for real work. I already have some merchants that I am working with.

My role combines a lot of things that I like and includes both — business communication and technical work. My team is onboarding the new customers to the company and builds a shared environment with them.

Being a Data Analyst for me means helping the merchants I work with and helping the company itself. I am studying and progressing a lot. These things we are dealing with are the sharpest and the newest technology, the most updated and relevant tools to learn and understand in the modern world. It’s great for developing and growing in any field. I feel like an innovator sometimes. I enjoy shaping things and putting my insights. I feel a part of the world that is constantly growing, changing, developing.

I have been studying all the time since I got into Riskified. Right now I am learning programming with R. Practicum did a great job in teaching the way to think and address the data. It gave me a nice amount of tools I am using today to customize my own work. Yet, there are a lot of other things I learnt separately and I keep on upgrading my knowledge all the time. In addition to R I am also learning Pyspark and Databricks to combine all languages.

This year I became much more open to new fields and to things I didn’t know before. When I just started to learn Python at Practicum precourse, I didn’t think I would like it. I hated to code. But a year and a half later here I am — doing this on my daily basis and really enjoying it. So my advice to others would be to always look for new knowledge and investigate what interests you from different angles. Don’t just count on what you already know or experience or heard.

At some point I had a thought that if it isn’t going to work out now for Riskified, I will probably take a break from looking. Now when I am inside the industry I can say that all these “no” don’t really mean anything — they can be for so many different reasons. Even if you get rejected for two months, it doesn’t say anything about you as a person or analyst. It is just that some companies are looking for someone very specific and they know exactly who they want and in the end you will get to the place that wants exactly someone like you. That’s how I feel now with Riskified. They were looking for someone exactly like me. Don’t pay attention to all the rejections, just keep on going. Don’t spend time on things that are far from your fields of interest. Be enthusiastic about the company you apply to. Learn about it, know what they do and show your interest.

I would like to have some years of working and developing in Riskified and hi tech fields. I want to improve my skills in data engineering and learn data science. I see a way to grow there. Working in high tech in Israel means that you can still combine all the things you’re interested in. So getting a job as a data integration engineer did not mean for me to give up all of my other activities. I still play volleyball in a high league and manage events at Bavel bar. If I look 10 years from now, then I do want to create my own product, my own company which will definitely be related to tech, art, culture and entertainment. I am very much interested in exploring the connection between art and smart cities, and how we will consume art in the future world. I believe that once my technical experience will become wider and stronger, I have so much to contribute in these fields.