In-depth profile: Maria Ilie, Delta Analytics alumnus
What is it like to be a Data Fellow? To be in the leadership team? Maria Ilie knows something about both, having spent five years at Delta Analytics in three Fellowship projects and as Ops Program Lead. In this piece, she candidly shares what motivated her to join, her apprehensions, favorite moments, recommendations for applicants and much more — read on to find out.
“Tips? Do it. Definitely apply.”
Akshay Juleemun:
Hi Maria! Thanks, first of all for agreeing to meet with me. Is this the first time we’re meeting in person?
Maria Ilie:
It might be, yes. You’ve never been to one of the older hackathons, right?
Akshay:
I have been to the 2020 hackathon that happened in person in January.
Maria:
Oh, wow. I mean, okay, we were in the same room. I don’t remember if we talked.
Akshay:
Well, it’s good to see you in person. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself to begin?
Maria:
Alright. So my name is Maria. I was at Delta for five years; I started off as a Data Fellow, worked as a Fellow for a couple of years, and then started helping with the Ops team — organizing the hackathons, [pairing] clients with other volunteers or finding clients for Delta. Then I think after a year of doing that, I got to lead the Ops team for a couple of years, which was a great experience — leaning in more on the client coordination side.
In my personal life, I’m a data scientist at Patreon. And yeah, I have been working in the data and payment space for — I don’t know, all my career, which is not very long.
Akshay:
That’s pretty cool. You were still in tech before Patreon right?
Maria:
Yes, so I started off at Visa as a business analyst. I was doing data analysis for credit card BINs, and then I worked at Facebook for payments. I was working with just different payment processors, and now I’m at Patreon doing kind of the same thing.
Akshay:
And on the side, you’re in a band, right? Tell us a little bit about the band.
Maria:
I’m in a dad rock band. I would call it like ACDC. And yeah, just music that dads like and me.
Akshay:
How long have you been in the Bay Area?
Maria:
Five? Six years, six years.
Akshay:
Okay. Can you tell us a bit about your educational background?
Maria:
I studied economics and statistics in Germany for my undergraduate degree, but I went to high school in Romania. I’m doing a Master’s now part-time.
Akshay:
How’s your Master’s been going?
Maria:
It’s hard, but I feel it’s useful. It’s in machine learning — I’m happy that I am doing it, but it’s also taking a lot of my time. Hopefully, it’ll be worth it after I finish (laughs). I’m halfway right now.
Akshay:
All right, can you tell me a little bit about how you found out about Delta?
Maria:
Yeah, so I had just moved to the Bay Area, and it was 2017 or 2018. I was working, but I didn’t have quite a network of friends so I was looking for opportunities to volunteer. I was already doing some volunteering at Build, which is this organization for helping high school children kind of learn more about doing a business plan and business values. And I met Emily [O’Rourke], who was also at Delta at the time. We were just talking about what we do outside of work, and she mentioned Delta. I also saw Delta being advertised in the Women in Data Slack channel. I kind of connected the two and I thought: “oh maybe I should see what it’s about”. I thought it would be a great opportunity to volunteer in a more focused way where I could use the things that I know and that I’m good at to help other people or even improve on my data skill set. And also, to meet a lot of people that share the same interest and are passionate about volunteering.
So I applied and I was really nervous, because I didn’t hear back for a couple of weeks. I was like “oh, surely they have all these genius, Bay Area people. And they don’t want me” but in a couple of weeks, I had the interview and I was like “oh, okay, great. I can help”. It was great that there’s a breadth of projects where it doesn’t really matter if you’re super skilled, or just starting out with data, you can find a good project to work on.
Akshay:
Nice. And what project did you get assigned to?
Maria:
Oh the first one, I think was an education non-profit, which had this app helping children with educational needs. (pauses to reflect)…it was analytics work; for the non-profit, it was really useful to be able to visualize the data that they have, and see where the weaknesses and their database schemas were — and just being able to make a dashboard to show their investment. Like, here’s where your money’s going so that they can get more donations. I thought it was very useful for them, which really motivated me to pursue Delta further. Because I found that okay, there are things I can do and that I know will be correct, that they can then use for whatever they need as a nonprofit.
“…because it’s not about completing the project, it’s about delivering value to the stakeholder. Sometimes they will know better than you about what they need”
Akshay:
How big was the team?
Maria:
I think it was four, including the Project Lead. It was in 2019.
Akshay:
Okay, so this was a six-month fellowship and you built a dashboard for them. At the conclusion of it, when you showed the deliverable to the client, what did they say? What was the reaction?
Maria:
Yeah, it was, I mean, I was pretty junior at the time so it was largely driven by the Project Lead. We were kind of hearing the feedback through the Project Lead, but I think the client was very happy with it. They used it, and they had follow-up questions such as, “oh, can we add them or modify this?”, which always tells me that they’re actively looking at it and trying to get even more value out of it. That, to me, was a good signal that they were actively using it.
Akshay:
Do you remember some of the things that were on the dashboard?
Maria:
This was like, four years ago (laughs). I think they had podcast-type data that the parents would listen [to] and teach their children the contents of. There were things like listen time, and questions such as “are there lessons that people kind of tune in for a little bit and then close it because they don’t find that useful?” or “are there lessons that people re-listened to?”. I think that was good for them to drive some content strategy — for example, maybe they can just continue this, add more of that. And for investors, I think it was breakdowns by cell phone carrier region — to know where to invest more.
Akshay:
I see. You mentioned that you like you were pretty junior at that time — for some of the technologies that you were using, did you feel like you were pretty comfortable?
Maria:
Delta definitely helped me learn. I remember the first project we used Tableau; I had never used it in a truly professional setting, besides just doing a couple of tutorials. I was like, “oh look how many things you can do with it”. And it definitely helped me once I did more projects; for some of them with more complicated machine learning, I was able to explore that area of my career.
It’s definitely been helpful for interviews — whenever I interview for a job, and they ask “oh, tell me about your experience”, I always talk about Delta too. I guess the data managers that I’ve talked to always find it interesting that there even is such an opportunity to volunteer. And we always talk about the project and stuff, so it was definitely useful.
Akshay:
There was something good that happened in the first project, since you came back for another project. Was there something in particular this time, going into your second year with Delta, you wanted exposure to — a particular type of industry or learning technology, a particular type of technology? What was your mindset going back?
Maria:
Well, okay, so I returned, because I had a really positive experience, obviously — I made good friends, I was able to learn new stuff and we helped the nonprofit in the process. Still coming back, I was like, “oh, I just want to repeat that experience”. I was more targeted the next year in the type of work that I wanted to do. I just chose the projects where I felt like I would have a chance of getting accepted because like I mentioned, I was just starting out. I was like, “oh, well, will I be a value add to the team? Or will I drag them down?” and the second time around, I was like, “okay, well, now that I have a stronger base”, and I had another year of professional experience on top of it, too. So I felt like okay, I can definitely help, and learn whatever the gap is that I need to learn if that’s the case.
I think I chose a project based on, well, what the nonprofit issue that resonated the most with me was, and also where I thought I could help with my competencies at the time.
Akshay:
What project was that?
Maria:
My second project was an economic development nonprofit. They also wanted a report for their programs. Obviously, it’s a topic that, for us living in the Bay Area, is very important. The agency that we were helping provides services for underprivileged people in certain neighborhoods of San Francisco. It was, I guess, important for us to add value because it was a problem that we could see directly [from] just being in San Francisco.
There was some initial stakeholder skepticism on if we could provide value. I think that’s an important part of just doing a project: making sure your stakeholder wants you to do the project and that they see the value. Because sometimes maybe their manager said “oh, you should work on this project with Delta” but the actual person helping you is like “oh, I don’t see the value in this” and it’s your job as the volunteer to say “well, okay, if you don’t think this is valuable, what else could we do to help you in your work?” — because it’s not about completing the project, it’s about delivering value to the stakeholder. Sometimes they will know better than you about what they need. I think after some re-organizing and re-focusing, we were able to come to an agreement.
And then I was like, “Okay, well, now that you know me, can I also do a project?” and then everybody’s like “fine, you can do a project” (laughs).
Akshay:
Yeah. Okay. That is something I was curious about, because I wanted to hear a little bit about some of the challenges in general as you were working on those projects. It sounded like there was a lot of mediation that went on between the client and the team, and maybe even Delta staff.
Maria:
Yes; I think both as a Fellow and as a Program Lead, the biggest challenge is never the technical aspect. We have such competent volunteers — everybody’s super dedicated — that I think the biggest piece that people don’t realize is a factor is literally the people. You need to meet and understand your stakeholders and see that you are delivering value for them. And I guess with any project, even at work, there’s always the scope management piece where a lot of projects will start off very limited in scope. Once you deliver that piece, people will be like “well, what about this, what about that?”, but you have a limited timeline. So you have to make sure that you’re delivering value for the client, while also making sure that you can actually finish it in six months. Because you don’t want the opposite to happen, where you promise everything and then you deliver 10%, because that just leads to disappointment. Also, if they have more to do after your team finishes, they can always come back next year, and then have another [scoping] session done properly, where they say, “okay, this is the piece for next year” as opposed to scrambling to give them a bit of everything they want. So there’s a lot of stakeholder management, a lot of people skills that are needed.
I guess that is a piece that maybe surprised me, because going in I was like, “oh, well, the technical skills will be the most important” — and they are important. But [so are] getting along with your teammates, managing schedules, making sure everybody has what they need, and access. Oh, and maybe finally, this is also important: making sure the client can use what you made. If you build something, let’s say on Tableau, and Tableau licenses cost $1,000+ a year, but they can’t afford to keep that license. That was great work that you did, but it’s not sustainable for the nonprofit. So you have to check that they’ll be able to use whatever you build before committing to a specific technology or a project. Or if you build something that is very smartly engineered but is too complicated for them to understand — they don’t [necessarily] have a full time machine learning engineer on staff, because they’re a nonprofit. That would also end in a negative situation. So there’s a lot of just understanding and context.
Akshay:
Yeah, there are so many factors to take into account. When you were a fellow for your first project, how much did you feel you had a say into scoping decisions? Did you get to interact with the client?
Maria:
I think it depends from project to project and from client to client. Some clients just want one person to talk to have a clear communication flow. Some other clients that I’ve worked with want to build a relationship with everybody in the team and get their input. I think, as volunteers, we should be understanding of the client’s needs. Volunteering is one thing, but working at a nonprofit, I think, is very intense. They’re probably understaffed, they’re doing super important work, where if they’re not there talking to you, maybe they would be doing some other important part of their job. So if they can only meet for this much time a week, we should be understanding of that.
I never felt that I didn’t have a say as a fellow — if [the communication] was through the project lead, then they would summarize and communicate to the client or directly email the client. I feel I was listened to when I had something to say, like “oh, I don’t think this will work” or “we should do it this other way” or “I have an idea”. It always made its way back to the client one way or the other.
Akshay:
The third year, is that the year you were on the leadership but no project? What did you do on the leadership team?
Maria:
Yes — I felt I wanted to help out more. I think initially, the rule was if you’re a part of the organizing team, you shouldn’t also be on a project so that was why I couldn’t be on a project that year. I started off in Ops and I think Sean was leading Ops at the time; it was me, Eric, and maybe Malavika and some other people on the Ops team.
I think the first scary-in-a-good-way moment for me was interviewing clients. Because I was like, “how can I assess whose need is more pressing? Who gets to be a part of Delta? Who am I to judge?”. But I guess I had already seen two cohorts of clients, and what made a good Delta project.
I think it boiled down more to “do you have the right type of data?” and “do you have the time to actually sit and talk to us about what project you need?”. With that experience — and obviously, Sean and the others were very helpful and were shadowing — I felt I built a base of like, “okay, I know, who could be successful in the program”. It’s always hard to say yes or no to a project, but hopefully we were able to pick the ones that had the best chance of being successful. So I was doing client interviews, and then fellow interviews and a lot of logistical [things] like hackathons or speakers.
Akshay:
Got it. And that was that …2019?
Maria:
2020 was the year when I didn’t have a project.
Akshay:
Got it. 2020 also happens to be the year of the pandemic. So up till now, you had had an in-person experience, right? Were there challenges, with you working remotely in the leadership team?
Maria:
I mean, obviously, it was a very difficult year for everybody. I think a lot of things change, including Delta. The big change was, before the Hackathons were such a come-together moment where you get to meet the people that you had Zoomed with in person, we would have lunch, and maybe people would stay after and go to, say, an arcade. And we kind of lost all of that. I think our biggest fear was just to not have a dip in fellow retention. Because without all these fun things to create a team-like structure, it felt like anybody could drop off at any point.
I think we had the most incidents in a year where people had to drop out because of personal or career-related reasons, which is totally understandable. I think we had to restart some projects; I remember Sean had to actually step in and lead a project. I guess [for] the leadership team, we were meeting remotely weekly anyway — because we lived in different places [and] we weren’t going to drive in every week. So that wasn’t a big change. I guess it was more [about] morale and how to manage everybody’s situation while also facing whatever we were facing in our lives. So yeah, it was a very interesting year.
Akshay:
So the year after that, that was the year you were on the leadership team, and doing a project. So we relaxed that rule of not being in the leadership team and contributing directly in a project as a fellow. Tell us a little bit about how you came to that.
Maria:
Yeah, well, I’ve always wanted to do the project piece. Even in the year that I didn’t do a project, I really wanted to, but I guess everybody thought it might be a bit too much of a tight commitment. And I guess they didn’t know me as an Ops member, they knew me just as Maria from doing projects so I had to build trust internally. And then I was like, “Okay, well, now that you know me, can I also do a project?” and then everybody’s like “fine, you can do a project” (laughs).
And Collective Liberty was such an interesting story — that is the project that I was doing that year. We had done all the interviews, and we were like, “okay, we know all the clients that we’re going to be this year”. And then I get an email saying, “oh, did you get our data?” from Collective Liberty. And I was like, “who is this?” because we hadn’t received their application form. For some reason — maybe they didn’t click ‘Submit’, or something happened — but they didn’t actually apply to our program. They just sent us the data. And then I Googled them. And I saw that they had such an important mission with fighting human trafficking. The point of contact was such an impressive woman; she worked as a Assistant District Attorney before and then she decided she wanted to help in this area more than she was already doing as a DA. And I told Sean, “we have to interview them” to see maybe we can help. And we interviewed them. They were fantastic, and exactly the type of project that we wanted.
So we actually added another client slot just for them. And I said, “well, no, I have to be on this project, because they were so passionate about what they were doing throughout the year… (pause). I felt they knew what they wanted. They were very responsive. And I wasn’t even the Project Lead so technically, I wasn’t the main point of contact, but they really kept us all from the project in the loop. And even though it was another remote year, and morale wasn’t 100% because we were still dealing with pandemic stuff, it was a wonderful project to be a part of just to see the good work that they were doing and to even just learn more about America’s efforts to help with this problem, what the different laws are and like, what are the gaps and how we can help has been very enlightening.
Akshay:
Rochelle [Keyhan], I think the point of contact, we actually had her as a guest speaker?
Maria:
Yeah. She was, I think, one of the best-received speakers — people had so many questions. She was so graceful answering them since it’s a sensitive topic. It’s hard to talk about human trafficking at, say, a data convention. But she was very informative, and I think we all learned a lot from her. Are they still doing a project this year?
Akshay:
Yes — I think we needed to change the scope a little bit but I think it ended well. They seemed happy with what was happening.
Akshay:
So you were in the leadership team, and you were also in a project. How were you able to manage that?
“…I did like that: [Delta] kind of had the emotional, organizational maturity to say “this is our limit””
Maria:
I have a very busy schedule (laughs). Google Calendar helps a lot (not sponsored). This was before I had started my master’s degree, which completely changed my schedule, but I mean, honestly when I worked for Facebook, I think my first week I heard Sheryl Sandberg talk about how she managed her calendar and she said, “if it’s not hurting you, you’re not prioritizing enough”. I think what she meant was there are things that you’ll have to let go of, and if you’re dedicated to something, and you want to actually put all the work into it, you should cut things that you’re, I guess upset about cutting, because if you’re just cutting things that are casually, maybe you wanted to do them, but you’re not going to, that’s not really prioritizing. There’s room for optimization. So I like to either fully dedicate myself to something or step back and let someone else fill that role. Because I feel if I’m giving 50%, it’s not the best it could be. So that is kind of my philosophy around time management.
Akshay:
Sounded like you were ruthlessly prioritizing?
Maria:
Yeah, I mean, there’s definitely a lot of things that I wish I had the time to do. But I hope I’m managing them appropriately.
Akshay:
Was it shortly thereafter that you started your Masters?
Maria:
Yeah, so I did econ and stats, but I always felt I wanted to do more computer science, data-like degree. But I also love my job — I love working. So I didn’t want to full time do a master’s degree and luckily, I found this degree that lets me work, but also do the degree at the expense of everything all other activities in my life, I guess (smiles).
It’s been really great. I think it has been useful for my work, but also for me to get context on maybe some statistics questions I had from undergrad — I definitely feel more confident about my math skills now. But it’s also a lot of time — one class is supposed to take 20 hours a week. So two classes is like another full time job. So I’ve had to kind of cut back on other stuff.
Akshay:
That makes sense. So at this point, well, you had about four years of Delta experience — fellow and, you know, the leadership team as well. Do you have any favorite moments?
Maria:
Yeah, definitely (laughs). So okay, I think one of them was the first so after I had done the two projects and I had joined the organizing team. We had this offsite to meet everybody in person at the beginning of the year, and nobody had mentioned we were going to do a hike — it was just like “oh, we’re gonna walk through the city” and the schedule said “walk through the city, then do some organizing and then dinner” or something like that. I had brought my chunky laptop, and you know, jeans and not hike-appropriate shoes. And then we start climbing the hill to Twin Peaks and it was a two-hour hike or something. And I was like, had I known! I didn’t even have water (laughs).
Akshay:
You know, I think there’s a picture of it somewhere.
“(laughing) [the hiking picture] does not capture my emotions at the time because I was smiling but not on the inside. I didn’t know what we were going to do [a hike] that day”
Maria:
(laughing) It does not capture my emotions at the time because I was smiling but not on the inside. I didn’t know what we were going to do it that day — I guess if you live in SF, maybe you know what Twin Peaks is and you know how to dress. Well, I didn’t know. But after the hike, I think it was the first time when we all just talked and I got to see their personal side and not just the Delta, organizer side. I remember I talked to Sarah [Hooker] for the first time maybe and she was a very positive person. Very inspiring, a lot of energy. So I thought yeah, that was a great moment.
I like all the Hackathons obviously — when we would just get to talk and have fun. Yeah, I and honestly the little conference we had in gather.town was great. I think we did the best out of a weird COVID situation.
Akshay:
So that was the year we tried gather.town. We used it last year again — it’s a nifty tool.
Maria:
I remember Sean and I really liked the furniture options for the virtual room. That was really fun (laughs).
Akshay:
That’s hilarious (laughs).
Akshay:
And so in your four years, you’ve been afforded a perspective of Delta from when you joined to when you left. How did it change?
Maria:
I mean, I think already when I came in, it was in a great place so I don’t think there was much room for improvement. I think some of the things that we learned were maybe what size is our sweet spot, where we didn’t want to grow, where it was too big. It’s kind of Delta magic where you could handpick all the projects and the fellows and we know that it would work well. I did like that: we kind of had the emotional, organizational maturity to say “this is our limit”. We don’t need to grow like, you know, a publicly-traded company and every year [means] more clients, more fellows. We know what a good size is.
I think it’s always been a great place to be — I think COVID obviously transformed it in a way, but yeah.
Akshay:
You’ve had a chance to interact with clients in various forms and shapes. How do you feel about the impact Delta might have had?
Maria:
It’s hard because you know, you work with a client and you feel so close to them. And when the six months are over, you check in and [they share] “this is how you helped us”. Then, they kind of go away and you’re like “oh, I hope they’re doing well”. I think especially the clients that have come back for a couple of years, like CareerVillage, I feel that was a great kind of relationship-building moment where we got to see the nonprofit grow and how the problems increase in complexity. I always love to see returners and like how their journey progresses.
I feel good about the work that we’re doing. Especially I love when there are follow-up presentations — like Rainforest Connection, where they’re [shared] how they use the technology that was built.
Akshay:
Yeah. I think CareerVillage might be coming back this year — which is awesome.
Akshay:
So you mentioned one of the reasons you initially joined Delta was to meet some people. How do you feel about that four years out?
Maria:
I mean, I still have friends from Delta. I’m not gonna shout them out in case I forget anyone (laughs). But yeah, it was great to honestly meet I guess, ‘data people’. When I moved to the Bay Area, most of the people I had known were software engineers. But I was interested in data and I was like, well, I don’t really have a data community to talk about the specific issues that we have in tech, that are non-software engineering-specific.
Now, after four years, I feel like I know a lot of people in the domain and we can talk about “how would you do this?” or “how would you feel about this data specific issue?”. I think it helps to see even what other people’s career trajectories have looked like — what options are there? So it’s been transformative for sure.
“I think both as a Fellow and as a Program Lead, the biggest challenge is never the technical aspect. We have such competent volunteers — everybody’s super dedicated — that I think the biggest piece that people don’t realize is a factor is literally the people”
Akshay:
That’s great to hear. Unfortunately, you’re not a part of Delta anymore, which is sad — in brackets, please come back!
Maria:
Aww let’s see in a year, when I finished my master’s if I’m still alive (laughs).
Akshay:
What’s next?
Maria:
Well, first of all it was very hard to decide to leave. As I mentioned before, I’m an all-or-nothing type of person. I don’t like being in a volatile situation and being like, “well, I can only help you guys a day a month, because I’m slammed with work and other stuff”. So as I felt that I was getting more and more busy — in my first semester of school, I was in Delta as well — I could already feel that I wasn’t 100% available. I could see people asking me to do this and that, and I would do it as much as I could. But I also have to delegate some of it or not do as thorough of a job for certain things. Then I felt well, maybe it’s time to train someone else to do it, and pass off the baton. Luckily, Malavika kindly offered to help and hopefully, between me telling her some of the stuff I knew and Sean being there, it was a non-issue. But yeah, she’s doing an amazing job.
Akshay:
Are you still thinking of being in the data for good space — maybe at some point later?
Maria:
It’s hard to say — I’m finishing my degree and it’s going to be at least another year. I would love to do something similar afterwards. Well, yeah, I don’t know, what’s gonna happen? I don’t have any plans for the future right now besides graduating and working at my job.
Akshay:
But that makes a lot of sense balancing a workload from your, from your workplace and course. That’s a ton. Yeah. All right, as we near the end of the interview, do you have any tips for people who are considering applying to Delta?
Maria:
Tips? Do it. Definitely apply. I was very kind of scared in the beginning, as I mentioned — will they accept me? Am I good enough? Can I add value? I guess the fear for me was like, oh, if I do a bad job with this nonprofit, will they not get the work that they deserve? For people concerned, do it. You’ll learn with your project mates — I think we always tried to pair junior people with more experienced people, so they teach each other. It’s a wonderful learning opportunity. You’re adding something really cool to your CV that will definitely help for work. You will learn the actual technology way faster than [through] a class or a tutorial. And yeah, you’re helping nonprofits which is super cool. And friends, you’ll meet a lot of amazing people. Yeah, that’s it.
Akshay:
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing so much about the experience at Delta.
Maria:
No worries! It’s a lot — looking back, five years!
Akshay:
It’s a wealth of anecdotes, memories. We still miss your social icebreakers (laughs) [for our weekly meetings]. I don’t think any of us has come close to the bar that you set.
Maria:
Oh, go live in Romania for a year. It’ll be very educational — you will have many icebreakers.
Akshay:
Have you had a chance to go back home yet?
Maria:
No, I haven’t yet. I haven’t taken a vacation yet or traveled in like three years — but some day, soon. I am actively thinking about vacation planning.
Akshay:
Okay, cool. Awesome. Thank you, Maria.
Note: this interview was conducted in September 2022 and was abridged for clarity.
