Client analyst for Decision Lens, a Washington, D.C. company that develops software to help organizations make decisions. Princeton major: math.
What he does: Byrnes works with professional sports teams. For hockey teams, for example, he designs software models that incorporate criteria such as players’ skating and shooting ability; the relative importance of each criterion; and scouting data. The model produces a ranked list of players — one factor used by the team’s management in its draft picks.
Challenges: “The biggest challenge is to get the management and scouts to understand that we are not numbers guys coming in from above trying to replace the scouts,” says Byrnes. “Old-fashioned scouting judgment ... is absolutely invaluable.”
How he got the job: He first encountered Decision Lens during an internship with the Green Bay Packers; the team was trying out the company’s software. That led to a Decision Lens internship and eventually a job offer.
Down the road: “What I would love to do more than anything else,” he says, “is to be the general manager of a sports team.”