Comment by hellofunk

Of the skills necessary to succeed in data science, the ability to program is actually the least important. Perhaps you were over-emphasising your software skills at the expense of really demonstrating proper understanding of the science of data analysis. A data science position is not going to require your experience in low-level game programming, for example. In fact, being able to program at all is secondary, since many can pick up some basic skills in languages like Octave, R or even Python, to support their mastery of the math. And it's also not so much math implementation but also a genuine scientist's eye on how to approach a problem. There are no cookie-cutter formulas you can throw at a non-trivial problem: you have to really understand the field and the art of analysis to do it well.