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Earlier this year I looked at the question of “What Does a Data Scientist Do?” in a news roundup of articles and blog posts discussing that question. This week, I found the debate is raging on.
This week’s news roundup looks at the latest discussions on the question of “what is a data scientist” and why that question needs further consideration.
- The Data Scientist Debate – New Salary Data and Definitions at Diginomica: “But there is now an emerging clarity that the business side of the data scientist needs fleshing out. If you don’t know an industry inside and out, how much value can you add? As Gartner analyst Svetlana Sicular put it, ‘Organisations already have people who know their own data better than mystical Data Scientists… learning Hadoop is easier than learning the company’s business.'”
- You, Yes You, Can Analyze Data, Too at Pacific Standard: “Excel gives you data analysis one point at a time, but programming languages—where you write your own commands—teach you to interact with the data on a more meaningful level, understanding more than just the single formula.”
- Look out, Europe: Data Scientists are Coming Your Way at VentureBeat: “The approach could help turn out more people in Europe who can derive conclusions from different kinds of data and help companies adjust their products and approaches. And some can even help companies increase revenue or decrease expenses — two key themes we’ll be talking about at our DataBeat conference in San Francisco next month.”
- The Data Economy: Meet the Hybrid Data Scientist-Application Developer at SiliconANGLE: “Namely, as enterprise applications become more data-centric, the roles of data scientist and application developer are merging. In the short-term, this means the two roles must learn collaborate more effectively and both must assume new ways of thinking. For data scientists, this means starting to think more about how the insights they uncover can be translated into repeatable form factors consumable by end-users.”
- It’s Already Time to Kill the “Data Scientist” Title at The Wall Street Journal: “What does it mean today to say you are—or want to be, or want to hire—a ‘data scientist?’ Not much, unfortunately. The job title has almost as much ambiguity as the term ‘Big Data.’ If you really want to be one of these, or to hire someone who can help you with your Big Data projects, you need to be much more precise in your terminology.”
Download our guide to learn more about what data scientists do and how can help your business:
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