Data scientists are big data wranglers. They take an enormous mass of messy data points (unstructured and structured) and use their formidable skills in math, statistics and programming to clean, massage and organize them. Then they apply all their analytic powers – industry knowledge, contextual understanding, skepticism of existing assumptions – to uncover hidden solutions to business challenges.
On any given day, a data scientist may be required to:
- Conduct undirected research and frame open-ended industry questions
- Extract huge volumes of data from multiple internal and external sources
- Employ sophisticated analytics programs, machine learning and statistical methods to prepare data for use in predictive and prescriptive modeling
- Thoroughly clean and prune data to discard irrelevant information
- Explore and examine data from a variety of angles to determine hidden weaknesses, trends and/or opportunities
- Devise data-driven solutions to the most pressing challenges
- Invent new algorithms to solve problems and build new tools to automate work
- Communicate predictions and findings to management and IT departments through effective data visualizations and reports
- Recommend cost-effective changes to existing procedures and strategies
Every company will have a different take on job tasks. Some treat their data scientists as glorified Data Analyst or combine their duties with data Engineers; others need top-level analytics experts skilled in intense machine learning and data visualizations.
As data scientists achieve new levels of experience or change jobs, their responsibilities invariably change. For example, a person working alone in a mid-size company may spend a good portion of the day in data cleaning and munging. A high-level employee in a business that offers data-based services may be asked to structure big data projects or create new products.