The term Big Data is being used less and less. Even though the data scientist is 'here to stay', the job title itself is becoming increasingly diluted. What exactly is a data scientist? And what is not? Read on.
Who in the Netherlands still dares to openly say they are working with Big Data? Exactly. It's almost become a dirty word. Very typical for the Dutch: just act normal—it’s just a lot of data. Okay, a whole lot of data, increasingly (unstructured) data even, with which we can also do more and more. The many companies and websites built around this hype word must have scratched their heads by now. And we are of course grateful we didn’t go with something like 'bigdatajobs' five years ago.
Data Scientist
For a moment I was afraid the job title data scientist would go the same way. Simply because it was such a media hype and seemed so closely tied to that word Big Data. But the job title data scientist is, of course, rock solid. Just a data scientist—how simple do you want it? As I expected, the field of data science is becoming increasingly divided into specific areas of expertise. We now have the data engineers. These are the men and women who design, build, and maintain the data pipelines. The pipelines that ultimately deliver data to the data scientists, who then apply their mathematical/statistical formulas. In doing so, they give meaning to the precious material coming from the pipeline. So that others, for example, can make important decisions using that knowledge. We also still have data analysts, master data specialists, and many other related roles for data professionals. New roles are also emerging, such as citizen data scientists and analytics translators.
The Job Title Data Scientist Is Being Diluted
But back to that role of data scientist. Because I do think the term is becoming seriously diluted. I often speak with people who carry this job title but are actually data engineers or data analysts. Equally valuable roles, don’t get me wrong, but in my view, they are not data scientists. So what is a data scientist? We did a small review of about ten recent job postings for data scientists on DataJobs.nl.
What Is a Data Scientist?
A data scientist holds a university degree, is a statistician/mathematician, masters basic programming/scripting languages, and is a strong advisor and presenter. He or she works with datasets, applies statistical models, searches for relationships and patterns, and visualizes and presents the insights derived from them. In addition, a good data scientist is creative, flexible, proactive, and eager to learn! Click here for the full description. For a current overview of all data specialist job openings, visit www.datajobs.nl or follow us on the corresponding LinkedIn and/or Facebook groups. Looking for help finding the right data specialists? Ask about our tailored services (recruitment, headhunting, interim specialists, projects, employer branding, job postings, and traineeships) via www.checkdata.nl Kind regards, Raymond te Veldhuis CheckData and DataJobs.nl