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> My guess is that data science roles will merge with business analyst roles. Data Scientist is a buzz word for Statistician. Business Analyst is buzz word for

> My guess is that data science roles will merge with business analyst roles. Data Scientist is a buzz word for Statistician. Business Analyst is buzz word for Industrial Engineer. For example 10 years ago if you studied at my university you would witness that some Statistics students were doing second major mostly at Industrial Engineering and vice versa. They are already related for many years but average Joe has no idea.

bradleyjg 7y ago
Eh. I'd say "industrial engineer" has more bullshit in it than "business analyst" by a long shot. The twenty or early thirty something spending all day in powerpoint and excel to make presentations and handouts for a fifty or sixty something to present to other fifty and sixty somethings is more likely to have majored in economics, business, and/or have an MBA than to have spent any time anywhere near an engineering department.
Gene_Parmesan 7y ago
I still don't really know what a business analyst role truly entails. In my office they seem more like mini project managers w/o the management. They talk to internal stakeholders a bunch, handle a lot of our UAT, and I guess do some reports stuff? One has moderate tech skills (but no programming) and the other is just really good at Excel. I'm still not sure what their actual formal responsibilities are.
- kthejoker2 7y ago
  I mean, a business analyst should do just that: analyzes the business. It's usually their job to translate strategic areas of improvement in the business unit into specific outcomes. They ask questions to identify areas of improvement; translate those into functional (and sometimes technical) requirements for other areas (not just IT) to fulfill; and then coordinate the efforts to implement those requirements, potentially as PMs, product owners, Scrum masters, UAT leads, or just a SME. The best BAs (paraphrasing the data science JD) know more tech than the business and more business than the tech.
natalyarostova 7y ago
>Data Scientist is a buzz word for Statistician It's really not. The skill set we need in terms of some software, system design, and a rich knowledge of modern data science libraries and trends is not something you should expect a statistician to have. Similarly, I certainly cannot prove asymptotic theorems like a statistician.
- darkhorn 7y ago
  The only thing that they don't teach at Department of Statistics is Neural Networks.
  - natalyarostova 7y ago
    Or design patterns, software, modern database architectures, cloud services, how to write production code... I'm not trying to slight the Dept. of Stats. I love statistics. I've found studying PhD stats textbooks more valuable for my data science career than learning the latest deep net framework. I'm just noting there is a need for other tools.

bradleyjg 7y ago

Eh. I'd say "industrial engineer" has more bullshit in it than "business analyst" by a long shot. The twenty or early thirty something spending all day in powerpoint and excel to make presentations and handouts for a fifty or sixty something to present to other fifty and sixty somethings is more likely to have majored in economics, business, and/or have an MBA than to have spent any time anywhere near an engineering department.

Gene_Parmesan 7y ago

I still don't really know what a business analyst role truly entails. In my office they seem more like mini project managers w/o the management. They talk to internal stakeholders a bunch, handle a lot of our UAT, and I guess do some reports stuff? One has moderate tech skills (but no programming) and the other is just really good at Excel. I'm still not sure what their actual formal responsibilities are.

kthejoker2 7y ago
I mean, a business analyst should do just that: analyzes the business. It's usually their job to translate strategic areas of improvement in the business unit into specific outcomes. They ask questions to identify areas of improvement; translate those into functional (and sometimes technical) requirements for other areas (not just IT) to fulfill; and then coordinate the efforts to implement those requirements, potentially as PMs, product owners, Scrum masters, UAT leads, or just a SME. The best BAs (paraphrasing the data science JD) know more tech than the business and more business than the tech.

natalyarostova 7y ago

>Data Scientist is a buzz word for Statistician It's really not. The skill set we need in terms of some software, system design, and a rich knowledge of modern data science libraries and trends is not something you should expect a statistician to have. Similarly, I certainly cannot prove asymptotic theorems like a statistician.

darkhorn 7y ago
The only thing that they don't teach at Department of Statistics is Neural Networks.
- natalyarostova 7y ago
  Or design patterns, software, modern database architectures, cloud services, how to write production code... I'm not trying to slight the Dept. of Stats. I love statistics. I've found studying PhD stats textbooks more valuable for my data science career than learning the latest deep net framework. I'm just noting there is a need for other tools.