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“Finding 1: most data scientists have postgraduate degrees” Data Scientists primarily function to tell a story (based upon data) that technicals and non-techni
by choppaface 7y ago
“Finding 1: most data scientists have postgraduate degrees”
Data Scientists primarily function to tell a story (based upon data) that technicals and non-technicals alike will use in business decisions. It’s critical that a Data Scientist be perceived as trustworthy, since the decision-makers are unlikely to reproduce or even understand the Data Scientist’s full argument.
What signals trustworthiness? A graduate degree from a Harvard Yale Princeton Stanford (HYPS) or similar university definitely speaks well for a candidate. Online degree programs like Coursera / Udacity / etc won’t carry nearly the same weight until their alumnae network grows, and that will require growing into non-technical fields.
What signals untrustworthiness ? Sadly, the “hacker” skills that are so very key in DS (e.g. for data cleaning) are completely at odds with traditional (and especially non-technical) assessments of trustworthiness. Many companies in the Bay Area will look past this issue, but it’s arguably a competitive advantage to simply be able to assess “hacker” skills effectively. That also entails making space for “hackers” at your company. Can’t take hackers? You probably will never hire a good Data Scientist.
- nerdponx 7y agoThat, or, candidates without formal education lack the basic statistical knowledge and/or communication skills required. PhDs can't code, hackers don't know stats. A good team has both. If you're a one-man show, you need to do both yourself.
- Blackstone4 7y agoHedge funds often have data engineers who focus on building the infrastructure and cleaning the data. They also have quant guys/data scientists who use the data to help drive investment decisions.
- conjectures 7y ago"PhDs can't code" what a load of crap.
- perl4ever 7y agoI never tried to get a job as a data scientist, and as a matter of fact, I never took a course in statistics as part of my undergraduate CS degree (only discrete probability), but I think a good thing to remember is that there are always interesting jobs you aren't aware of, so don't focus too much on what you think the ideal title would be. I was called a few years ago by someone looking to hire a support person for scientists using supercomputers. I just couldn't believe my experience (SQL, ETL, data munging, etc) was applicable, and I talked him out of it. But some people might have taken the approach of get the job and then learn what it's about.
- amiga_500 7y agoThey might trust the person. But Ivy League gives plausible deniability.
- alexgmcm 7y agoExactly. It's the "no-one ever got fired for buying IBM" of the recruiting world.