For a strong engineer today, the most valuable/transferable skills are ability to learn new things (in both tech and domain) and effective problem-solving (in d

For a strong engineer today, the most valuable/transferable skills are ability to learn new things (in both tech and domain) and effective problem-solving (in different settings). Such an engineer can learn the most important aspects of statistical modeling needed for their problem at hand. The kind of researchers who are averse – "to getting their hands dirty" – to do data tasks will have a hard time staying relevant in any production setting. Unless the company has dedicated research department which is a million miles away from product teams, they are going to have a tough time being impactful.