Data science is a role, not a field. It's similar to but wider than the applied statistician role that is well-established in many fields of research. You have

Data science is a role, not a field. It's similar to but wider than the applied statistician role that is well-established in many fields of research. You have a background in one field, but you are working to solve problems in another field (e.g. biochemistry). To do that, you must understand biochemistry well enough to be able to contribute. You are probably far from the best biochemist in the team, as you were hired for your methodological skills. In order to solve the problems, you may need tools from a number of fields, including statistics, machine learning, software engineering, data engineering, mathematics, and theoretical computer science. No matter which field your original degree was in, it's insufficient in both depth and breadth. You must keep learning new things and rely on others with complementary skills. I work in bioinformatics, which is basically a more established flavor of data science. I have worked with people from a variety of backgrounds from electrical engineering to genetics, and everyone has had obvious gaps in their skills. Except maybe one or two people, but they are world-famous experts who are unnaturally curious about everything.