Nowadays, it is becoming crystal clear that modern businesses are awash with data that have to be processed and analyzed.

Here lies the importance of having a data scientist within your company. He is the one you will rely on to build your data products that will extract valuable insights for your business.

A data scientist aims to explore, sort, and analyze data in order to help your company to take advantage of trends that will help to make better decisions.

This blog’s main goal is to remind you how important is to have a data scientist on your team. Therefore, we will dive deeper into the objectives and skills of a data scientist.

First, let’s check whether you really need a data scientist for your company or not.

Do you cross large amounts of raw information from day to day?

Do you need to follow trends and be up-to-date to overcome your competitors?

Do you think that you are facing complex data that you can’t interpret?

Data scientist objectives

• First a data scientist starts work in your company, he will identify the valuable data sources. The objective here is to mine and extract usable data.

• Then he will select data features that he will use to train the machine learning models. It’s the process of automatically selecting the features that contribute the most to predicting the output that you are interested in. The main goal is to automate the process of collecting data to optimize performance.

• Then he will select data features that he will use to train the machine learning models. It’s the process of automatically selecting the features that contribute the most to predicting the output that you are interested in. The main goal is to automate the process of collecting data to optimize performance.

• After getting pre-processed, the integrity of data should be processed, cleansed, and validated for analysis. In this step, the data scientist should have a final selection of data to be used.

• Here comes the time of one of the most important tasks of a data scientist, the analysis of the large amounts of information which will help him to find patterns and solutions. The importance of this task comes from the dependency of the following steps on it.

• Based on his analysis, the data scientist should develop prediction systems and machine learning algorithms that will tend to become smarter with each iteration.

• For the sake of highlighting his efforts, a great data scientist should present the results he found in a clear manner to a technical or non-technical audience.

• After presenting facts and findings, the data scientist should propose solutions and strategies that will help to tackle business challenges.

• And finally, a great data scientist should be up to collaborate with business and IT teams.

To meet these objectives a data scientist should master a set of skills.

• Programming skills: it is desirable to have knowledge of languages like R, Python, SQL, Hive, Pig, and preferably to be familiar with Scala, Java, or C++.

• Statistics: proficiency in statistics is crucial for a great data scientist.

• Machine learning: it is important to have good knowledge of methods like Naive, SVM, K-Nearest Neighbors, Decision Forests.

• Strong math skills: good understanding of the fundamentals of linear algebra and multivariable calculus since they are the basis of the algorithm optimization techniques or predictive performance.

• Mastering of data visualization tools: it is important to visually encode data using tools such as Matplotlib, ggplot, d3.js.

• Problem-solving aptitude, great business sense, and analytical mind.

• Effective communication skills: it is extremely important to clearly communicate and present his efforts and data findings.

This figure shows the extreme importance of well-explained data.

Data science is a mixture of science and computing that aims to generate insights. It is a young field that is growing fast over the last few years due to the boom in the volume of data stored by companies.

Due to its high technicity, you may struggle to find the right profile of a data scientist who will be able to fulfill all these objectives and have these skills.
We will gladly help you figure this out. We already have a team of experienced data scientists that we put at your disposal to help you take your business to the next level. Don’t hesitate to contact us.