Data Scientist Job Description
The job description of a data scientist continues to evolve with technology but involves communicating data findings to both technology leaders and business managers to help an organization meet a business challenge. The data scientist explores information from not just one source, but from multiple sources in order to gain maximum insight that can give the company a competitive advantage.
Position Description
A data scientist spends long hours collecting and analyzing data to spot trends and help a company face the challenges of an evolving customer base and changing marketplace.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities of a Data Scientist
- Identifies unique opportunities to collect new data.
- Designs new processes and builds large, complex data sets.
- Strategizes new uses for data and its interaction with data design.
- Locates new data sources, analyzes statistics and implements quality procedures.
- Performs data studies of new and diverse data sources.
- Finds new uses for existing data sources.
- Conducts statistical modeling and experiment design.
- Discovers “stories” told by the data and presents them to other scientists and business managers.
- Tests and validates predictive models.
- Builds web prototypes and performs data visualization.
- Conducts scalable data research on and off the cloud.
- Implements automated processes for efficiently producing scale models.
- Designs, modifies and builds new data processes.
- Generates algorithms and creates computer models.
- Collaborates with database engineers and other scientists.
- Implements new or enhanced software designed to access and handle data more efficiently.
- Trains the data management team on new or updated procedures.
Required Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
- Possesses a working knowledge of statistics, programming and predictive modeling.
- Demonstrates excellent code writing abilities.
- Has strong critical thinking skills and the ability to relate them to the products or services the company is producing.
- Displays understanding of and ability to use programming languages like Python and SQL (Structured Query Language).
- Shows strong knowledge of basic and advanced prediction models.
- Possesses a combination of creative abilities and business knowledge.
- Has data mining knowledge that spans a range of disciplines.
- Displays superior technical coding abilities.
- Possesses strong exploratory analysis skills.
- Demonstrates excellent verbal and written communication skills as well as the ability to bridge the gap between data science and business management.
- Has the ability to think and research creatively.
- Displays exceptional organizational skills and is detail oriented.
- Possesses a mastery of statistics, machine learning, algorithms and advanced mathematics.
Education and Experience
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science.
- Master’s degree in business analytics or an advanced computer programming field.
- Doctorate degree in statistics or physics.
- Previous experience working in data mining or natural language processing.
Work Environment
- Works normal business hours of 8:00a.m. to 5:00p.m. Monday through Friday, but may work longer hours when faced with a project deadline.
- Has opportunities to work at home on a regular basis.
- Spends long hours looking at computer screens or reports and reviewing data.
- Spends time in board rooms or auditoriums performing presentations associated with data research and conclusions.
Salary
- Salaries for data scientists range from $80,000 to $150,000 depending on experience, level of education and knowledge of languages and programs.
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