Becoming a Big Data Scientist is not easy. It is hard work and it requires a vast array of skills. Although the Big Data Scientist is said to be the sexiest job of the 21st century, it requires a combination of skills that previously did not even exist in a complete department. A Big Data Scientist needs to be able to understand the technical aspects of data and have sufficient knowledge of mathematics and modelling. He or she needs to have knowledge of a wide range of tools and techniques ranging from Hadoop to Python and anything in between and at the same time needs to be able to understand the business in order to ask the right questions. Some time ago I wrote the ultimate job description of the Big Data scientist and that shows that these talents are scarce and difficult to achieve.
Last month, Datacamp confirmed this story. They created an infographic containing a guide with eight easy steps how to become a Big Data Scientist, including some additional resources for further perfection. Unfortunately, for Data Scientists to be who expect to become one at short notice, there is only utter disappointment. It still is a long road and requires a large amount of expertise that has to be learned.
Above anything, a Data Scientist needs to be able to learn and write code, preferably in many different languages. But sufficient knowledge of mathematics, statistics and machine learning to start with is also required. Once these skills are mastered, it is time to learn various types of databases. Different types of data and different use cases require different databases. So it is important to know and be able to work with a wide range of databases. This knowledge comes in handy when you need to start mining the data within the various databases and when you want to visualize them in order to better understand the insights you can now derive from it. But when you need to handle such massive amounts of data that is just not enough. You should also learn typical Big Data tools and techniques such as Hadoop, MapReduce or Spark.
Once you have mastered all that, and which probably will take you some time, it is time to start working, get experience and meet fellow Data Scientists in order to learn from each other. Internships are a great way to work at large companies and learn from the best. Share your knowledge with the community, so that the entire community benefits from your newly gained knowledge.
Becoming a Big Data Scientist is difficult and it sure is a long way. But it is also very rewarding. Data Scientists will earn high salaries and work on challenging projects. So it definitely is worth the hard work and it will earn you the job title of the sexiest job in the 21st century. And lets be honest, who does not want to have that job?
