To say that data scientists are in high demand would actually be sort of an understatement. With big data being utilized more and more within organizations, executives want men and women who know big data inside and out. The number of data scientist positions is on the rise and growing each year. This demand is reflected in the amount of money being paid to data scientists, with the median salary for computer and information research scientists hitting more than $110,000 in 2015, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But its not enough to be considered a data scientist, you need to have the right skills to get noticed above your peers. In this way, youll be able to land the most coveted jobs that are out there. In other words, mastering certain skills will get you noticed far more quickly.
One can look at data science skills you should know through a broad lens. Simply saying you need programming skills, for example, would be accurate, but lets get more specific than that. In an analysis from CrowdFlower of LinkedIn job postings, the most cited skill for data scientist openings was SQL. In fact, more than half (57 percent) listed SQL as a skill employers were looking for. Related to that was the demand for people with Hadoop skills. Both these skills being in such high demand shouldnt come as a big surprise because they are both related to data storage. Analyzing big data is no doubt important, but if you cant access the data from the start, your analysis wont get very far.
Being an expert at Hadoop also ties into showing expertise in Hadoop-related tools. The same CrowdFlower analysis found tools like Hive, MapReduce, and Pig were also sought by employers wanting to expand their data science teams. Java was also listed, most likely since thats the programming language Hadoop was written in. From these findings, its clear that organizations want people who can handle SQL and Hadoop duties.
Another programming language, Python, is also high on employers list of skills. Python is most closely tied to cleaning large data sets, and while again this isnt a direct data analysis skill, many data scientists jobs now revolve on cleaning up data for future analysis purposes. Its the main reason expert believe Python is more sought after than a language like R. The preparation process for analysis has become increasingly important, and Python plays a big role in that.
Some skills have little to do with technical ability. One such skill is communication. Data scientists often have to deal with concepts and applications that can be difficult to describe to someone who is unfamiliar with big data. If a data scientist has the skills to explain how best to use Spot instances, for example, theyll have a major advantage over others in landing a job. Business owners like having data scientists who can tell them in simple terms how big data will benefit the business and help organizations reach their stated business objectives. With effective communication skills, data scientists will be better prepared to convey the importance of their jobs to the right people.
More skills like project management and familiarity with data visualization tools also have important roles to play. But its crucial to understand that learning these skills doesnt happen in one place and at the same time. Knowing how best to apply the right machine learning algorithm can come from self-teaching efforts, like reading books and use cases on the subject. Many online courses can get you up to speed with programming languages you may not have sufficient skills in. Theres also no substitute for practice. Taking real data sets from public data archives and practicing for yourself how to clean and analyze them can go far in helping you learn the basics of using tools like Hadoop and SQL.
Ultimately, its all up to you how you develop your big data skills. Perhaps youll focus more on the business side of data science, or maybe youll place an emphasis on the technologies involved. No matter what you choose, several skills have shown to be quite popular among employers, so working on those will only increase your chances of receiving a coveted job offer.
