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The Big Data Researcher studies the big data possibilities for an organisation in depth. Using different methodologies the big data researcher identifies, investigates and implements new big data technologies for the organisation that will enable new business and product opportunities in diverse areas. The big data researcher is at the forefront of what is happening in the big data world and has knowledge about and expertise of the latest big data technologies. The big data researcher establishes or confirms facts, solves new or existing problems with big data solutions and/or validates different big data technologies before they are implemented throughout an organisation.
Big data researchers are very valuable to organisations as they can bring an organisation further and into unknown territory that could lead to improved business results and stay ahead of the competition. He or she can develop new ways to acquire, analyse and make sense out of the available big data. In order to achieve this, the big data researcher needs to be able to devise methodologies to understand how the available big data can be increased and how the application of big data can be improved.
The big data researcher needs to have a very firm understanding of different big data technologies, databases and programming languages. They need to have statistical, mathematical and predictive modelling skills to build the algorithms necessary to ask the right questions and find the right answers.
Programming/scripting skills like Java, Linux, PHP, Ruby, Phyton and/or R should be present. As well as have experience in working with ETL tools such as Informatica, Talend and/or Pentaho. He or she should have experience in designing solutions for multiple large data warehouses with a good understanding of cluster and parallel architecture as well as high-scale or distributed RDBMS and/or knowledge on NoSQL platforms. Hadoop, MapReduce, Hive, HBase and other big data technologies should be understood thoroughly. The big data researcher should be able to design and build the needed hardware and software (including algorithms) to test the created hypotheses.
A big data researcher needs to be able to manage his or her own projects, including budget and planning of the project. The projects should be well defined by the big data researchers, including objectives and time and resources needed to do the big data project. Excellent oral and written communication skills should be present in order to inform (senior) management about the results of the project and possible applications of it within the company.
The big data researcher should be comfortable with a large amount of different analyses that can be done on the available data. Text mining, clustering analysis, recommendation analysis, outlier detection, predictive analytics or similarity searches are just a few of the possible analysis that the big data researcher should be able to use within the big data research projects.
Big data researchers generally hold a doctorate degree in for example computer science, computer and systems engineering, software development or parallel computing. They have written several publications on the work they have done. In addition to the above skills, there are also several soft skills that a big data researcher should have:
- To be able to communicate ideas and concepts effectively;
- To enjoy and being able to speak in public when sharing results and best practices of the big data research;
- To be able to work independently as well as in a team;
- To have a natural curiosity to discover new things;
- To be able to correctly formulate problems, ideas and hypotheses;
- To be able to stay focused on a single project for longer periods and to persevere.
A big data researcher can bring an organisation forward and to new levels. In order to do this he or she should understand how the business works and have a least some sense of strategic implications of the work done. Depending on the industry the big data researcher works, he or she will need to specialize and understand the industry. A big data researcher in the automotive industry, after all, does require a different set of skills than a big data researcher in the health industry.
