Differences in Contributions of Data Professionals in a Single Project

Rina Mondal
3 min readDec 11, 2023

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Data Professionals

In this blog, I’ll outline the diverse roles of data professionals and the essential skill sets required for any project, focusing on their contributions within an E-Commerce project. By understanding these roles, you can better choose your domain based on your interests and strengths.

Project: E-commerce Customer Satisfaction Enhancement

Problem Definition: Let’s take a data-related project in the e-commerce domain as an example. This project aims to improve customer satisfaction and increase sales through data-driven insights. The team involved in this project includes Data Engineers, Data Scientists, Machine Learning Engineers, Business Analysts, and Data Analysts. Now, let’s understand the roles.

Data Engineers:

Data Engineers are responsible for collecting, storing, and processing data. They design and maintain the data architecture, ensuring a robust and scalable infrastructure.
Tasks:
— Extract data from various sources like transaction databases, customer interactions, and website logs.
— Transform and clean the data to ensure quality and consistency.
— Load the processed data into a data warehouse for easy access.

Skills Required to become a Data Engineer:

1. Programming Proficiency: Python
2. Database Management: SQL (e.g., MySQL) and NoSQL (e.g., MongoDB)
3. Big Data Frameworks: Apache Spark (e.g., PySpark)
4. ETL Pipeline Design: ETL pipelines using tools like Apache Airflow or AWS Glue.
5. Cloud Platform Skills: Proficiency in AWS (e.g., S3, EC2)

Data Analyst:

Data analysts focus on interpreting and visualizing data to support decision-making. They provide insights that contribute to strategic planning and operational improvements.
Tasks:
— Create visualizations and dashboards to represent key performance metrics.
— Collaborate with data scientists and business analysts to present findings.

Skills Required to become a Data Analyst:

1. Data Analysis Tools : Python or R
2. Database Querying: SQL (e.g., MySQL)
3. Statistical Analysis: statistical concepts
4. Data Visualization: Tableau, Power BI, Ms Excel

Data Scientists:

Data scientists analyze complex datasets to derive actionable insights. They build models to predict customer behavior and preferences.
Tasks:
— Explore and analyze customer data to identify patterns and trends.
— Develop predictive models to forecast customer satisfaction based on historical data.
— Collaborate with data engineers to access and prepare the required datasets.

Skills Required to become a Data Scientist:

  1. Programming Language: Python
  2. Machine Learning Algorithms
  3. Statistical Analysis: Statistics and Probability

Here, I have provided a Complete Data Science Roadmap.

Machine Learning Engineers:

Machine Learning Engineers operationalize the models created by data scientists. They deploy these models to make real-time predictions.
Tasks:
— Deploy machine learning models into a production environment.
— Implement APIs for seamless integration with the e-commerce platform.
— Monitor and optimize models for performance and accuracy.

Skills Required to become a machine learning engineer:

1. Programming Languages: Python or R

2. Machine Learning Algorithms

3. Cloud Computing: Ex. AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform

4. Project Deployment: MLOps tools

Business Analyst:

Business analysts bridge the gap between technical teams and business stakeholders. They translate data insights into actionable strategies to improve business outcomes.
Tasks:
— Define key performance indicators aligned with business goals.
— Interpret data findings and communicate them to non-technical stakeholders.
— Collaborate with data scientists to align analytical findings with business strategies.

Collaboration and Workflow:

  • Data engineers provide a clean and well-organized dataset for analysis.
  • Data analysts communicate findings through visualizations and reports.
  • Data scientists utilize statistical techniques to identify patterns and trends and develop predictive models.
  • Machine learning engineers deploy models for real-time predictions.
  • Business Analyst bridge the gap between Business needs and IT Solutions.

This collaborative effort ensures that the e-commerce platform benefits from data-driven insights, leading to improved customer satisfaction and increased sales.

Each professional contributes their expertise to different stages of the project, resulting in a comprehensive and effective data solution.

Now, you can analyst your strength giving more preferences to your interests and find your own domain…

All the best.. :)

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Rina Mondal

I have an 8 years of experience and I always enjoyed writing articles. If you appreciate my hard work, please follow me, then only I can continue my passion.