Opinion

A Day in the Life of a Senior Data Scientist

Including a rundown of a common step-by-step project outline

Photo by Slidebean on Unsplash [1].

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Responding, Planning, and Meeting Updates
3. Expected Data Science Work
4. Summary and Personal Thoughts
5. References

Introduction

Target audience:

This article is intended for those who are current data scientists and interested in becoming a senior data scientist. It can also serve as an example of working in data science in general for those looking to switch careers.

Let’s get the first thing clear, a senior role is different from company to company, so please take this day-in-the-life with a grain of salt. The main difference between a senior and non-senior role, to me anyway, is that a senior position usually involves more collaboration cross-functionally between different teams and stakeholders. It may also be the case that you own an entire project, very similar to a product manager, where you are not only coming up with the solution, but also coming up with the why and its impact, say KPIs (Key Performance Indicator), for example. With that being said…