Making Data Useful

Which flavor of data professional are you?

A field guide to the expanding data science universe

The data universe is expanding rapidly — it’s time we started recognizing just how big this field is and that working in one part of it doesn’t automatically require us to be experts of all of it. Instead of expecting data people to be able to do all of it, let’s start asking one another, “Which kind are you?” Most importantly, it’s time we asked ourselves that same question.

Working in one part of the data universe doesn’t automatically require us to be experts of all of it.

Image: Source.

Disclaimer: I made these caricatures to help you get a mental map started, but we all know that real life doesn’t always color neatly within the lines. For example, one person might wear multiple hats or project phases might be blurred together by unplanned iteration. Please don’t throw rotten tomatoes at me for lack of nuance.

Note: my article on recommended hiring order for various roles is here.

Which business are you in?

Real-world applied ML/AI brings together every job role related to data, from statisticians to reliability engineers. Even if…