Big Data

5 Skills Every Data Scientist Should Learn

6 years ago
Share

How to become a Data Scientist?

Data Science is providing tremendous business value such as precision in forecasting and gaining insights on what can be beneficial for the customer. Take for instance streaming sites like YouTube etc. Data science is being used to mine data about what kind of videos attract users’ interests. This helps the site to recommend similar videos based on their specific choices and interests.

5 skills every Data Scientist should have

In today’s world, where the competition is immense, data scientists are more in demand than ever. If you are interested in entering this field and want a list of skills that you need to master then you are at the right place. We have listed 5 essential skills you need to master in order to be a good Data Scientist.

1. High-level understanding of Python, Hadoop, and SQL

As a data scientist, it is essential for you to be good at programming languages like Python, Hadoop, and SQL. The data provided to a data scientist is usually in form of large data sets and being able to understand and decode it requires good programming knowledge.

Only after you have understood the dataset can you mine data and identify peculiar characteristics and patterns. The work of a data scientist is more applied than theoretical.

 

2. Strong Decision-Making Prowess

A data scientist should have good intuition and decision making skills to identify the product and have a concrete knowledge of the complex system and data. When a data scientist has a good product intuition, he can generate general hypothesis on how he can improve the product, and get good insights.

It is also necessary for a data scientist to know how to define metrics of the product so that he knows what he can do to make it better.

3. Ability to work well in teams

Data science is not an easy job, and it is definitely not something one can do alone. A data scientist needs to have good teamwork spirit if at all he wants to do his job as per expected outcomes. Be it ETL specialists or data analysts, or even stakeholders form the business side, a data scientist will have to collaborate with many teams from time to time. Having a good team spirit makes workflow smoother.

4. Good Communication Skills

Even if a person is good in data science, and has obtained excellent insights, it is essential for him to know how to communicate his findings in a perfect manner. All the insights obtained from such deep-end and thorough research will be of no use if it is not communicated effectively. Different business units must be able to derive the much-needed data to make better business decisions.

5. Excellent Quantitative Analysis

A data scientist must mine data and identify peculiar characteristics and behavior from the given data. Hence, quantitative analysis becomes an essential skill for a data scientist as the datasets provided are very large. In order to efficiently identify products and their behavioral characteristics, a data scientist needs to have quantitative analysis as his expert skill.

Thus, if you want to become the most sought-after data scientist in the industry, then these are the five key skills you must possess to be good at your job.