Data Scientists are in demand. Many companies are looking for data scientists, data analysts, and the like to add to their team, to prepare for a digital transformation of the corporation.

So what does a data scientist do and what are the vital skills needed to become one?

Data Engineering

It’s all about infrastructure. Before any analytical work starts, it is important to have a sound data architecture, so that the data input into the database is safe and sound. At this stage, data scientists draw out blueprints and build the data infrastructure accordingly. Once the foundation is set, the infrastructure goes through the ETL (Extract - Transform - Load) process, where data scientists start to extract, clean and input data, repeatedly validating the data along the way. This process is important to the project’s success, for it ensures all data are stored correctly based on the blueprint.

Tools: SQL, Spark, Python, Oracle, Hadoop

Data Analytics

After the foundation is set, it is down to the Data Analysts to work their magic on the data set, i.e. to find insights from the data. With the database set, data analysts can conduct exploratory data analysis to discover trends, pattern and correlation in the dataset. Data analysts will then conduct data visualizations that could be transformed into primary business intelligence dashboards and to prepare for data modeling in further stages.

Tools: Power BI, Tableau, Python, R

Data Modelling

Once the dataset is properly cleaned up, tested and set, we can proceed with data modeling, where the data is used to create prediction models, for companies to visualize business forecast, sales projection, market prospects and so on. This stage also transforms data into more practical usages, including Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

Tools: Python, Keras, TensorFlow, Scala, scikit learn

Now you know more about the job - How can we help? It all comes down to the question of how many of these skills you already possess, but don't worry-- they can all be learned. At Xccelerate, we provide part-time courses that are good for equipping you with additional skills on top of what you have, or even helping you learn from scratch. You can learn basic Data Science. If you deem yourself having low or zero knowledge on any of the above, full-time Data Science & Machine Learning Bootcamp would be something you may want to consider, where we bring students from zero to job-ready Data Scientists.