Data Science: A Guide to Careers and Team Building

[Editor’s note: This curated guide was updated in February 2022 to reflect new trends today and to include our most recent content.]

The lengthy wish list from upper management, the corporate board, customers, and employees for new, digital projects is woven with a common thread -- the work of the data science team. It's data science that underlies online customer support, AIOps, DevOps, automation, artificial intelligence and more.

Before your enterprise rolls out new technologies to fulfill that wish list, the work starts with building a data science team that ensures data quality, identifies new data sources, and implements the right technology so the digital experience is efficient and seamless.

If you are responsible for recruiting, training, deploying, and managing that data science team, this Enterprise Guide is the first step in building out a data science knowledge base. If you are an IT or data professional hoping to carve out your niche on a data science team, you can learn what skills are needed for the various roles.

Our guides are a compendium of InformationWeek articles that offer insight and advice on establishing and managing a data science team, whether the staff count is a dozen or hundreds of professionals.

Check out these articles and the hundreds of other informative content pieces -- about IT management, careers, analytics, DevOps, cloud, and other topics.

Understand the State of Data Science

Ways to Smooth the Bumps on the Data-Driven Path

Becoming data driven requires easy, secure access to any type of data across any platform, cloud, or application. These six steps will help you reach that goal.

The IT Leader’s New Imperative: Constructing the Culture

Here are five effective approaches for CIOs to expand their skillsets and build a resilient culture that can succeed in today’s enterprise organizations.

Five Factors Shaping Data Science

As data science evolves, key challenges are driving organizations to seek innovative solutions to compete in the AI-driven economy.

How to Solve the Talent Shortage in Data Science

As data science leaps into the future, there will be less demarcation between data scientists and other roles, such as product managers. In other words, filling the positions might mean converting candidates from other fields.

AI, Machine Learning, Data Science: What Enterprises Are Doing

CIOs say that AI and machine learning are the top technologies that will drive transformation, but not many enterprises who have them in production, yet. Here's how they are planning to get there, according to a speaker at a Gartner event.

Data Science Roles

Source: Pixabay

Chief Data Officers Help Steer Digital Transformations

As the heads of the typical data science team, Chief Data Officers are prioritizing data quality, ROI from data and analytics investments, and data sharing.

Lessons in Becoming Data Driven

With greater competition in a digital world, it's urgent for organizations to prioritize their projects to become data driven.

Human-Robot Teams: The Next IT Management Challenge

Productivity can skyrocket when people and robots work together, yet so can human frustration and fury.

How CDOs Can Solve the Top Data and Analytics Challenge

Enterprises have made a lot of progress in becoming data driven over the past several years, but organizations continue to cite one major impediment.

How the Chief Data Officer Role is Evolving

The CDO role continues to change with competitive pressures. Where are you on your journey and what do you need to do to get to the next level?

It's Time to Reconsider IT Career Paths

In an ever-changing work environment, organizations are exploring new ways to keep tech experts happy in a non-management role.

IT Career Paths You May Not Have Considered

As IT continues to expand into new areas, there are lots of potential career moves. Some lie outside the IT department.

Planning a Trustworthy Citizen Data Science Initiative

Once organizations accept that citizen data science is inevitable, it's time to ensure that it's implemented responsibly.

Build a Diverse Data Team

How to Change Gender Disparity Among Data Science Roles

A founder of Deloitte’s women in data science and analytics group highlights the importance of inclusion in technology.

Why Data Scientists Should Make a Commitment to Diversity

One data scientist explains why all data scientists play a critical role in how data is used (or misused), and that it’s imperative that data scientists fairly represent everyone impacted by their work.

Ways to Break Gender Gridlock in Cybersecurity Careers

Those data scientists who use their talents in the cybersecurity field can help to change the image and perception of cybersecurity and attract more diverse talent to the field.

How CIOs Can Recruit More Women into IT

Studies show that gender diversity improves profits, revenue growth, stock price performance, and more. Yet women make up only 31% of IT organizations.

Corporate Diversity Efforts Get Real

Giant companies such as Target, Accenture and Johnson & Johnson have partnered to form Data Science For All, which offers free education, and mentorship in the data science field. The organization's discuss diversity today.

Transformation, Disruption, and Gender Diversity in Tech

Panel participants at the Axway Summit Americas discussed elements that may help improve gender parity in the technology scene.

Compensation for Data Scientists

Source: Pixabay

9 Hottest IT Certifications Right Now

These technology certifications not only command higher-than-average salaries, but their value also increased substantially in recent months.

Data and Analytics Salaries Heat Up in Recovery Economy

After a year of uncertainty, the employment market for data scientists and analytics pros is heating up again.

Information Security Analyst Tops List of 2022 Top Jobs

Three technology jobs – security analyst, software developer and data scientist -- rank in the top 10 of U.S. News and World Report list of 2022 Best Jobs, evaluated on the basis of salary, work-life balance, and job outlook.

Data Engineers in High Demand, Winning High Salaries

Get ready to pay six figures for your new data engineer. Quantitative recruiting firm Burtch Works' first salary survey reveals the salaries and trends impacting these data infrastructure experts.

Data Science Skills and Training Opportunities

From AI to Teamwork: 7 Key Skills for Data Scientists

Today’s data scientists need more than proficiency in AI and Python. Organizations are looking for specialists who also feel at home in the C-suite.

Preparing Future Data Scientists for Jobs of Tomorrow

While organizations amass data they want to leverage, Purdue University is working to marry data science academics to those real-world needs.

The IT Skills Shortage Expands and Deepens

It's easy to identify the IT sectors experiencing a major shortage of skilled talent: all of them, including data science.

4 Skills Will Set Apart Tomorrow’s Data Scientists

Skilled data scientists are in high demand as businesses adopt data-driven strategies. Certain skills will make them indispensable.

How to Prep Your Career for the AI Job Apocalypse

Will your job end up being automated or eaten by an AI or robot? Here's a deeper look at careers that will continue to be in high demand in the decade ahead.

Recruit a Data Science Team

How to Recruit AI Talent and Keep Them Happy

Data and analytics leaders looking to expand their AI teams should understand how to recruit, hire, organize, train, and retain AI talent to ensure long-term AI success.

7 Tips to Help Attract and Retain Data Science Talent

As firms across all industries seek to turn data, the greatest asset of the digital age, to their advantage, attracting and retaining the right talent is essential

How to Build an Optimal Machine Learning Team

An effective ML team is constantly evolving based on many different factors. Assess your specific needs and use cases before putting a team into action.

Top 5 Considerations When Hiring a Data Scientist

AI is a hot term in every industry, but don’t be a company that just blindly hires a group of data scientists who end up frustrated and unproductive. The value AI brings is very real, but companies have a responsibility to be strategically aligned to take advantage of it.

Key Data Science Technologies

10 Trends That Will Affect IT in 2022

As enterprises continue to respond to the changing conditions created by the pandemic, IT will need to embrace new approaches and new technologies. Data science will be the enabler for most of those trends.

Enterprise Data: Prepare for More Change in This Hot Area of Tech

Last year we started down the new road of uncovering enterprise analytics with machine learning. This year will see an acceleration. Here are some trends to watch.

Cloud Native Driving Change in Enterprise and Analytics

Software development via cloud-native resources continues to gain traction among enterprises looking for scale, security, and accessibility of business intelligence. The cloud and DevOps mean more data analytics activities will create a virtual data science team in the business sector.

No-Code, Low-Code Machine Learning Platforms Still Require People

Even in a simple development environment, machines and algorithms are still powered by human intelligence.

Python Beats R and SAS in Analytics Tool Survey

In Burtch Works' annual survey of the preferred tools of advanced analytics, data, machine learning, AI, and other quantitative professionals, Python pulled ahead of the pack.