The role of data scientist is evolving as data and analytics become more integrated into all roles. Originally data scientists worked individually to build statistical models, but now teams of specialists work together on data-driven projects. In the future, subject matter experts across all fields will need data literacy skills to work with augmented intelligence tools, and data competency will be expected of all managers and decision makers. The best career strategy is to develop data literacy rather than specializing only in data science.

1. THE DISAPPEARING DATA
SCIENTIST
BY KURT CAGLE
MANAGING EDITOR
DATA SCIENCE CENTRAL
KCAGLE@TECHTARGET.COM

2. THESIS: THE DATA
SCIENTIST IS GOING AWAY.
INSTEAD, DATA LITERACY IS
BECOMING CRITICAL
• As Organizations Continue To Become Data
Focused, Dedicated Data Scientists Are
• Fading Away Even As Many Professions Require
Proficiency In Data Technologies.

3. DATA SCIENCE HAS
BEEN AROUND FOR
AWHILE
• Actuaries, Statisticians, Analysts
… These Were All Proto-Data
Scientists.
• Most Were Also Subject Matters
Who Used These Tools For
Domain Research.

4. EVEN THE TOOLS OF
DATA SCIENCE ARE
COMPARATIVELY
OLD
• Fortran, SAS, SRSS, MATLAB,
Mathematica and Many Others Have
Been Used For Statistical Analysis For
Decades

5. DATA SCIENTISTS EMERGED AS A SEPARATE
DISCIPLINE AROUND 2012
Big Data Spurred Big Analysis, Mostly In Building
Statistical Models.
R and Later Python Ruled the Roost As Data Scientists

6. MACHINE LEARNING
INVOLVED THE USE OF
NEURAL NETWORKS TO
“TEACH” MODELS
• Neural Networks Applied to
Categorization, Image Recognition, NLP
• Single Actions and Command Lines
Gave Way to Rich User Interfaces

7. DATA SCIENTISTS
WENT FROM
INDIVIDUALS TO
TEAMS BY THE EARLY
2020S
• Data Engineers to
Analysts to Visualizers to
Storytellers to Strategists
to Ethicists.
• The Focus In
Organizations Shifted
From Analysis To Model
Building as Software

8. DATA SCIENTISTS ARE
DISPERSING INTO
SPECIALISTS, SUBJECT
MATTER EXPERTS,
GOVERNORS AND
CHAMPIONS
• As Organizations Become
Data-Centric, the Lone Data
Scientists Are Being Replaced
by Subject Matter Experts Who
Are Trained With Data Science
Tools, and Data Competency is
Increasingly Expected of
Managers and Decision
Makers.

9. THE FUTURE:
AUGMENTED INTELLIGENCE,
NOT ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE
• AI has become Augmented Intelligence, using Data
Science Tools To Inform, Automate and
Operationalize Data-Driven Decision Making.
• Moreover, the most successful AI projects have
human in the loops, because trust and ethics remain
(and should be) difficult to automate.

10. CAREER
STRATEGIES IN
THE DATA
FUTURE
• Data Literacy – the
Understanding of Data
Analytics, Augmented
Intelligence and Models As
Software – Should Inform
Decisions About Education
and Career Planning.
• Don’t Become a Data
Scientist, Become a Data
Literate Subject Matter Expert
or Decision Maker