The data scientist’s role is one of the most prestigious in any enterprise. He or she is not only naturally gifted in statistics, but also courageous, adaptable and tech-savvy.
Being a statistical wizard is not enough, in itself, to guarantee success in a corporate world precoccupied with translating very big datasets into actionable intelligence. As this article points out, companies are hiring people who have the innate ability to weave every data point into a coherent picture. Not common, and not as easy as it sounds.
As such, data scientist are in short supply. The combination of attributes necessary to be successful in the field so rarely appear that schools are beginning to teach a more applied form of statistics that harnesses the power of modern technology. But even with technological help, the scale of the information is enough to frustrate many otherwise very bright people. Put simply, working with a sample of 2,500 data points is not the same as working with 2,500,000 data points.
How many people can really be trained to think this big?