Am I a data scientist?

Transcript

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   Am I a data scientist? Alyssa Frazee, Stripe @acfrazee

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   © 2009 Lisa Slavid

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   statistician a data scientist © 2009 Lisa Slavid

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   Where I’m coming from Math undergrad Biostatistics PhD “Machine Learning

   Engineer” today Recurse Center (née Hacker School) 2010
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   Am I a data scientist?

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   Am I a data scientist? What do I really mean

   by this question?
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   Am I a data scientist? What do I really mean

   by this question? Could I get a job offer with a title of “data scientist?”
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   Am I a data scientist? What do I really mean

   by this question? Am I preparing my students to be able to get job offers with a title of “data scientist?”
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   Am I a data scientist? What do I really mean

   by this question? Could I get a job offer with a title of “data scientist?” → sometimes implicitly industry → and sometimes specifically tech
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    What’s “data science”?

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    None
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    data skills spectrum

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    theoretical statistics software engineering

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    theoretical statistics software engineering data science

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    understanding quantitative data building a product data science

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    output: numerical results output: usable software data science

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    Am I a statistician? points for: • Am in a

    grad program called [bio]statistics • Know things about martingales and the delta method • Can explain what a p-value is and interpret linear regression coefficients points against: • Haven’t proved a theorem since 2011 • Spend more time writing bash scripts than inventing estimators • No publications in statistics journals
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    Or am I a data scientist? points for: • Can

    program in more than one language • Actively use git & GitHub • Have written R packages and reproducible reports • Once made a web app and also a D3.js graph points against: • Not working in industry • Have never written a SQL query more complicated than select * from table • Understanding of Hadoop, Spark, and AWS is vague at best • Have never written production code
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    None
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    Idea! I will listen to what experts in our field

    say! Camp #1: Data science is just a rebranding of applied statistics. Camp #2: Statistics and data science are overlapping. Neither is a subset of the other. Camp #3: Statistics is irrelevant to data science.
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    None
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    First: do I want to be a data scientist?

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    Second: Does it matter?

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    Am I on the job market? Am I hiring?

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    If you decide it matters: some distinguishing features

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    Intentionality about programming

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    Intentionality about programming Spending time thinking primarily about: • code

    efficiency • version control • code quality (cleanliness, modularity) • documentation / usability • unit testing • systematic debugging • giving and receiving code review • and other principles of software engineering
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    Interest in schleppy- but-practical projects

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    Interest in schleppy- but-practical projects • figuring out how to

    get the data you need • combining existing tools/methods in new ways • finding the simplest solution that works in practice
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    Focus on concrete decision-making

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    Focus on concrete decision-making less about inference and parameter estimation,

    more about what action should be taken
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    Camp #1: Data science is just a rebranding of applied

    statistics. Camp #2: Statistics and data science are overlapping. Neither is a subset of the other. Camp #3: Statistics is irrelevant to data science.
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    Perspective from the other side Camp #1: Data science is

    just a rebranding of applied statistics.
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    Perspective from the other side Camp #1: Data science is

    just a rebranding of applied statistics. Intentionality about programming
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    Perspective from the other side Camp #1: Data science is

    just a rebranding of applied statistics. The day-to-day work is different!
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    Perspective from the other side Last month I: • wrote

    Ruby, Scala, Coffeescript, and Python • fought with maven • backfilled some busted tables in our databases • investigated the mystery of why some of our cluster boxes are overworked • learned how to be on call (so I can fix some of Stripe if it breaks at 3am) • helped teach a SQL class • and did some statistics
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    Camp #3: Statistics is irrelevant to data science. Perspective from

    the other side
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    Camp #3: Statistics is irrelevant to data science. Perspective from

    the other side
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    Statistics and data science are overlapping. Neither is a subset

    of the other. Perspective from the other side
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    About that identity crisis: Program intentionally and be a data

    scientist, if you want!
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    About that identity crisis: Or don’t! Statistics is hugely important

    and relevant in its own right!
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    • http://andrewgelman.com/2013/11/14/statistics-least- important-part-data-science/ • http://bulletin.imstat.org/2014/09/data-science-how-is-it- different-to-statistics%E2%80%89/ • https://hbr.org/2012/10/data-scientist-the-sexiest-job-of-the- 21st-century/ •

    http://datascopeanalytics.com/blog/what-is-a-data-scientist/ Further reading: