Ask HN: What are your biggest pain points as a data scientist?

Re:Ask HN: What are your biggest pain points as a data scien... by bsg75 on Thursday April 11, 2019 @02:36PM (#19637740)

That other groups in the business want simple, black and white answers to very complex questions.

An expectation that data can eliminate the need for reason and thought is problematic.

I have tried to communicate the reasoning for things like judgemental forecasting but success is hard to achieve.

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Re:Ask HN: What are your biggest pain points as a data scien... by magneticnorth on Thursday April 11, 2019 @04:43PM (#19638982)

Agreed. Many people don't want to think, they only want to know.

One of the things my team does is build data tools. The number of people who want to take data they have hardly looked at, put it through a tool they don't understand, and rely in important ways on the output, is astonishing to me.

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Re:Ask HN: What are your biggest pain points as a data scien... by apohn on Friday April 12, 2019 @01:38PM (#19647112)

At large companies there are lots of people who see themselves as decision makers, not Analysts. Analyzing data is beneath them. The end result is they expect the "Analytics People" to provide a set of different recommendation on what to do and business folks decide which recommendations to pursue.

If you have to interact with enough of these people your job as a Data Scientist will be miserable.

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