Re:Ask HN: How is data science done in the real world, esp o...
by blakeburch on Thursday January 21, 2021 @04:18PM
(#25864370)
It's definitely not Excel work. It's primarily using Python or R to build statistical models to do things like:
- Predict the likelihood of a customer to churn
- Cluster customers into key segments for targeted messaging
- Analyze and distribute customer support requests based on their content
- Proactively identify bot or fraud activity
- Create multi-touch attribution models for marketing touchpoints
- Analyze multi-variate tests
I think the problem you're hinting at is that many organizations say they're doing data science, or that they need data science, without knowing exactly what the role entails. As a result, many organizations hire "Data Scientists" that are doing the work of a Data Engineer, Analyst, and BI Developer all combined.
I think 2015-2020 saw a huge surge in interest for Data Science, whereas 2020-2025 will have a surge in interest for Data Engineering.... mostly because organizations realized they can't do anything interesting with data until resilient, clean data sets are built for the organization.
- Predict the likelihood of a customer to churn
- Cluster customers into key segments for targeted messaging
- Analyze and distribute customer support requests based on their content
- Proactively identify bot or fraud activity
- Create multi-touch attribution models for marketing touchpoints
- Analyze multi-variate tests
I think the problem you're hinting at is that many organizations say they're doing data science, or that they need data science, without knowing exactly what the role entails. As a result, many organizations hire "Data Scientists" that are doing the work of a Data Engineer, Analyst, and BI Developer all combined.
I think 2015-2020 saw a huge surge in interest for Data Science, whereas 2020-2025 will have a surge in interest for Data Engineering.... mostly because organizations realized they can't do anything interesting with data until resilient, clean data sets are built for the organization.