Data scientists – a profession with good chances and best prospects for the future

Data scientists – a profession with good chances and best prospects for the future

New York / Berlin, 16.10.2019

Walmart hires more data scientists, according to his chief data officer Bill Groves. The world’s largest retailer employs around 1,500 data scientists and 50,000 software engineers who support more than 100,000 machine learning and AI projects, including AI cameras that monitor theft of businesses.
According to the Harvard Business Review, the role of data scientist in 2012 was described as „the sexiest job of the 21st century“. IBM has recently published a study showing that in 2020, demand for these experts will increase by about 28%. This, according to some analysts, seems to be a very conservative assessment. Demand is likely to be significantly stronger.
The biggest need is for companies like Apple, Amazon and Walmart. According to the IBM study, 59% of these jobs were in finance and insurance, professional services and IT.
The job is relevant to virtually all divisions that deal with data. This means that any successful 21st century company that works with big data concepts or plans to do so, is looking for data scientists.

What does a data scientist do? If you look at the evolution of the volume of data – both in business and beyond, on a global scale – then the term „growth“ is out of place – it’s a gigantic explosion, every second. An example. In November of last year, I read: Worldwide, the amount of data to grow by 2025 to 175 Zetabytes – that would be eight times as much as 2017. A barely imaginable sum. This also applies to the following numbers. Let’s try a comparison: In the 2013 published book „Big Data“ by Viktor Meyer-Schoenberger and Kenneth Cukier, I find the following things: Google collects 24 petabytes of data. Another example. The American communications researcher Martin Hilbert has tried to capture everything that has been generated, stored and transmitted. Result: In 2007 there were 300 exabytes of stored data. In 2013 it was 1200 exabytes. An exabyte is one billion gigabytes. No, these numbers can only be captured by gods. If you want to take a seat here, this link helps:
https://www.storage-insider.de/speichergroessen-verstaendlich-dargestellt-vom-bit-zum-yottabyte-a-517817/
But do not worry – as a data scientist you do not have to have divine imagination. But every company has a lot of unstructured data. The data scientist is responsible for creating a structured database by searching for patterns, analyzing them, and finally working out a foundation that allows the management to make a decision. This can mean taking a product out of the offer because it will soon become obsolete. Or open a new product line because the competition has overslept this opportunity.

Industries with currently high demand for data scientists are logistics, energy, insurance, healthcare, online shops.
What skills should you bring? Statistics and Mathematics. You should also be fit in the object-oriented programming languages: this includes Python are Java, Perl and C / C ++. In addition, a master’s degree is required.
What does a data scientist deserve? At the beginning about 45,000 euros. If personal responsibility is added as well as experience and presentable, successfully realized projects, the sound barrier of 100,000 euros will be easily overcome.