Researcher Chris Lindner distilled the information from the resumes that piled up in his company and discovered a wealth of diversity in data science. Lindner found out that data scientists come from all sorts of backgrounds from zoology to astrophysics. Even people from the humanities have their place. It takes a village and all that.
Joe MacKendrick filed this report in ZDNet:
(Lindner’s) advice to employers: when seeking data science skills, keep your options open. “If you’re looking for a generalist data scientist, don’t throw out a resume just because the field or degree isn’t what you expect. Data scientists are diverse in their education and background. Although most have an advanced degree in some field, there is no one field that dominates the job market. If you’re having difficulty hiring experienced data scientists or scientists out of academia, consider bringing in individuals from software engineering or data analyst roles, as that is clearly a common pathway to data science.
Ultimately, the diversity required to move data science — and consequently, artificial intelligence — forward requires a multitude of skills. For AI and data science to be useful to a business, it needs to be a team sport.
