A Beginner’s Guide to

Getting Your First

Data Science Job

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Table of contents
FOREWORD........................................................................................... 5
1 INTRODUCTION................................................................................. 6
1.1 An Unconventional Innovator.................................................. 6
2 WHAT IS DATA SCIENCE? ................................................................. 9
2.1 The Foundations of Data Science.......................................... 11
3 THE DIFFERENT DATA SCIENCE ROLES.......................................... 13
4 THE DATA SCIENCE PROCESS........................................................ 18
5 DATA SCIENTISTS IN ACTION......................................................... 26
5.1 Day in the Life of a Data Scientist......................................... 26
5.2 Infusing Data in Your Workplace: Chase Lehrman................. 28
5.3 Understanding the Data: Sneha Runwal................................ 29
6 WHAT YOU NEED TO LEARN TO BECOME A DATA SCIENTIST....... 30
6.1 Introduction.......................................................................... 30
6.2 Data Science Skills............................................................... 30
6.2.1 An Analytical Mind...................................................... 31
6.2.2 Mathematics.............................................................. 31
6.2.3 Statistics.................................................................... 32
6.2.4 Algorithms................................................................. 33
6.2.5 Data Visualization....................................................... 33
6.2.6 Business Knowledge................................................... 34
6.2.7 Domain Expertise........................................................ 35
6.3 Data Science Tools............................................................... 36
6.3.1 File Formats............................................................... 36
6.3.2 Excel.......................................................................... 37
6.3.3 SQL............................................................................ 38

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 6.3.4 Python....................................................................... 39
6.3.5 R................................................................................ 40
6.3.6 Big Data Tools............................................................ 42
6.3.7 Hadoop...................................................................... 42
6.3.8 NoSQL....................................................................... 43
6.4 Bringing Tools into the Data Science Process....................... 45
6.4.1 Collect Data................................................................ 45
6.4.2 Process Data.............................................................. 46
6.4.3 Explore Data............................................................... 47
6.4.4 Analyze Data.............................................................. 48
6.4.5 Communicate Data..................................................... 48
7 STARTING YOUR JOB SEARCH........................................................ 52
7.1 How to Build a Data Science Portfolio and Resume............... 52
7.2 How to Network and Build a Personal Brand in Data Science.54
7.3 Finding a Mentor.................................................................. 54
7.4 Meetups and Conferences.................................................... 55
7.4.1 Conferences ................................................................ 55
7.4.2 Meetups..................................................................... 56
7.4.3 Other Ways to Network............................................... 57
7.5 Job Boards for Data Science................................................. 58
7.6 Ace the Data Science Interview............................................. 59
8 PATHS INTO DATA SCIENCE............................................................ 61
8.1 Engineering & Business = Data Stories - Amit Kapoor........... 61
8.2 Drive Real-World Impact to Get Into Data Science - Sundeep
Pattem....................................................................................... 62
8.3 Gaining Data Science Experience - Sneha Runwal................. 63
8.4 Competing to Get Into Data Science - Sinan Ozdemir............ 64
8.5 A Psychology PH.D. on the Path to Data Science - Erin Baker.65

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9 FINAL ADVICE.................................................................................. 67
10 CHECKLIST..................................................................................... 68
11 CONCLUSION ................................................................................ 69
12 RESOURCES................................................................................... 70
12.1 What is Data Science? ..................................................... 70
12.2 Skills and Tools................................................................ 70
12.3 Getting Data..................................................................... 70
12.4 Algorithms....................................................................... 71
12.5 Machine Learning............................................................ 71
12.6 Data Visualization............................................................ 71
12.7 Data Science Interview .................................................... 71
12.8 Building a Data Science Portfolio...................................... 71
13 STUFF DATA SCIENTISTS SAY (GLOSSARY)................................. 72

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Foreword
At the beginning of 2016, Glassdoor, one of the top careers websites in the world,
released a report with the best jobs to pursue. Each job is ranked based on a com-
posite score of median reported salary, job openings, and career opportunities.
And at the top of this list, the top job to pursue in 2016 was a relatively new pro-
fession called Data Scientist.

Such is the pace at which data is proliferating the world, that a phrase that barely
existed a decade ago, is one of the most sought-after professions.

This new world economy needs a new approach to skills education. At Spring-
board, we’re building an educational experience that empowers our students to
thrive in this new world order. Through our online workshops, we have prepared
thousands of people for careers in Data Science, with 1-on-1 mentorship from
industry experts.

As part of our mission to make high quality education accessible for all, and help-
ing people advance their careers, we have created this guide to careers in data
science. Through it, our goal is to bring you insight from our network of industry
experts and demystify data science careers. Maybe we’ll even inspire some of you
to pursue a career in this fascinating field.

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1 Introduction

1.1 An Unconventional Innovator

GiveDirectly is a non-for-profit that shouldn’t work. The organization has

built its success on giving unconditional cash transfers to the poorest people in
the world. Charities aren’t supposed to give their recipients unlimited leeway:
they’re supposed to only provide certain goods for certain needs.

GiveDirectly is designed to break all the rules -- and it’s working.

The organization’s mandate is to transform international giving by attacking

extreme poverty at its roots. People who are helped by GiveDirectly decide
how to help themselves. This has led to one of the lowest percentages of money
spent on administration, and stunning results. Recipients are well on their well
to doubling their amount of assets. Their rate of hunger is almost halved. They
earn 34% more.

It’s hard to overstate how difficult GiveDirectly’s mission is. The regions they
work in are often neglected and forgotten. They not only have to provide for the
very poorest, they have to find them.

Since census data is sparse or unreliable at a village level, GiveDirectly would of-
ten have to send somebody to manually scour each village for signs of obvious
poverty.

One of the signs GiveDirectly representatives look for is the presence of metal
on home roofing rather than the more plentiful thatch. People who can afford

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metal roofs typically buy them. At a cost of around $USD 564 in a region where
GDP per capita is around $1,700, they represent a significant capital investment,
and a good sign of the difference between extreme and relative poverty.

1.2 Data Science to the Rescue

You’ve probably heard that being a data scientist is the sexiest career of the 21st
century, one where you can earn a healthy salary, and a great work-life balance.

Google’s Chief Economist, Hal Varian, has said that, “The ability to take data—to
be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to
communicate it—that’s going to be a hugely important skill in the next decades”.

GiveDirectly is just one example of how organizations win by using data to their
advantage.

According to LinkedIn, Statistical Analysis & Data Mining were the hottest skills
that got recruiters’ attention in 2014. Glassdoor ranked Data Scientist as the #1
job to pursue in 2016. Some people have even called it the sexiest career of the
21st century.

Google’s Chief Economist, Hal Varian, has said that, “The ability to take data—to
be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to
communicate it—that’s going to be a hugely important skill in the next decades”.

But sending people to each village could take several trips at a crushing expense,
creating overheads for an organization looking to operate leanly.

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 “The ability to take data—to be able to understand it, to
process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to com-
municate it—that’s going to be a hugely important skill in
the next decades.”
- Hal Varian, Google’s Chief Economist

Liaising with GiveDirectly, a pair of industry experts from IBM and Enigma set
out to see if data science could help.

Using satellite images provided by Google, they were able to use computers to
classify which villages had metal roofs on top of their houses, and which ones
had thatch. They were able to determine which villages needed the most help
without sending a single person to the area.

This required mining satellite data and making sense of massive amounts of data,
something that would have been impossible a decade ago. It required implement-
ing machine learning algorithms, a cutting-edge technology at the time, to train
computers to recognize patterns.

These data scientists were able to pinpoint where GiveDirectly should operate,
saving the organization hundreds of man-hours and allowing it to do what it does
best: solving extreme poverty.

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2 What is Data Science?
GiveDirectly is just one example of how organizations win by using data to their
advantage.

Around the world, organizations are creating more data every day, yet most
are struggling to benefit from it. According to McKinsey, the US alone will face
a shortage of 150,000+ data analysts and an additional 1.5 million data-savvy
managers.

According to LinkedIn, Statistical Analysis & Data Mining were the hottest skills
that got recruiters’ attention in 2014. Glassdoor ranked Data Scientist as the #1
job to pursue in 2016. Harvard Business Review even called it the sexiest career
of the 21st century.

GiveDirectly was able to save thousands of dollars and put their money where
their mission is thanks to a team of three data scientists. Within the mass of data
the world generates every day, similar insights are hidden away. Each may have
the potential to transform entire industries, or to improve millions of lives.

Salary trends have followed the impact data science drives. With a national aver-
age salary of $118k (which increases to $126k in Silicon Valley), data science has
become a lucrative career path where you can solve hard problems and drive
social impact.

Since you’re reading this guide, you’re likely curious about a career in Data Sci-
ence, and you’ve probably heard some of these facts and figures. You likely
know that data science is a career where you can do good while doing well.

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You’re ready to dig beyond the surface, and see real-life examples of data science,
and get real-life advice from practitioners in the field.

That’s exactly why we wrote this guide. To bring data science careers to life, for
thousands of data-curious, savvy young professionals. We hope that after read-
ing this guide, you have a solid understanding of the data science industry, and
know what it takes to get your first data science job. We also want to leave you
with a checklist of actionable advice which will help you throughout your data
science career.

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2.1 The Foundations of Data Science

DJ Patil, the current Chief Data Scientist of the United States and previously
the Head of Data Products at Linkedin, is the one who first coined the term data
science.

A decade after it was first used, the term remains contested. There is a lot of de-
bate among practitioners and academics about what data science means, and
whether it’s different at all from the data analytics that companies have always
done.

One of the most substantive differences is the amount of data you have to pro-
cess now as opposed to a decade ago. In 2020, the world will generate 50x more
data than we generated in 2011. Data science can be considered an interdisci-
plinary solution to the explosion of data that takes old data analytics approach-
es, and uses machines to augment and scale their effects on larger data sets.

DJ posits that, “the dominant trait among data scientists is an intense curios-
ity—a desire to go beneath the surface of a problem, find the questions at its
heart, and distill them into a very clear set of hypotheses that can be tested.”
There is no mention here of a strict definition of data science, nor of a profile that
must fit it.

Baseball players used to be judged by how good scouts thought they looked,
not how many times they got on base--that was until the Oakland A’s won an
all-time league record 20 games in a row with one of the lowest paid rosters in
the league. Elections used to swing from party to party with little semblance of
predictive accuracy--that was until Nate Silver correctly predicted every elector-
al vote in the 2012 elections.

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Data, and a systematic approach to uncover truths about the world around us,
have changed the world.

“More than anything, what data scientists do is make discoveries while swim-
ming in data. It’s their preferred method of navigating the world around them,”
concludes Patil.

To do data science, you have to be able to find and process large datasets. You’ll
often need to understand and use programming, math, and technical commu-
nication skills.

Most importantly, you need to have a sense of intellectual curiosity to under-

stand the world through data, and not be deterred easily by obstacles.

You might not think you know anything about data science, but if you’ve ever
looked for a Wikipedia table to settle a debate with one of your friends, you
were doing a little bit of data science.

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3 The Different Data Science Roles
Before we dive too deep into what skills you need to become a data scientist,
you should be aware that there are different roles in data science. Oftentimes, a
data science team will rely on different team members for different skill sets. Or
the skill set needed may depend on the type of company and part of the organi-
zation you work in. You don’t have to become the world’s best at everything.

While there are some basics every data scientist should know (e.g. basic statis-
tics), data science roles can vary significantly in their demands and expectations.

Let’s look at the some broad categories of roles that all get lumped under the
umbrella term “Data Science”

Data Scientists

One definition of a data scientist is someone who knows more programming

than a statistician, and more statistics than a software engineer. Data
scientists fine-tune the statistical and mathematical models that are applied onto
that data. This could involve applying theoretical knowledge of statistics and al-
gorithms to find the best way to solve a data problem.

Data Analysts and Business Analysts

Data analysts sift through data and provide reports and visualizations to explain
what insights the data is hiding. When somebody helps people from across the
company understand specific queries with charts, they are filling the data analyst
(or business analyst) role. In some ways, you can think of them as junior data
scientists, or the first step on the way to a data science job.

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Business analysts are a group that’s adjacent to data analysts, and are more con-
cerned with the business implications of the data and the actions that should re-
sult. Should the company invest more in project X or project Y? Business analysts
will leverage the work of data science teams to communicate an answer.and visu-
alizations to explain what insights the data is hiding. When Chase from Higher
Learning Technologies helps people from across the company understand specific
queries with charts, he is filling the business analyst role.

This blog post summarizes some of the differences. You can roughly say that
data engineers rely more on engineering skills, data scientists rely more on their
training in mathematics and statistics, and business analysts rely more heavily
on their communication skills and their domain expertise. You can be sure that
people who occupy these roles will have varying amounts of skills outside of their
specialities though and that they can all broadly use the skills we describe below.

It’s important to keep this consideration in mind because data science can be a
big tent, and you can pick and choose your spots.

For instance, a data scientist might use historical data to build a model that pre-
dicts the number of credit card defaults in the following month.

A data scientist will be able to run with data science projects from end-to-end.
They can store and clean large amounts of data, explore data sets to identify in-
sights, build predictive models and weave a story around the findings.

Within the broad category of data scientists, you might encounter statisticians
who focus on statistical approaches to data, and data managers who focus on
running data science teams.

Data scientists are the bridge between programming and implementation of data

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For instance, a data scientist might use historical data to build a model that pre-
dicts the number of credit card defaults in the following month.

A data scientist will be able to run with data science projects from end-to-end.
They can store and clean large amounts of data, explore data sets to identify
insights, build predictive models and weave a story around the findings.

Within the broad category of data scientists, you might encounter statisticians
who focus on statistical approaches to data, and data managers who focus on
running data science teams.

Data scientists are the bridge between programming and implementation of

data science, the theory of data science, and the business implications of data.

Data Engineers

Data engineers are software engineers who handle large amounts of data, and
often lay the groundwork and plumbing for data scientists to do their jobs ef-
fectively. They are responsible for managing database systems, scaling the data
architecture to multiple servers, and writing complex queries to sift through
the data. They might also clean up data sets, and implement complex requests
that come from data scientists, e.g. they take the predictive model from the data
scientist and implements it into production-ready code.

Data engineers, in addition to knowing a breadth of programming languages (e.g.

Ruby or Python), will usually know some Hadoop-based technologies (e.g. Ma-
pReduce, Hive, and Pig) database technologies like MySQL, Cassandra and Mon-
goDB.

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Within the broad category of data engineers, you’ll find data architects who
focus on structuring the technology that manages data models and database ad-
ministrators who focus on managing data storage solutions.

Data Analysts and Business Analysts

Data analysts sift through data and provide reports and visualizations to explain
what insights the data is hiding. When somebody helps people from across the
company understand specific queries with charts, they are filling the data ana-
lyst (or business analyst) role. In some ways, you can think of them as junior data
scientists, or the first step on the way to a data science job.

Business analysts are a group that’s adjacent to data analysts, and are more
concerned with the business implications of the data and the actions that should
result. Should the company invest more in project X or project Y? Business ana-
lysts will leverage the work of data science teams to communicate an answer.

Skills

You can roughly say that data engineers rely most heavily on software engi-
neering skills, data scientists rely on their training in statistics and mathematical
modeling, and business analysts rely more heavily on their analytical skills and
domain expertise. You can be sure that people who occupy these roles will have
varying amounts of skills outside of their specialities.

It’s important to keep this consideration in mind because data science can be
a big tent, and you can pick and choose your spots, but each spot comes with
different needs, and different salaries.

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Salary Ranges

Data scientists need to have the broadest set of skills that covers the theory, im-
plementation and communication of data science. As such, they also tend to be
the highest compensated group with an average salary above $115,000 USD.

Data engineers focus on setting up data systems and making sure code is clean,
and technical systems are well-suited to the amount of data passing back and
forth for analysis. They tend to be middle of the pack when it comes to compen-
sation, with an average salary around $100,000 USD.

Data analysts often focus on querying information and communicating insights

found to drive action within organizations. While their average salary is around
$65,000 USD, this is partly because a lot of data analyst roles are filled by en-
try-level graduates with limited work experience.

Every one of these roles combines together into a whole data science team that
can solve any data problem placed in front of them.

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4 The Data Science Process
At Springboard, our data students often ask us questions like “what does a Data
Scientist do?”. Or “what does a day in the data science life look like?”

These questions are tricky. The answer can vary by role and company.

So we asked Raj Bandyopadhyay, Springboard’s Director of Data Science Educa-

tion, if he had a better answer.

Turns out, Raj employs an incredibly helpful framework that is both a way to
understand what data scientists do, and a cheat sheet to break down any data
science problem.

Raj calls it “the Data Science Process”, which he outlines in detail in a short 5-day
email course. Here’s a summary of his insights.

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Step 1: Frame the problem

The first thing you have to do before you solve a problem is to define exactly what
it is. You need to be able to translate data questions into something actionable.

You’ll often get ambiguous inputs from the people who have problems. You’ll
have to develop the intuition to turn scarce inputs into actionable outputs--and
to ask the questions that nobody else is asking.

Say you’re solving a problem for the VP Sales of your company. You should start
by understanding their goals and the underlying why behind their data ques-
tions. Before you can start thinking of solutions, you’ll want to work with them
to clearly define the problem.

A great way to do this is to ask the right questions.

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You should then figure out what the sales process looks like, and who the cus-
tomers are. You need as much context as possible for your numbers to become
insights.

You should ask questions like the following:

1. Who are the customers?

2. Why are they buying our product?
3. How do we predict if a customer is going to buy our product?
4. What is different from segments who are performing well and those that
are performing below expectations?
5. How much money will we lose if we don’t actively sell the product to these
groups?

In response to your questions, the VP Sales might reveal that they want to under-
stand why certain segments of customers have bought less than expected. Their
end goal might be to determine whether to continue to invest in these segments,
or de-prioritize them. You’ll want to tailor your analysis to that problem, and un-
earth insights that can support either conclusion.

It’s important that at the end of this stage, you have all of the information and
context you need to solve this problem.

You need as much context as possible for your numbers

to become insights.

Step 2: Collect the raw data needed for your problem

Once you’ve defined the problem, you’ll need data to give you the insights need-
ed to turn the problem around with a solution. This part of the process involves

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thinking through what data you’ll need and finding ways to get that data, wheth-
er it’s querying internal databases, or purchasing external datasets.

You might find out that your company stores all of their sales data in a CRM or a
customer relationship management software platform.You can export the CRM
data in a CSV file for further analysis.

Step 3: Process the data for analysis

Now that you have all of the raw data, you’ll need to process it before you can
do any analysis. Oftentimes, data can be quite messy, especially if it hasn’t been
well-maintained. You’ll see errors that will corrupt your analysis: values set to
null though they really are zero, duplicate values, and missing values. It’s up to
you to go through and check your data to make sure you’ll get accurate insights.

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You’ll want to check for the following common errors:

1. Missing values
2. Corrupted values
3. Timezone differences
4. Date range errors, such as data registered from before sales started

You’ll need to look through aggregates of your file rows and columns and sample
some test values to see if your values make sense. If you detect something that
doesn’t make sense, you’ll need to remove that data or replace it with a default
value. You’ll need to use your intuition here: if a customer doesn’t have an initial
contact date, does it make sense to say that there was NO initial contact date? Or
do you have to hunt down the VP Sales and ask if anybody has data on the cus-
tomer’s missing initial contact dates?

Once you’re done working with those questions and cleaning your data, you’ll be
ready for exploratory data analysis (EDA).

Step 4: Explore the data

When your data is clean, you’ll should start playing with it!

The difficulty here isn’t coming up with ideas to test, it’s coming up with ideas
that are likely to turn into insights. You’ll have a fixed deadline for your data sci-
ence project (your VP Sales is probably waiting on your analysis eagerly!), so
you’ll have to prioritize your questions. ‘

You’ll have to look at interesting patterns that explain why sales are reduced for
this group. You might notice that they don’t tend to be very active on social me-
dia, with few of them having Twitter or Facebook accounts. You might also notice

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that most of them are older than your general audience. From that you can begin
to trace patterns you can analyze more deeply.

Step 5: Perform in-depth analysis

This step of the process is where you’re going to have to apply your statistical,
mathematical and technological knowledge and leverage all of the data science
tools at your disposal to crunch the data and find every insight you can.

In this case, you might have to create a predictive model that compares your
underperforming group with your average customer. You might find out that the
age and social media activity are significant factors in predicting who will buy the
product.

If you’d asked a lot of the right questions while framing your problem, you might
realize that the company has been concentrating heavily on social media market-
ing efforts, with messaging that is aimed at younger audiences.

You would know that certain demographics prefer being reached by telephone
rather than by social media. You begin to see how the way the product has been
has been marketed is significantly affecting sales: maybe this problem group isn’t
a lost cause! A change in tactics from social media marketing to more in-person
interactions could change everything for the better. This is something you’ll have
to flag to your VP Sales.

You can now combine all of those qualitative insights with data from your quanti-
tative analysis to craft a story that moves people to action.

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Step 6: Communicate results of the analysis

It’s important that the VP Sales understand why the insights you’ve uncovered
are important. Ultimately, you’ve been called upon to create a solution through-
out the data science process. Proper communication will mean the difference
between action and inaction on your proposals.

Proper communication will mean the difference between action and inaction on
your proposals.

You need to craft a compelling story here that ties your data with their knowl-
edge. You start by explaining the reasons behind the underperformance of the
older demographic. You tie that in with the answers your VP Sales gave you and
the insights you’ve uncovered from the data. Then you move to concrete solu-

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tions that address the problem: we could shift some resources from social media
to personal calls. You tie it all together into a narrative that solves the pain of
your VP Sales: she now has clarity on how she can reclaim sales and hit her objec-
tives.

She is now ready to act on your proposals.

***

As a data scientist, you’ll have to learn how to work through the entire data sci-
ence process. Here’s how that looks like from day to day.

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5 Data Scientists in Action
We have a whole lot of mentors at Springboard who have shared their stories
about the day-to-day of data science. They’re all practitioners in the field with
real-life experience. Understanding what they do is the first step to fully under-
standing data science.

5.1 Day in the Life of a Data Scientist

This story is based on the day-to-day of an industry expert in the financial sector,
who wishes to remain anonymous.

Data scientists in finance try to predict whether or not people will default on
their credit due to certain predictive factors or they help classify which transac-
tions seem fraudulent. All of this requires a look at millions of lines of data, and it
involves extrapolation to the future, a skillset almost all human beings are noto-
riously bad at. All of this requires a closer look at the data. However, the day-to-
day isn’t just spent looking through numbers.

9 am
There’s a lot of legwork that goes into data science just like any other job.
Nearly an hour is spent just catching up on email and organizing for the
day ahead.

10 am
A surprisingly high amount of time in data science is spent recruiting.
Demand for data science skills is at an all-time high, so data science orga-
nizations are often evaluating potential recruits. Data scientists will often
take time out of their days to do phone screens of potential new team

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 members.

11 am
Data scientists spend a lot of time in meetings. Almost an hour is spent
just making sure that every team is properly aligned with one another,
and working on the right things.

12 pm
Lunch offers the chance to relax a bit and catch up with colleagues. Then
it’s back to the grind. One half of the typical day is spent coding an anal-
ysis or looking over somebody else’s code. This might involve building a
graph to represent insights unearthed during a look through the data, or
it might just be about making sure your own code is clean so everybody on
your team can read through it and understand what is going on.

4 pm
Data scientists will often discuss with groups of fellow data scientists
ways that they can collaborate and help one another. They’ll often learn
together and share the latest tool that can help improve productivity.

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5.2 Infusing Data in Your Workplace: Chase Lehrman

Chase Lehrman works as a data analyst at a fast-growing education company

called Higher Learning Technologies that helps dental and nursing students pass
their board exams. He describes his day-to-day as being a data storyteller who
looks to gain an understanding of how users are using the product Higher Learn-
ing Technologies sells. He also helps people across the organization get the data
they need to make informed decisions: a recent example involved sizing a market.

Thanks to Chase, Higher Learning Technologies can change its static data into
useable insights, something every data scientist should get their organization
to embrace. Chase makes sure that data problems are framed the right way and
that solutions are properly communicated and actionable.

Chase makes sure that data problems are framed the

right way.

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Data scientists solve many different problems. A data scientist might hunt for
raw data. They might be asked to create automated programs that can process
data quickly and efficiently. They might be asked to communicate their results
and why they matter to the CEO of a company. You will have to learn a versatile
skillset, and a variety of tools if you want to become one.

5.3 Understanding the Data: Sneha Runwal

Sneha Runwal works as a statistician at Apple, where she works in the AppleCare
division. Her major work there involves forecasting and time series analysis, in
addition to anomaly detection.

She feels that people are often too quick to delve into algorithms and computer
code, but it’s important to step back and understand your data before you get
into implementation mode. She says she is trying to get more disciplined about
this herself. Her advice? Understand as much of your data as possible, as early as
you can.

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6 What You Need to Learn to Be-
come a Data Scientist
6.1 Introduction

This next section covers all of the data science skills you’ll need to learn. You’ll
also learn about the tools you need to do your job.

Most data scientists use a combination of skills every day, some of which they
have taught themselves on the job or otherwise. They also come from various
backgrounds. There isn’t any one specific academic credential that data scien-
tists are required to have.

There isn’t any one specific academic credential that data

scientists are required to have.

All the skills we discuss are things you can teach yourself or learn with a Spring-
board mentor. We’ve laid out some resources to get you started down that path.

6.2 Data Science Skills

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6.2.1 An Analytical Mind

Takeaway
You need to approach data science problems analytically to solve them.
You’ll need an analytical mindset to do well in data science.

You’ll need an analytical mindset to do well in data sci-

ence.

A lot of data science involves solving problems. You’ll have to be adept at framing
those problems and methodically applying logic to solve them.

6.2.2 Mathematics

Takeaway
Mathematics is an important part of data science. Make sure you know
the basics of university math from calculus to linear algebra. The more
math you know, the better.

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 Mathematics is an important part of data science.

When data gets large, it often gets unwieldy. You’ll have to use mathematics to
process and structure the data you’re dealing with.

You won’t be able to get away from knowing calculus, and linear algebra if you
missed those topics in undergrad. You’ll need to understand how to manipulate
matrices of data and get a general idea behind the math of algorithms.

6.2.3 Statistics

Takeaway
You must know statistics to infer insights from smaller data sets onto
larger populations. This is the fundamental law of data science.

You must know statistics to infer insights from smaller

data sets onto larger populations.

You need to know statistics to play with data. Statistics allows you to slice and
dice through data, extracting the insights you need to make reasonable conclu-
sions. Understanding inferential statistics allows you to make general conclu-
sions about everybody in a population from a smaller sample.

To understand data science, you must know the basics of hypothesis testing, and
experiment design in order to understand where the meaning and context of
your data.

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6.2.4 Algorithms

Takeaway
Algorithms are the ability to make computers follow a certain set of rules
or patterns. Understanding how to use machines to do your work is essen-
tial to processing and analyzing data sets too large for the human mind to
process.

Understanding how to use machines to do your work is

essential to processing and analyzing data sets too large
for the human mind to process.

In order for you to do any heavy lifting in data science, you’ll have to understand
the theory behind algorithm selection and optimization. You’ll have to decide
whether or not your problem demands a regression analysis, or an algorithm that
helps classify different data points into defined categories.

You’ll want to know many different algorithms. You will want to learn the fun-
damentals of machine learning. Machine learning is what allows for Amazon to
recommend you products based on your purchase history without any direct
human intervention. It is a set of algorithms that will use machine power to un-
earth insights for you.

In order to deal with massive data sets you’ll need to use machines to extend
your thinking.

6.2.5 Data Visualization

Takeaway
Finishing your data analysis is only half the battle. To drive impact, you

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 will have to convince others to believe and adopt your insights.

To drive impact, you will have to convince others to be-

lieve and adopt your insights.

Human beings are visual creatures. According to 3M and Zabisco, almost 90% of
the information transmitted to your brain is visual in nature, and visuals are pro-
cessed 60,000 times faster than text.

Human beings have been wired to respond to visual cues. You’ll need to find a
way to convey your insights accordingly.

6.2.6 Business Knowledge

Takeaway
Data means little without its context. You have to understand the busi-
ness you’re analyzing.

Data means little without its context.

Most companies depend on their data scientists not just to mine data sets, but
also to communicate their results to various stakeholders and present recommen-
dations that can be acted upon.

The best data scientists not only have the ability to work with large, complex
data sets, but also understand intricacies of the business or organization they
work for.

Having general business knowledge allows them to ask the right questions, and
come up with insightful solutions and recommendations that are actually feasi-

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ble given any constraints that the business might impose.

6.2.7 Domain Expertise

Takeaway
As a data scientist, you should know the business you work for and the
industry it lives in.

Beyond having deep knowledge of the company you work for, you’ll also have
to understand its field your insights to make sense. Data from a biology study
can have a drastically different context than data gleaned from a well-designed

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psychology study. You should know enough to cut through industry jargon.

6.3 Data Science Tools

With your skill set developed, you’ll now need to learn how to use modern data
science tools. Each tool has their strengths and weaknesses, and each plays a
different role in the data science process. You can use just one of them, or you
can use all of them. What follows is a broad overview of the most popular tools
in data science as well as the resources you’ll need to learn them properly if you
want to dive deeper.

6.3.1 File Formats

Data can be stored in different file formats. Here are some of the most common:

CSV
Comma separated values. You may have opened this sort of file with Excel
before. CSVs separate out data with a delimiter, a piece of punctuation
that serves to separate out different data points.

SQL
SQL, or structured query language, stores data in relational tables. If you
go from the right from a column to the left, you’ll get different data points
on the same entity (for example, a person will have a value in the AGE,
GENDER, and HEIGHT categories).

JSON
Javascript Object Notation is a lightweight data exchange format that
is both human and machine-readable. Data from a web server is often

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 transmitted in this format.

6.3.2 Excel

Takeaway
Excel is often the gateway to data science, and something that every data
scientist can benefit from learning.

Excel is often the gateway to data science.

Introduction to Excel

Excel allows you to easily manipulate data with what is essentially a What You
See Is What You Get editor that allows you to perform equations on data without
working in code at all. It is a handy tool for data analysts who want to get results
without programming.

Benefits of Excel

Excel is easy to get started with, and it’s a program that anybody who is in ana-
lytics will intuitively grasp. It can be very useful to communicate data to people
who may not have any programming skills: they should still be able to play with
the data.

Who Uses This

Data analysts tend to use Excel.

Level of Difficulty

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Beginner

Sample Project

Importing a small dataset on the statistics of NBA players and making a simple
graph of the top scorers in the league

6.3.3 SQL

Takeaway
SQL is the most popular programming language to find data.

SQL is the most popular programming language to find

data.

Introduction to SQL

Data science needs data. SQL is a programming language specially designed to

extract data from databases.

Benefits of SQL

SQL is the most popular tool used by data scientists. Most data in the world is
stored in tables that will require SQL to access. You’ll be able to filter and sort
through the data with it.

Who Uses This

Data analysts and some data engineers tend to use SQL.

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Level of Difficulty

Beginner

Sample Project

Using a SQL query to select the top ten most popular songs from a SQL database
of the Billboard 100.

6.3.4 Python

Takeaway
Python is a powerful, versatile programming language for data science.

Python is a powerful, versatile programming language for

data science.

Introduction to Python

Once you download Anaconda, an environment manager for Python and get set
up on iPython Notebook, you’ll quickly realize how intuitive Python is. A versa-
tile programming language built for everything from building websites to gather-
ing data from across the web, Python has many code libraries dedicated to mak-
ing data science work easier.

Benefits of Python

Python is a versatile programming language with a simple syntax that is easy to

learn.

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The average salary range for jobs with Python in their description is around
$102,000. Python is the most popular programming language taught in univer-
sities: the community of Python programmers is only going to be larger in the
years to come. The Python community is passionate about teaching Python, and
building useful tools that will save you time and allow you to do more with your
data.

Many data scientists use Python to solve their problems: 40% of respondents to
a data science survey conducted by O’Reilly used Python, which was more than
the 36% who used Excel.

Who Uses This

Data engineers and data scientists will use Python for medium-size data sets.

Level of Difficulty

Intermediate

Sample Project

Using Python to source tweets from celebrities, then doing an analysis of the
most frequent words used by applying programming rules.

6.3.5 R

Takeaway
R is a staple in the data science community because it is designed explic-
itly for data science needs. It is the most popular programming environ-
ment in data science with 43% of data professionals using it.

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 R is a staple in the data science community because it is
designed explicitly for data science needs.

Introduction to R

R is a programming environment designed for data analysis. R shines when it

comes to building statistical models and displaying the results.

Benefits of R

R is slightly more popular than Python in data science, with 43% of data scien-
tists using it in their tool stack compared to the 40% who use Python.

It is an environment where a wide variety of statistical and graphing techniques

can be applied.

The community contributes packages that, similar to Python, can extend the
core functions of the R codebase so that it can be applied to very specific prob-
lems such as measuring financial metrics or analyzing climate data.

Who Uses This

Data engineers and data scientists will use R for medium-size data sets.

Level of Difficulty

Intermediate

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Sample Project

Using R to graph stock market movements over the last five years.

6.3.6 Big Data Tools

Big data comes from Moore’s Law, a theory that computing power doubles every
two years. This has led to the rise of massive data sets generated by millions of
computers. Imagine how much data Facebook has at any give time!

Any data set that is too large for conventional data tools such as SQL and Excel
can be considered big data, according to McKinsey. The simplest definition is that
big data is data that can’t fit onto your computer.

Here are tools to solve that problem:

6.3.7 Hadoop

Takeaway
By using Hadoop, you can store your data in multiple servers while
controlling it from one.

By using Hadoop, you can store your data in multiple

servers while controlling it from one.

Introduction to Hadoop
The solution is a technology called MapReduce. MapReduce is an elegant abstrac-
tion that treats a series of computers as it were one central server. This allows you
to store data on multiple computers, but process it through one.

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Benefits of Hadoop

Hadoop is an open-source ecosystem of tools that allow you to MapReduce your

data and store enormous datasets on different servers. It allows you to manage
much more data than you can on a single computer.

Who Uses This

Data engineers and data scientists will use Hadoop to handle big data sets.

Level of Difficulty

Advanced

Sample Project

Using Hadoop to store massive datasets that update in real time, such as the
number of likes Facebook users generate.

6.3.8 NoSQL

Takeaway
NoSQL allows you to manage data without unneeded weight.

NoSQL allows you to manage data without unneeded

weight.

Introduction to NoSQL

Tables that bring all their data with them can become cumbersome. NoSQL in-

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cludes a host of data storage solutions that separate out huge data sets into man-
ageable chunks.

Benefits of NoSQL

NoSQL was a trend that pioneered by Google to deal with the impossibly large
amounts of data they were storing. Often structured in the JSON format popular
with web developers, solutions like MongoDB have created databases that can be
manipulated like SQL tables, but which can store the data with less structure and
density.

Who Uses This

Data engineers and data scientists will use NoSQL for big data sets, often website
databases for millions of users.

Level of Difficulty

Advanced

Sample Project

Storing data on users of a social media application that is deployed on the web.

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6.4 Bringing Tools into the Data Science Process

Each one of the tools we’ve described is complementary. They each have their
strengths and weaknesses, and each one can be applied to different stages in the
data science process.

Excel SQL Python R Hadoop NoSQL

Collect
X X X
Data
Process
X X X X X
Data
Explore
X X X X X
Data
Analyze
X X X X X
Data
Communi-
X X X
cate Data

6.4.1 Collect Data

Sometimes it isn’t doing the data analysis that is hard, but finding the data you
need. Thankfully, there are many resources.

You can create datasets by taking data from what is called an API or an applica-
tion programming interface that allows you to take structured data from certain
providers. You’ll be able to query all kinds of data from among others, Twitter,
Facebook, and Instagram.

If you want to play around with public datasets, the United States government
has made some free to all. The most popular datasets are tracked on Reddit. Data-

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set search engines such as Quandl that allow you search for the perfect dataset.

Springboard has compiled 19 of our favorite public datasets on our blog to help
you out in case you ever need good data right away.

***

Python supports most data formats. You can play with CSVs or you can play
with JSON sourced from the web. You can import SQL tables directly into your
code.

You can also create datasets from the web. The Python requests library scrapes
data from different websites with a line of code. You’ll be able to take data from
Wikipedia tables, and once you’ve cleaned the data with the beautifulsoup library,
you’ll be able to analyze them in-depth.

R can take data from Excel, CSV, and from text files. Files built in Minitab or in
SPSS format can be turned into R dataframes.

The Rvest package will allow you to perform basic web scraping, while magrittr
will clean and parse the information for you. These packages are similar to the
requests and beautifulsoup libraries in Python.

6.4.2 Process Data

Excel allows you to easily clean data with menu functions that can clean dupli-
cate values, filter and sort columns, and delete rows or columns of data.
SQL has basic filtering and sorting functions so you can source exactly the data
you need. You can also update SQL tables and clean certain values from them.

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SQL has basic filtering and sorting functions so you can source exactly the data
you need. You can also update SQL tables and clean certain values from them.

Python uses the Pandas library for data analysis. It is much quicker to process
larger data sets than Excel, and has more functionality.

You can clean data by applying programmatic methods to the data with Pandas.
You can, for example, replace every error value in the dataset with a default val-
ue such as zero in one line of code.

R can help you add columns of information, reshape, and transform the data
itself. Many of the newer R libraries such as reshape2 allow you to play with dif-
ferent data frames and make them fit the criterion you’ve set.

NoSQL allows you the ability to subset large data sets and to change data accord-
ing to your will, which you can use to clean through your data.

6.4.3 Explore Data

Excel can add columns together, get the averages, and do basic statistical and
numerical analysis with pre-built functions.

Python and Pandas can take complex rules and apply them to data so you can
easily spot high-level trends.

You’ll be able to do deep time series analysis in Pandas. You could track variations
in stock prices to their finest detail.

R was built to do statistical and numerical analysis of large data sets. You’ll be
able to build probability distributions, apply a variety of statistical tests to your

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data, and use standard machine learning and data mining techniques.

NoSQL and Hadoop both allow you to explore data on a similar level to SQL.

6.4.4 Analyze Data

Excel can analyze data at an advanced level. Use pivot tables that display your
data dynamically, advanced formulas, or macro scripts that allow you to program-
matically go through your data.

Python has a numeric analysis library: Numpy. You can do scientific computing
and calculation with SciPy. You can access a lot of pre-built machine learning al-
gorithms with the scikit-learn code library.

R has plenty of packages out there for specific analyses such as the Poisson distri-
bution and mixtures of probability laws.

6.4.5 Communicate Data

Excel has basic chart and plotting functionality. You can easily build dashboards
and dynamic charts that will update as soon as somebody changes the underlying
data.

Python has a lot of powerful options to visualize data. You can use the Matplot-
lib library to generate basic graphs and charts from the data embedded in your
Python. If you want something that’s a bit more advanced, you could try Plot.ly
and its Python API.

You can also use the nbconvert function to turn your Python notebooks into

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websites or your online portfolio. Many people have used this function to create
online tutorials on how to learn Python.

R was built to do statistical analysis and demonstrate the results. It’s a powerful
environment suited to scientific visualization with many packages that specialize
in graphical display of results. The base graphics module allows you to make all of
the basic charts and plots you’d like from data matrices. You can then save these
files into image formats such as jpg., or you can save them as separate PDFs. You
can use ggplot2 for more advanced plots such as complex scatter plots with re-
gression lines.

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 Python vs R
The data science community tends to use either Python or R. Here are some of
the differences.

USAGE Python, as we noted above, is often used by computer programmers since it is

the Swiss knife of programming languages, versatile enough so that you can build web-
sites and do data analysis at the same time. R is primarily used by researchers.

SYNTAX Python has a nice clear “English-like” syntax that makes debugging and un-
derstanding code easier, while R has unconventional syntax that can be tricky to under-
stand, especially if you have learned another programming language.

LEARNING CURVE R is slightly harder to pick up, especially since it doesn’t follow the
normal conventions other common programming languages have. Python is simple
enough that it makes for a really good first programming language to learn.

POPULARITY Python has always been among the top 5 most popular programming
languages on Github, a common repository of code that often tracks usage habits across
all programmers quite accurately, while R typically hovers below the top 10.

FOCUS ON DATA SCIENCE Python is a general-purpose language, and there is less

focus on data analysis packages then in R. Nevertheless, there are very cool options for
Python such as Pandas, a data analysis library built just for it.

SALARY The average data scientist who uses R will receive a salary of $115k compared
to the $95k average they would earn with Python.

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Conclusion

Python is versatile, simple, easier to learn, and powerful because of its usefulness
in a variety of contexts, some of which have nothing to do with data science. R is
a specialized environment that looks to optimize for data analysis, but which is
harder to learn. You’ll get paid more if you stick it out with R rather than working
with Python.

While the Python vs. R debate is often framed as a zero-sum game, in real-
ity it’s not. Learning both tools and using them for their respective
strengths can only improve you as a data scientist. 23% of data scientists
surveyed by DataCamp used both R and Python.

O’Reilly found in their survey of data scientists that using many program-
ming tools is correlated with increased salary. While those who work in R
may be paid more than those that work in Python, those that used 15 or
more tools made 30k more than those that just used 10 to 14.

Takeaway
The Python vs R debate really doesn’t need to happen unless you real-
ly want to confine yourself to one programming language. The reality
is that as a data scientist, you’ll often be called upon to do different
tasks, and you’ll only be able to do them better if you know exactly
what tool is best.

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7 Starting Your Job Search

7.1 How to Build a Data Science Portfolio and Resume

How to Build a Data Science Portfolio and Resume

You need to make a great first impression to break into data science. That starts
with your portfolio and your resume. Many data scientists, have their own web-
site which serves as both a repository of their work, and a blog.

This allows them to demonstrate their experience and the value they create in
the data science community. In order for your portfolio to have the same effect,
it must share the following traits:

1. Your portfolio should highlight your best projects. Focusing on a few

memorable projects is generally better than showing a large number of
dilute projects.
2. It must be well-designed, and tell a captivating story of who you are be-
yond your work.
3. You should build value for your visitors by highlighting any impact
you’ve had through your work. Maybe you built a tool that’s useful for
everyone? Perhaps you have a tutorial? Showcase them here.
4. It should be easy to find your contact information.

We found this portfolio of Trent Salazar to show you what a data science portfo-
lio looks like with these four traits. Trent is a research assistant at Duke University
who has had several analyst roles in investment banking. Impressively, when
you google “Data Science Portfolio”, his is one of the top results to come up!

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Here’s how he ranks so high:

1. The website design is well-thought out: it doesn’t look like a CV, it looks
like a storybook. Solutions like Themeforest can help you easily look just
as good if you don’t have the design skills.
2. Trent’s portfolio tells a story of who he is and places his work in its right-
ful context. You can see the interest he has in financial modelling and
how that has applied to his career.
3. You’ll notice he has a lot of his resources on his website. He’s adding value
to his visitors and building a stronger personal brand both as a data scien-
tist, and as a professional.
4. The website makes it easy to contact Trent, either by email, or through
any one of his social channels.

Now take a look at our mentor Sundeep Pattem’s personal portfolio for example
projects. He’s worked on complex data problems that resonate in the real world.
He has five projects dealing with healthcare costs, labor markets, energy sus-
tainability, online education, and world economies, fields where there are plenty
of data problems to solve.

These projects are independent of any workplace. They show that Sundeep in-
nately enjoys creating solutions to complex problems with data science.

***

If you’re short on project ideas, you can participate in data science competitions.
Platforms like Datakind, Kaggle and Datadriven allow you to work with real
corporate or social problems. By using your data science skills, you can show
your ability to make a difference, and create the strongest portfolio asset of all: a
demonstrated bias to action.

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7.2 How to Network and Build a Personal Brand in Data
Science

Once you have learned the skills and developed a strong portfolio, the next step
is to connect with people who can help you leverage those strengths into a data
science job.

Building your network among data scientists will substantially increase your
odds of breaking into the field. Many of the best opportunities aren’t posted on
job boards. As we saw with Sundeep’s example, solving challenging real-world
problems will enable you to build a portfolio and a personal brand, and land a
job based on that.

7.3 Finding a Mentor

One of the highest-value networking activities you can pursue is finding a men-
tor who can guide you as you seek and pursue a data science career. Somebody
who has been in a hiring position can tell you exactly what companies are look-
ing for and how to prepare for interviews. She can also introduce you to other
people in the data science community, or in the best of cases, even end up hir-
ing you!

One of the highest-value networking activities you can

pursue is finding a mentor who can guide you along your
data science career.

What most people don’t get is that mentorship is a two-way street, and you can
always create value for your mentor in different ways, whether it’s sharing your
story, or giving them some perspective on problems they see. Mentorship is a

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special category of a relationship where you can build value for yourself in a pro-
fessional context--but never forget the golden rule of relationships: you get what
you give.

We’ve seen the benefits of mentorship first-hand at Springboard. In all of our

courses, students are paired with a mentor from the industry, which leads to
significantly better outcomes through increased accountability and motivation.

7.4 Meetups and Conferences

In this section, we’re listing some of the popular events and conferences we
know of. With a bit of searching, you can find great data science events in your
area. These are great places to meet fellow aspiring data scientists and pick up
the jargon. At some of these events, you will get to hear from and build connec-
tions with established data scientists, and even unearth hidden job opportuni-
ties.

At events and meetups, you’ll network with fellow data

scientists, and interview for hidden job opportunities.

7.4.1 Conferences

7.4.1.1 Strata Conference

The Strata Conference is a big data science conference that takes place
worldwide in different cities. Speakers come from academia and private
industry: the themes tend to be oriented around cutting-edge data sci-
ence trends in action. Practical workshops are provided if you want to
learn the technology behind data science, and there are plenty of net-
working events.

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7.4.1.2 KDD (Knowledge Discovery in Data Science)

KDD or Knowledge Discovery in Data Science is another large data sci-

ence conference. It’s also an organization that seeks to lead discussion and
teaching of the science behind data science. Membership and attendance
at these conferences offers an awesome way to contribute to growing
trends in data science.

7.4.1.3 NIPS (Neural Information Processing Systems)

NIPS, or Neural Information Processing Systems, is a largely academic

data science conference, which is focused on evaluating cutting-edge sci-
ence papers in the field. Attending will give you a sneak preview of what
will shake data science in the future.

7.4.2 Meetups

We’ve listed the major conferences where the data science community assembles,
but there are often smaller meetups that serve to connect the local data science
community.

The San Francisco Bay Area tends to have the most data meetups, though there is
usually one in every major city in America. You can look up data science meetups
near you with Meetup.com. Some of the largest data science meetups, with more
than 4,000 members, are SF Data Mining, Data Science DC, Data Science London,
and the Bay Area R User Group.

Most data science meetups are organized by influencers in the local data science
community: if you really want to make a splash, you should consider volunteering

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at a data science event.

Most events follow the same format, with an invited speaker who gives a talk,
and then a networking period where everybody networks with each other (usu-
ally over beers). The general data science meetups will often have an industry
talk where somebody will delve into a real-world data science problem and how
it was solved. Specialized data science meetups ,such as Python groups for data
science or R groups, will often focus on technical tutorials that teach a specific
tool or skill.

You should introduce yourself to the local data science community! Many of the
best career opportunities are found by talking to people passionate about a cer-
tain field, many of whom will be with you at a data science meetup.

7.4.3 Other Ways to Network

We live in a digital world, so you shouldn’t feel confined to offline networking!

Some of the best data scientists are on Twitter, and you’ll often find data science
podcasts to follow.

Podcasts such as the Talking Machines interview prominent data scientists. Par-
tially Derivative offers drunk data-driven conversations. The O’Reilly Data Show
is the equivalent of a graduate seminar delivered in podcast form.

You’ll also find online blogs, newsletters and communities such as O’Reilly and
KDNuggets that will help you connect with data scientists online.

Make sure to check out Reddit and Quora where you can engage in trending data
science discussion, and you’ll always find a lot of great programming resources
and pieces on Hacker News!

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7.5 Job Boards for Data Science

1. Kaggle offers a job board for data scientists.

2. You can find a list of open data scientist jobs at Indeed, the search engine
for jobs.
3. Datajobs offers a listings site for data science.
4. Datasciencejobs scrapes data science jobs from around the web into one
centralized location.

You can also find opportunities through networking and through finding a men-
tor. We continue to emphasize that the best job positions are often found by
talking to people within the data science community.

You’ll also be able to find opportunities for employment in startup forums. Hack-
er News has a job board that is exclusive to Y Combinator startups. Y Combinator
is the most prestigious startup accelerator in the world. Angellist is a database for
startups looking to get funding and it also has a jobs section.

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7.6 Ace the Data Science Interview

An entire book can be written on the data science interview--in fact, it’s likely
we’ll be releasing a book exclusively on the topic soon!

If you get an interview, what do you do next? The first thing you have to consid-
er is that a data science interview involves some degree of preparation. There
are several kinds of questions that are always asked: your background, coding
questions, and applied machine learning ones. You should always anticipate a
mixture of technical and non-technical questions in any data science interview.
Make sure you brush up on your programming and data science--and try to
interweave it with your own personal story!

You’ll also often be asked to analyze datasets. You’ll likely be asked culture fit
and stats questions.

To prepare for the coding questions, you’ll have to treat interviews on data sci-
ence partly as a software engineering exercise. You should brush up on all coding
interview resources, a lot of which are around online.

Here is a list of data science questions you might encounter.

Among some of these questions, you’ll see common ones like:

• Python vs R: which language do you prefer for [x] situation?

• What isK-means(aspecifictype of datascience algorithm)?Describewhenyou
would use it.
• Tell me a bit about the last data science project you worked on.
• What do you know about the key growth drivers for our business?

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1-The first type of question tests your programming knowledge.

2- The second type of question tests what you know about data science algo-
rithms, and makes you share your real-life experience with them.

3- The third question is a deep dive into the work you’ve done with data science
before.

4- Finally, the fourth type of question will test how much you know about the
business you’re interviewing with.

If you can demonstrate how your data science work can help move the nee-
dle for your potential employers, you’ll impress them. They’ll know they have
somebody who cares enough to look into what they’re doing, and who knows
enough about the industry that they don’t have to teach you everything.

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8 Paths into Data Science
You might wonder where you’ll find people who can do data science. What back-
ground do they come from? What skills did they have to pick up? Who are these
people and how can I become one of them them?

Fortunately, at Springboard, we have a long list of mentors who can tell you
about their journey into data science and help you with yours. Here are some of
the stories we’ve gleaned from them.

8.1 Engineering & Business = Data Stories - Amit Ka-

poor

Takeaway

Amit’s path through business and engineering

shows that you can become a great data storytell-
er without a computer science degree.

Amit’s path through business and en-

gineering shows that you can become
a great data storyteller without a com-
puter science degree.

Amit Kapoor is the founding partner of NarrativeViz Consulting, an agency that

helps clients with data visualization problems. He describes himself as a visu-
al storyteller, somebody who can convey information using cold hard numbers
turned into appealing visual stories.

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Amit first got a degree in mechanical engineering, then he went on to get a
MBA. He then worked as a consultant for both A.T Kearney and then Booz &
Company. It was during his time as a consultant that he realized the importance
of being able to communicate data properly, and so he leveraged his back-
ground in both engineering and business to transition into managing his own
data visualization consultancy.

Amit’s background proves that you don’t have to learn computer science to do
wonderful things with data.

8.2 Drive Real-World Impact to Get Into Data Science -

Sundeep Pattem

Takeaway

Solve hard real-world problems to break into a

data science career.

Solve hard real-world problems to

break into a data science career.

Sundeep Pattem is a data innovation leader at the California Department of Jus-

tice. He’s also mentored for several data science courses and as a data scientist, he
works on creating end-to-end solutions that extract value from data. He has his
own personal websites with different data science projects.

He comes from a traditional data science background with a PhD. in electrical en-
gineering and a job at Cisco as a software engineer--mostly because he didn’t feel

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like there were many opportunities in electrical engineering.

It was really the Machine Learning course at Coursera that helped inspire him to
do what he loves now: data science. After getting an initial spark of inspiration
from online learning, Sundeep started attending data science meetups and inter-
viewing for different positions without much success.

His breakthrough came when he found an unsolved problem in energy sustain-

ability, and worked to solve it. He was soon a published author at a prestigious
academic conference, and shortly thereafter, he was hired to become a practicing
data scientist.

Sundeep’s path shows that if you work on hard, real-world problems outside of
work, you’ll drive social impact and find data science jobs waiting for you.

8.3 Gaining Data Science Experience - Sneha Runwal

Takeaway

You can come from a computer science back-

ground and gain valuable data science experience
by finding the right jobs.

You can come from a computer sci-

ence background and gain valuable
data science experience by finding the
right jobs.

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Sneha graduated with a bachelor’s in computer science, and after that, she did
a short stint at Cisco as a software engineer. After pursuing her MBA with a fo-
cus in analytics and strategy, she took up several data science internships. After
working extensively with Infosys on their HR analytics data, she realized this was
something she wanted to pursue.

She ended up moving to the Bay Area after graduating from her MBA, and tak-
ing a data science internship with a startup in the area. After working on their
psychometrics data to determine what candidates would be a good fit for certain
jobs, she transitioned to her current role as a Statistician at Apple.

Sneha’s path shows that you can enter data science with a computer science de-
gree, and a few great data science experiences.

8.4 Competing to Get Into Data Science - Sinan Oz-

demir

Takeaway

You can participate in online competitions to

practice and demonstrate your data science skills.

You can participate in online compe-

titions to practice and demonstrate
your data science skills.

Sinan Ozdemir followed a slightly unconventional path to a data science career.

He got a Master’s in Theoretical Mathematics, and then became a lecturer at
Johns Hopkins University in Business Intelligence. That was when he became

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fascinated by data science competitions.

Becoming a regular at Kaggle, an online platform for data science competitions,

he soon demonstrated an extraordinary capacity at creating accurate predictive
models. Soon, he was working for data science startups and teaching data science
to others.

Sinan’s path shows that you can come from an academic background and compete
your way to a job.

8.5 A Psychology PH.D. on the Path to Data Science -

Erin Baker

Takeaway

You can unearth insights from many different

fields in data science.

You can unearth insights from many

different fields in data science.

Erin is a social psychologist by training who was

focused in her PhD.on how to get people to be more pro-social. She wanted to get
more people engaged in volunteerism, and in engagement with their community.

It was during an internship at Hewlett Packard where she learned about data
science analytics, which propelled her into a hybrid role of using quantitative
methods in data to examine the why behind human behavior.

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Her ultimate motivation behind moving into data science from grad school
came from the idea that a lot of academia was focused on understanding the
theory of human behavior. Erin wanted to take that theory and apply it to re-
al-world situations.

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9 Final Advice
On the work of data science: “As a data scientist [...], it’s important to recog-
nize that the solution may not be something that you already know or something
that just fits nicely with the problem.” - Raj B., Director of Data Education at
Springboard.

On the data science process: “Acquiring and cleaning data takes about 75% of
the time in a project.” - Amit K., NarrativeViz Consulting

On what interviewers are looking for when they hire: “When I’m looking
for a candidate, the first thing that I want to understand is, what is his thought
process?” - Sneha R., Statistician at Apple

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10 Checklist

1. Assemble a learning plan. Springboard has one for you

2. Brush up on linear algebra and calculus
3. Learn the theory of statistics and machine learning
4. Install Python, play around with it
5. Install R, play around with it
6. Do a few SQL queries
7. Assemble your own data set from a website
8. Register for a data science community online such as KDNuggets
9. Attend a data science meetup
10. Network with at least five data scientists
11. Look for a data science mentor
12. Build a portfolio filled with your data science projects!

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11 Conclusion
Getting your first data science job might be challenging, but it’s possible to
achieve with a diligent approach to picking up skills, and working on projects,
building a portfolio and getting in front of the right people.

We hope that going through this guide has brought you a little bit closer to your
goal of breaking into a career in data science. We have provided a checklist that
might be useful as you continue your journey towards that goal.

At Springboard, we hope this is the beginning of your adventure, and that it

ends with the data science job you desire.

If you thought this was valuable,

share a free copy of this guide to
your friends on Facebook, or co-
workers on Linkedin.

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12 Resources

12.1 What is Data Science?

This article on KDNuggets visually shows the difference between data science
roles.

12.2 Skills and Tools

This Quora post is a broad overview of many of the essential skills you need to
become a data scientist, and resources to go about learning them.

The following introduction to Python for data science will get you set up on the
basics.

This blog will help you with all of the latest news in Excel data visualization.

This interactive tutorial to R will help you grasp the basics. This tutorial goes into
the exact steps you’ll need to perform to get clean data in R.

W3Schools has an excellent interactive tutorial on SQL that will get you started
on how to select parts of a database for further analysis.

12.3 Getting Data

This Quora thread goes over many of your options for getting public data sets.

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12.4 Algorithms

The top ten data algorithms you’ll have to use can be quite complex (and there
are many more algorithms), but this blog post will explain most of them in plain
English. You’ll be able to understand all of the options you have around you when
you’re confronted with a data problem.

12.5 Machine Learning

This repository on machine learning offers a great definition and working exam-
ples you can get started on right away in Python. If you’re more of a visual learn-
er, this visual introduction to machine learning concepts will fill the gap for you.

12.6 Data Visualization

Flowing Data is a blog that focuses on data communication and the design of
appealing data visualizations.

12.7 Data Science Interview

Here are a list of data science interview questions and how to prepare for them.

12.8 Building a Data Science Portfolio

This piece gets into how you should great data products that resonate with your
users.

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13 Stuff Data Scientists Say

Now that you’ve been flooded with all of the resources you need to look over and
the ideas you need to understand, it’s a good time to take a brief break, and step
back a little bit. Here’s a brief glossary of data science terms we covered before
and some we haven’t to ensure you never get lost in any data science discus-
sion--or interview.

Algorithm
A set of instructions a computer must follow, typically implemented in
computer code such as Python or SQL (not an invention of Al Gore)

API
Application programming interface, a set of standards for collecting data
from different web sources.

Bit
The basic unit of computer data, which can either be a 0 or 1 value. It’s a
shortened version of a binary unit.

Byte
A byte is composed of 8 bits and is the second smallest unit of computer
data. Historically, it is the amount of data required to encode a character
in the computer.

Kilobyte
A kilobyte is 1024 bytes.

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 Megabyte
A megabyte is 1024 kilobytes.

Gigabyte
A gigabyte is 1024 megabytes.

Terabyte
A terabyte is 1024 gigabytes.

Petabyte
A petabyte is 1024 terabytes.

Data wrangling
Cleaning up your raw data so that you can perform analysis on it by, for
example, adding new columns of data, or transforming certain columns of
data. An example of this would be replacing all error values (such as NaN
in a column) with 0.

Big data
Defined in many ways. The simplest explanation is an amount of data that
conventional computing methods such as SQL or Excel cannot process.

Feature engineering
When you define the independent variables you want to dive deeper into
for your data analysis.

Hadoop
A framework that allows for distributed data analysis across multiple
hardware components, commonly associated with big data. It is an open
source framework for analysis of large data sets supported by the Apache

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 Foundation. (not the sound made in a football stadium.)

Hive
A SQL-like query language that allows you to access big data records. (not
what bees make when they group together.)

Latency
The amount of time it takes to deliver data from one point to another.

Machine Learning
The use of algorithms to detect patterns in data.

Python
Versatile programming language often used by data scientists (not the
giant snake.)

Pandas
A library of code you can access in Python that helps make data analysis
easy (not the furry cute animal.)

R
Programming language designed for statistical analysis (not the versatile
letter.)

Scalability
The ability of a system to maintain performance as its workload (in this
case the volume of data) increases.

Schema
A set of rules that define how data is organized in a database.

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 SQL
Programming language specifically designed to get data out of relational
databases, which have tables of data with columns that relate to one an-
other (not a weird electro group.)

NoSQL
A set of data storage languages that are not SQL. Created by companies
such as Google to deal with scaling issues when it came to tables of rela-
tional data. Typically deals with JSON, a data format popular with web
developers (not a parody of a weird electro group.)

Machine Learning
Using data-driven algorithms that direct machines to identify certain fea-
tures in data, thus allowing the machine to learn and detect patterns (this
is what is pretty much sounds like.)

Overfitting
The cardinal sin of machine learning and statistical analysis. This is when
you take random variations in the data and overstate their importance in
your predictive model, which can generate wildly inaccurate results.

Supervised Learning
Using human-labelled inputs to get machine outputs. An example of this
is a program that can classify faces based on a dataset of faces already la-
belled by humans (this is pretty much what it sounds like.)

Unsupervised Learning
This is letting the machine classify features without any human inputs.
An example of this is a program that can classify faces from pictures of

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 food without any human labelling of the data (this is pretty much what it
sounds like.)

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