The Importance of Data Science & Data Science Engineers for an Organization

As the world enter the age of big data, it becomes critical for us to understand the importance of data science and data science engineers for an organization. But, before discussing we need to know what data means?

In simple terms, data is facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis, it can be structured or non-structured. Traditionally, the data that we had was mostly structured and small in size, which could be analyzed by using the simple BI tools. Unlike data in the traditional systems which was mostly structured, today most of the data is unstructured or semi-structured. Data Science is a blend of various tools, algorithms, and machine learning principles with the goal to discover hidden patterns from the unstructured or semi-structured data. A data science engineer often termed as big data scientists have the skill and knowledge of mathematics or statistics to perform the interdisciplinary activities such as predictive analysis, visualization, and presentation.

Data can be generated from different sources like financial logs, text files, multimedia forms, sensors, and instruments. Simple BI tools are not capable of processing huge volume and variety of data. Thus, we need more complex and advanced analytical tools and algorithms for processing, analyzing and drawing meaningful insights out of it. Well, that's not the only reason behind data science getting popular, as it is further very useful in decision making and predictive analysis. For example, a self-driving car collects live data from sensors, including radars, cameras and lasers to create a map of its surroundings. Based on this data, it takes decisions like when to speed up, when to speed down, when to overtake, where to take a turn – making use of advanced machine learning algorithms.

Since data science is a blend of three factors – mathematics, technology and business strategy; the data science engineers are deep thinkers with intense intellectual curiosity. Data science engineers possess the skill sets and the knowledge to uncover the hidden solutions of the complex business problems. This can be done by analyzing the data-sets by utilizing the mathematical and the scientific skills at the same time. For any company that wishes to enhance their business by being more data-driven, data science is the secret sauce. Data science projects can have multiplicative returns on investment, both from guidance through data insight as well as development of data product.