
How not to hire your first data scientist - gk1
https://medium.com/@mrogati/how-not-to-hire-your-first-data-scientist-34f0f56f81ae#.bhm4eqeif
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arca_vorago
This is why I think my current goal of a pivot from 10+ year senior sysadmin
to data science (just starting up my BS in it) will make me an ideal data
scientist. I already understand the issues between devs, engineers and the
C-suite. I already understand the backend infrastructure and security setups,
and if they don't exist I understand how to set them up and what that
involves.

I also am hoping to avoid the scenario the article states in which the data
scientist has only learned how to work on academic data sets. That's not good
enough for me. I intend to work with real world data sets, and am currently
angling to focus on financial and political ones for maximum ROI to myself as
I learn.

Primarily though, I think it's a failure of CTO's/CIO's to fullfil the role of
mediator between the board room and C-level and the rest of the company. I've
seen it time and time again in IT. The guru who wants to fix problems is
stuck, out of their element, trying to convince the C's to go down path X.
It's a management issue. In the end, it seems to me that the end result of a
data scientist is to give the CTO/CIO the one paragraph summary that gives the
rest of the C's or the board the insight they need to advance the business
interests. I'm still learning though, so I may change my mind about that.

