What Kind of Projects I do as a Data Scientist
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I often get asked about what I actually do as a Data Scientist and how different it is from working as an Analyst or a Data Engineer. First of all, every company’s JD of a Data Scientist is unique. Some DS jobs require more technical knowledge, some require more analytical skill and so on.
I started in this role as a Senior Analyst for only a couple of months and then later got moved to being a Data Scientist. I guess some companies, including mine are still trying to figure out what the differences are between their teams.
So to explain it better, here are some of the high impact and regular projects that I’m currently working on— without of course, giving away too much information that I’m not legally allowed to disclose.
High Impact: Predicting Product demand to achieve $$mil+ weekly inventory cost reduction
One of the projects I work under this category involves a Machine Learning model for time series forecasting that predicts demand for certain products. On a day to day, this project is heavy on monitoring daily predictions, data engineering pipelines and monitoring actuals. In some cases where weekly targets are not met, root cause analysis may be required and this would involve doing some statistical analysis or forecast analysis. The impact of this machine learning model is on majority (over 9k+) of the company’s stores in the US.
High Impact: Creating Algorithms to improve efficiency in a Supply Chain Network by $$mil+ annually
An example of this project can be, doing research about the end to end process of a specific supply chain network, looking at different inventory, store and a few other metrics. Identifying the business problem, coming up with targets, then eventually creating mathematical formulas and an algorithm (written in python / R) that will support in achieving the business goal. In most cases, algorithms created are hardcoded from scratch so most of my time is spent on analyzing scenarios that can potentially break an algorithm, debug codes and test multiple scenarios. Some mathematical linear equations and statistics are involved.
There are a few other high impact projects that I’m part of but most of them are similar to the mentioned above.
Other tasks:
I would flag all the projects and tasks that I’m working on as high impact work-stream since they all need a certain level of attention and perfection, otherwise if not monitored or tested can cause million-dollar impact on project outcome. Here are some day to day small tasks in bullets that I also do:
- AI Automation: Writing python scripts to automate routine and manual tasks
- Data modeling: Creating data layers from multiple data table sources and exporting reports and data visualizations from them
- ETL and Data Visualization: Supporting business teams in making data available, accessible and easy to understand for business users
- AdHoc analysis projects and requests
So now that I’ve shared a few things that I do on a regular basis, the next question I would normally get asked is — “how do you feel about it?”
Coming from a tech background, I’m comfortable about the tech aspects of it like programming and using different tools. But the part where I normally struggle the most is the business side of it which includes more than just understanding how business stuff work but rather identifying the problem, looking at historical data and creating feasible solutions that take in to account all the scenarios that can possibly happen — then translate them into code.
It’s not as easy as going from point A to point B — it’s more like going from the summation of something to the derivative of the square root of whatever that is likely to break that algorithm kinda thing.
It’s not fun — in fact it has also affected some of the simplest things in my personal life such as deciding what to have for dinner. In my mind there’s always an endless hypothesis testing going on.
But on the other hand, working in this field has been great. There’s nothing more rewarding than seeing how much impact you’re actually bringing to the company. Being here has given me so much purpose, that I actually find my every work day exciting as my life outside of work.
Let’s connect: https://twitter.com/itskathleenlara
