The Role of Data Scientists in Modern Enterprises - Experience from Data Science Education

"Data Scientist" has often been considered as the sexiest job of the 21st century. As a consequence, the spectrum of data science education programs has increased significantly in recent years, and there is a high demand for data scientists at many companies. However, what training is required to become a data scientist? What is the role of data scientists in current enterprises? Is the training well-aligned to the practical needs of a job? In this article, we will address these questions by evaluating a survey of people who were trained in a continuing education program in data science in Switzerland. Our study sheds lights on the practical aspects of the data science education and how this newly-gained knowledge can successfully be applied in an enterprise. One of the highlights from the point of view of the database community is the important role of SQL in data science.