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Comment by stevehiehn | Hacker News Reader

I don't like the term 'Data Scientist' at all. I think its far to loaded. Its a bad thing. Many developers already building sophisticated analytics and predictive systems will avoid identifying with what they are really doing in fear of being challenged as to whether they are a 'real' scientist or not.

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Yes. All scientific disciplines involve data, and while there is a field of studying "data" as a concept itself, this is most certainly not what these people at these companies do.

The accurate title is Data Analyst, something that has already existed for a long time and works just fine.

Or business analyst, or quant in the world of banking/finance. Someone who calls themselves a "data scientist" lacks the awareness that people have been doing this stuff for decades, and therefore also lacks the body of knowledge that has built up over that time. Actually, anyone can download a couple of open source libraries and run the numbers through them, so where is the value-add of "data science"?

The problem is that the term data analyst has come to mean data reporter. Similarly "business analyst" generally involves tasks that are best solved in Excel. The "science" in data science is about testing predictions. But I agree data science is a terrible phrase.

I never liked "software engineer," since most of what I saw was not engineering-like. I always called myself a software developer, regardless of any company's title system.

So, data developer?

While you create new software, you usually don't create data. But +1 on the "software engineer", prefer developer as well.

> you usually don't create data

I think the creation of new data is the whole point, actually. Even at the lowest level, aggregation of data is still new data. Deriving insight by the use of more sophisticated methods is also creating new data. Arguably, all data is derived so just because a data engineer distills large data sets into smaller ones doesn't mean they don't create new data.

> > you usually don't create data

> I think the creation of new data is the whole point, actually.

I had the same hesitation when I heard "data developer" in my head. But I agree with JoBrad. If you have a pile of dirt, and compress some of it, then you have a rock where there was none. If you take a rock and "disassemble" it, you have nuggets of gold where there was none.

Really, titles don't matter too much (which is why I used my own :), and we know generally what's being discussed when we hear data science and data scientist.

I don't see a huge difference between "engineer" and "developer", at least in Europe there are degrees in Software Engineering (which were born from traditional Engineering curricula) which are taught by the University's "Faculty of Engineering", so the name is somewhat justified.

I actually would find weirder if someone would define him/herself as a "Computer Scientist", even with a CS degree, outside of Academia :)

Yes, scientists do research, and even if you are doing experiments and analysis, if your results are not generalizable, then it's difficult to argue that's a 'research' pursuit. Applying established methods to a particular case is perhaps closer to engineering, or a more general term of 'analyst'.

Consider that all scientists are working with data, often very large and complex datasets, the term comes off like a joke.

"A data scientist is a statistician who lives in San Francisco." -- Josh Wills.

I think now alot of companies are using that term for what is basically a data analyst or perhaps statistical analyst role. Because it sounds impressive it's a way to attract people because we have egos and would like a title that is externally fascinating.. 'look dad, I am a scientist!' Not to say there aren't some doing impressive things or that there is not valid science done with data. What I often have seen is more like BI roles marketed with a new title though.

What about "data curator"? It's a term I came up with.

I prefer being called a Software Developer over Software Engineer or Programmer. For a long time, my work is more to do with developing solutions related to capture, parse, enrich and visualize huge volume of data. Data Developer sounds weird.

What do you guys feel?

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