Mastering basic theory, on the other hand, needs a coherent and structured study-plan which requires extended focus and single-minded emphasis (at least for most folks).
Logically yes. But it's amusing how many scienty types (PhDs et al) who know all the fundamentals in theory can't do such practical tasks if their life was depended on it.
It's like they thought the theorems and abstract objects they've learned would never be encountered in the wild.
There's probably a scale at which that works better, two pizza data science teams for example.
It seems like a natural evolution of DB admin for very large scale noSQL and DBs, esp. those with unstructured data and often non-commodity architecture. I've seen numerous companies looking for such folks and I suspect demand will rise.
IMO, it's not a job you'd want to outsource. The role is too mission critical, the skills not predictable enough to be a commodity, and the penalty for screwing up is too great.
So I can imagine a pipeline developed for use with well established social media APIs or standard scientific experiments that have been in used for decades. But it is hard to imagine a pipeline that can handle amorphous emerging high throughput instruments/methods.