I'm in a data related role right now and want to make a switch to data science. Would I have to get a doctorate first or is there something else I can do to make that change?
My company, a medium-scale startup has only hired PhDs for this role in the last few years, with the exception of one who was holding a Master's degree
How high do you plan to grow on the ladder, and how much do you aim to get paid?
I'm considering it pretty seriously. I already have a Master's so I'm trying to see if I can just jump in and learn on the job or do I need to invest in a PhD. I don't want to pursue research, I want to do more applicative data science
Nope. Just be very strong in statistics and time series modeling.
If you want to be a data scientist then probably yes. If you want to be a data “scientist”, then bachelors is fine.
"scientist" in the natural/physics sense?
My read is if you are true to the field you need at least masters if not PhD, but if you want to be “air quotes” scientist you just need a bachelors and can use libraries. Applies to ML/AI too
Firstly, there is no such thing as data scientist. It is too broad a term to define stringent requirements. If you want to be a researcher working on cutting edge algorithm R&D, then the research skills you build and papers you publish while doing a PhD make you an attractive candidate to employers. But this doesn’t mean you’ll get paid particularly more than someone who can quickly and efficiently write production code to train, deploy, and maintain machine learning models that increase revenue for the business. For this, BS/MS is enough. Amazon has a job family “Applied Science” that requires you to be able to do BOTH of the above, and generally requires a PhD. In fact, most of the folks doing AS at Amazon with only a masters likely came in as SDE or Data Scientist, and transitioned into the role. Unsurprisingly, this is the highest paid technical job family in Amazon.
Absolutely not. PhD’s in my opinion carry little additional value for software jobs, with a narrow exception of ultra math heavy fields like computer vision or self driving cars and the like. You can be a data scientist - a real one - with a masters or even bachelors in Comp Sci or EE.
You don’t become a “scientist” by doing a boot camp or a bachelor degree.
The implication is scientific research with published academic papers?