I am building a data science & analytics team from scratch and need generalist data scientists who can embed within business units, understand their pain points, and design and build solutions (this can be anything: analyses, models, dashboards, etc.) I am struggling a lot when the job posting is called “Data Scientist” and the vast majority of applicants are very narrowly trained specialists in modeling or ML (or that’s what they claim to be at least). They have very limited interpersonal skills or business acumen or even ability to communicate with non technical stakeholders. Maybe 10 out of 400 applicants would meet that basic bar. Should I rebrand the role as Analytics PM to attract more of the types of applicants I am looking for? The caveat is that this person’s job will be to discover and design these products from scratch - it’s not like they are coming in to PM an existing product. Another possible title could be “Data Science Consultant” but I worry this will attract people who just sit back and give advice and are not scrappy and willing to get deeply hands on with the data. “Data Analyst” is a legacy title and I am not sure communicates the level of thought leadership I need in this role. Someone who can sit with a non quantitative senior leader and design a solution. A data analyst sounds like someone who is asked to run specific queries and needs a lot of direction. What should I call this role to hire the type of person I’m looking for? Thank you in advance!!!
I believe Data Solution Lead is what you are looking for. In pockets of JNJ, we’ve moved towards Solutions Manager/Solutions Lead for that end to end understanding of pain points/problem and helping to define solution and ultimately even piloting something out before leveraging broader dev teams/data scientists.
Experience yells, that don’t follow the dinosaurs... Companies like J&J are beaurocratical machines, that employ new slogans to sell those slogans. Oh look let’s be agile now! Oh let’s get some data scientists! Why? Cause my VP will be happy!
Analytics and insights consultants
You’ll be surprised to learn that a vast majority of the narrowly trained ML modelers would be happy to drop the modeling part if it weren’t to impress the hiring managers to get a foot in the door. Most of these folks anyways don’t have a firm grip on inferential stats, linear algebra, calculus, algorithms. You should give these people a chance as they could have shortest learning curve while bringing some good analyses toolkits. The other option is to just title it as “Senior” or “Lead” Data Analyst.
CVS calls them ‘Analytics Consultants’
Hit me up, I'm your guy. Would be happy to help you workshop the posting regardless even if you don't want to hire me for the beaucoup bucks.
But as a not joke, I think the issue is that data science has been diluted quite a lot (and maybe/probably always was) to the point where standing up a new team requires someone who has jack-of-all-trades traits more than the hyper specialized stuff you get from the academic who is great at R or the person who is really good at model generation but can't talk to clients (internal or external). It's just a rough time to try and hire data science people in general.
Are you still looking for data analysts? I am looking for a change. Can I please DM you?
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It sounds like you may be trying to combine two roles into one. Replace DS with SWE in what you said and you’d have the same problem! You need a PM and a DS. Same way you’d hire a PM and a SWE for different skillsets. There are people who can do both very well but they wouldn’t apply to BlackRock is my guess.
This is incredibly insightful, thank you!! So the question is: is it normal for a DS manager to be the effective PM of the team? i find it exhausting while managing 4 people that their work is not complete on its own and i need to spend hours hand holding to turn their work into finished product. It seems clear that instead of hiring more DS, i should focus on hiring a co PM or a PM under me to distribute the PM responsibilities i am shouldering...is that right?
@delfi2680 this description here yells PM! Don’t expect them to create the code though.