You Want to Be a Real Data Scientist?

April 1, 2014

With $900 million  in funding, Cloudera is making an attempt to legitimize data scientists. If you have a degree in statistics from CalTech, that might not be enough to land you a job in the Clouderaverse.

The fix is revealed in “Cloudera Launches Data Scientist Certification.” According to the write up:

Consisting of an essentials exam and data science challenge, the new program helps developers, analysts, statisticians, and engineers get experience with relevant big data tools and techniques and validate their abilities while helping prospective employers identify elite, highly skilled data scientists.

Will Cloudera become the equivalent of the American Bar Association and NCEES? Cloudera challenges me to prove my expertise at the highest level. Okay. Will a doctorate from Cambridge University’s or Moscow State University’s math program do the trick? Would my relative (now deceased) Vladimir Ivanovich Arnold make the cut? (He was a data lackey for Kolmogorov, who could add and subtract pretty well my relative told me.)

In the world of information technology, the ability to make something work or to code up a script that solves a problem are useful skills. Tossing in numerical recipes for Big Data cook outs adds spice.

The problem, in my opinion, is that anyone from former middle school teachers to failed webmasters can say, “I’m a Big Data expert.” The lack of certification in some application spaces is normal. Enterprise search has no certification. Look at the outstanding track record consultants, search procurement teams, and vendors have compiled. Enterprise search delivers solutions that 50 to 75 percent of a system’s users find wanting. Big Data, Cloudera style, wants to avoid the enterprise search train wreck.

But can a cloud centric company become the equivalent of the 1950s beacon, the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, just for data wizards? Does the company’s move speak to the needs of Cloudera’s marketing organization or call attention to the abrogation of certification from institutions of higher education? Perhaps Cloudera has concerns about a “hiring gap”? One way to snag candidates is to offer to train them. The best and brightest become data fish in a Big Data barrel.

Stephen E Arnold, April 1, 2014

Comments

One Response to “You Want to Be a Real Data Scientist?”

  1. George Everitt on April 1st, 2014 8:16 am

    My uncle worked for a heavy equipment manufacturer in Milwaukee in HR (or “personnel” as it was then called). While I was growing up, he would always tell me “it is a world of credentials”. I tell the same to young person who bothers to ask my opinion on the matter. Insofar as credentials are a shortcut for hiring managers to prove a certain level of competency, they are perfectly fine and necessary.
    Your grandfather had credentials. My friend’s dad, who emigrated from Cuba in the seventies and walked into a West Palm Beach hospital with a hand-written resume and soon after became an accredited physician at the hospital had credentials.
    Credentials get you in the door, and get you a first interview. After that, it’s up to you and the fullness of your neck beard to determine whether you get hired.

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