Seeking info: "Big Data" careers

I'm interested in and have been trying to research careers in Data Analytics. I believe this career is focused on analyzing massive amounts of data and turning it into meaningful information for business executives.

My main curiousity is how to get started. Some ideas I've had:
-Get a master's degree? (There seems to be tons of new master's programs popping up for these)
-Learn the statistical analysis languages (SAS, R)?
-Learn Hadoop or some of the major relational databases (Oracle, SQL Server, etc)?
-Go to big data tech events and meetups?

What do you think is best for a newbie to start out doing?

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srabiee

Before getting a masters degree, you need a bachelors degree. Do you currently have a bachelor's degree, and if so, in what?

radarlove

Yes, I do. (B.S. Applied Computer Science - Troy University). None of my coursework was directly relevant to Data Analytics, except for "Introduction to Databases" which only covered the basics of SQL querying using Microsoft Access.

darkerosxx

All of your options minus the masters seem like a good idea. Masters maybe, but not a short-term gain.

Doyen

radarlove wrote: »

Yes, I do. (B.S. Applied Computer Science - Troy University).

Just curious: what is the difference between "Applied Computer Science" and "Computer Science"? I couldn't get any info from Troy's site about it. Is one more technical than the other? Is "Applied Computer Science" a branch of your standard computer science program? I am just getting that confused with an applied science degree...which I also don't know how that is different from your standard science degree

EDIT:

Wikipedia states: "Applied computer science aims at identifying certain computer science concepts that can be used directly in solving real world problems." So I assume that it is more technical for the professional field. I guess it would be similar concept of a professional doctorate DBA, being tailored to actual business practice versus a PHD in Business Administration that focuses more on business theory...right?

philz1982

radarlove wrote: »

I'm interested in and have been trying to research careers in Data Analytics. I believe this career is focused on analyzing massive amounts of data and turning it into meaningful information for business executives.

My main curiousity is how to get started. Some ideas I've had:
-Get a master's degree? (There seems to be tons of new master's programs popping up for these)
-Learn the statistical analysis languages (SAS, R)?
-Learn Hadoop or some of the major relational databases (Oracle, SQL Server, etc)?
-Go to big data tech events and meetups?

What do you think is best for a newbie to start out doing?

Your very last comment. Meetups.

Network, develop code and mine data-sets post this to GitHub or wherever you store your code. Read, and volunteer. You will make connections and get a job within 6 months doing "Big Data" if you follow my above advice.

the_Grinch

Moving into big data a bit myself and as others have said I would hold off on the Masters. There is a ton you can learn without having to delve into a Masters program. Learn the basic of Hadoop and how all the basis work together. Start looking into NoSQL, Elasticsearch, and Python.

NightShade03

Play with some of the free Hadoop All-in-One platforms like Hortonworks or Cloudera to get your feet wet. They both come with some tutorials that you can follow to get a sense of what they can do.

radarlove

Wow, thank you all for the advice so far. I just enrolled in Coursera's Data Science Specialization via John Hopkins University (Link for the interested). It costs money ($470 for the entire specialization), but the course had good reviews and I wanted the ID verified certificate to put on my resume.

Doyen wrote: »

Just curious: what is the difference between "Applied Computer Science" and "Computer Science"?

Wikipedia is correct. In Troy University's case, I think they use "Applied" because they require a 18 semester hour minor (of the student's choosing) alongside the CS major. The idea is the minor field is what you are "applying" the CS to. I only chose the Applied CS degree because at the time I enrolled (2010) they didn't offer the regular CS degree online.

Doyen

radarlove wrote: »

Wikipedia is correct. In Troy University's case, I think they use "Applied" because they require a 18 semester hour minor (of the student's choosing) alongside the CS major. The idea is the minor field is what you are "applying" the CS to. I only chose the Applied CS degree because at the time I enrolled (2010) they didn't offer the regular CS degree online.

Thank you for the clarification.

radarlove

Doyen wrote: »

Thank you for the clarification.

You're welcome. Thanks for the inquisitive posts. I've read your inquiries in past threads about Capitol College and Ph.D programs, and found the detailed questions to be very insightful.

Doyen

I have been noticing a lot of degree programs for MS in Data Science and MS in Data Analytics on my college radar. If you wanted to continue you on with your Computer Science field, USC Viterbi has a Master of Science in Computer Science that has a concentration in Data Science. I meant to mention it earlier, but I got distracted with the applied science thing.

I am also wondering if "Data Science", "Data Analytics", "Data Mining", "Data Informatics", "Big Data", "Data Engineering", "Data Intelligence", and so on are all the same thing/field. Is this field more SQL and program language based rather than networking? I work at a NOC and my concept of "big data" might not be the same. If that is the case, I might as well stick with virtualization certifications.

radarlove wrote: »

You're welcome. Thanks for the inquisitive posts. I've read your inquiries in past threads about Capitol College and Ph.D programs, and found the detailed questions to be very insightful.

I am still deciding between WGU MSISA and Capitol Technology University (formerly Capitol College) MSIA. I may lean on Capitol since the recent reviews of the MSISA on here are not as good as it was in the past. Ultimately, I do plan on Capitol's Doctor of Science in Information Assurance since I know someone personally that are enjoying the program.

the_Grinch

There are two sides to Big Data: Operations and the Science. Operations will deal with setting up the cluster, monitoring it, and performing the needed maintenance that will need to be done. Also, operations may deal in getting the data into Hadoop so that the science side can do their thing. From an operational standpoint you will need knowledge of servers, networking, and security.

We are using Hortonworks and I really like it so far (albeit we haven't deployed our production cluster just yet).

philz1982

I just spent all day sitting with the senior executives of the largest healthcare organization in the US. They are particularly focused on merging different data sets. Being able to understand business outcomes and then work with a lot of different systems in a data consolidation role is key to data mining. They are/were typical of so many of my customers who are still trying to figure out what data they capture and how they capture it.

NightShade03

philz1982 wrote: »

I just spent all day sitting with the senior executives of the largest healthcare organization in the US. They are particularly focused on merging different data sets. Being able to understand business outcomes and then work with a lot of different systems in a data consolidation role is key to data mining. They are/were typical of so many of my customers who are still trying to figure out what data they capture and how they capture it.

I really hope that every other sentence in that meeting contained the word "HIPAA" lol

philz1982

No actually, there were several, we have a small company doing this in Py or we should use proprietary security by obscurity stuff....

UnixGuy

I thought about it, but the real question is:

Does it pay well? I see people with Masters and PhD doing 'Big data' work but their pay rate leaves a lot to be desired.

I run an HPC, and people use it for big data, not sure if I can consider myself a big data admin...

NightShade03

UnixGuy wrote: »

I thought about it, but the real question is:

Does it pay well? I see people with Masters and PhD doing 'Big data' work but their pay rate leaves a lot to be desired.

Really I'm surprised that you say this? I know a lot of people in this field that are making good money. Those with a PhD (assuming you work for a bigger company) pay really well. Now there are always the rare unicorns that work at orgs like Microsoft which pay exceptionally well (over $200k) but those are the exception and not the rule.

I think it really depends on the company and not just the title.

UnixGuy

@NightShade03:

Good point actually, because the ones I met are scientists working for scientific research institutes.

So from your experience you think that Big Data scientists and/or Big Data Ops get paid more than a traditional IT job?

I'm just trying to see if it's worth transitioning to as a strategic career move

NightShade03

UnixGuy wrote: »

@NightShade03:

Good point actually, because the ones I met are scientists working for scientific research institutes.

So from your experience you think that Big Data scientists and/or Big Data Ops get paid more than a traditional IT job?

I'm just trying to see if it's worth transitioning to as a strategic career move

A Data Engineer makes a national average of $95k. In the bigger metro areas it's $150k. That's not a bad living if you ask me, but also take into account that metros have a higher cost of living.

A Data Scientist makes a national average of $118k. Again not bad. The X factor here is that some DS have a PhD while others don't. That X factor can skew the statistics.

I definitely think this is a growing field with good salaries which will only get better in the future. You have to look at the market trends to see how traditional IT will fair. Security, Big Data, SDN, Software Devs are all at the growing end of the salary spectrum.

If you are looking for those huge salaries ($200k+) you will absolutely need a PhD. You will also be competing against those who already had PhDs. This is a big commitment from a time and cost perspective so you'll need to decide what is right for you.

UnixGuy

See that's what I'm trying to say, you can make the same money as a sysadmin/engineer; it's not attractive enough for a system admin to transition to big data because the averages are comparable to what IT professionals make already.

While you can't make 200K as a sysadmin, you can make it in management.

philz1982

Become an Business Outcome focused Solutions Architect and you get to work with big data and bunch of other techs.

NightShade03

I would agree with that. A huge gap I'm currently seeing is the need for "strategy" people. There are so many technical folks and then you have the sales crowd....but those that know the business side + technical side who can go in and develop cohesive strategies for orgs is a rare breed indeed.

Imagine you have a large org that has multiple data centers + a big data cluster that now wants to analyze their current environment and consider moving everything to the cloud. The scale and breadth required for such a project is insane.

UnixGuy

Oh now that would be a great move because I see their wages are significantly higher than the traditional technical roles.

NightShade & philz:

Any tips on how to get that business knowledge/experience? I have years of technical experience, and zero sales experience...

NightShade03

UnixGuy wrote: »

Any tips on how to get that business knowledge/experience? I have years of technical experience, and zero sales experience...

This is a hard question to answer in my opinion. Sales skills (or soft skills) are one of the hardest things to "teach". Some people just have them and others don't. I know a few consultants that I work with who are some of the sharpest technical people I know, but they couldn't pitch or sell a service if their life depended on it. :-/

Here are a few ways I've seen the technical crowd gain the required business/soft skills:

1) Start your own company. Even if it is a small business that goes no where....incorporating, finances, taxes, etc all force the individual to learn the different parts of the business. Nothing like learning what a balance sheet is because you have to understand cash flow and file taxes

This is obviously an extreme approach to learning and will cost money, but it definitely gives a complete picture of all the business skills.

2) Work more closely with someone in your current org in a different department. Ask them how their department/work relates back to what you do. For example, talk with marketing. How do marketing influence the business? Do the events bring in leads? Is there a target revenue that each event is targeting? What percent of the P&L does each marketing event take up? You can google some of the functions of each business department to help in generating some of these questions, but the more information you gather the more you can learn the different aspects of the business. Now the key here is to make sure you work "with" people and don't criticize their work/departments. Maybe approach the marketing example by offering different events that might be more effective for the org as a whole (marketing doesn't always know what the bets technical events are).

3) Read some sales/business books. Again target different parts of the business (sales/pitch/demos, finance, marketing, etc). Reading doesn't work for everyone, but it will at least give some foundation about the different topics.

Most importantly you have to be a people person. Talking and interacting with people at different levels of an organization is critical to being good at any technical sales job. Keys things you'll always look for: cross sell, upsell, buy cycle, budgeted project(s), stakeholders, value prop / value add, and more.

Hope this is helpful....happy to answer any other specific questions you have.

darkerosxx

UnixGuy wrote: »

Oh now that would be a great move because I see their wages are significantly higher than the traditional technical roles.

NightShade & philz:

Any tips on how to get that business knowledge/experience? I have years of technical experience, and zero sales experience...

What I did was start several of my own businesses while I was in college. Granted, these were small businesses, for example my first one was a pet sitting business, but experience with people is experience. My second business in college grossed 100k my second year and I was like WOW lol. So I've always had a side business if I had the time. It helps keep you on your toes and keeps your soft skills challenged, which is important. The strategy side, well small businesses are way different from a business that will pay you 200k+, but the idea is the same, core competencies for the win.

Wanted to note, however, I work in strategy and I do barely any sales at this point, but that's because I hate sales. You don't need to be a salesperson to direct strategy, but selling your ideas is key.

marcog.oliveira

darkerosxx wrote: »

Wanted to note, however, I work in strategy and I do barely any sales at this point, but that's because I hate sales. You don't need to be a salesperson to direct strategy, but selling your ideas is key.

Maybe he said "sales" by mentioning "business"...

I believe NightShade's topics 2 and 3 go straight to the point. Being in touch with people from other departments/businesses is great, even to better understand the application of IT in company's business.

joey74055

I have found these links to be very informative:

Learn Data Science the Hard Way

https://gigaom.com/2012/10/14/why-becoming-a-data-scientist-might-be-easier-than-you-think/

Learning Path - Data Science, Analytics, BI, Big Data

chickenlicken09

is it a rewarding career? career satisfaction etc? anyone already in this area can comment?

UnixGuy

eddo1 wrote: »

is it a rewarding career? career satisfaction etc? anyone already in this area can comment?

mate I think this is a personal thing. Some people would be satisfied doing spreadsheets all day and while some would get satisfaction from other stuff. It's just another IT job, a good one.