Right now companies are inundated with massive sets of real time information.  Petabyte size data comes via Twitter feeds, computer log files, geo-local information, and more.  However, few corporations know how to make actionable business decisions with this type of “Big Data.” A recent Mashable article claimed that only a third of companies in their study had the capacity to turn raw data into anything useful.

This is where a Data Scientist can help.  A Data Scientist is an emerging role that corporations are finding highly valuable to help analyze their information.  Mashable called it the “Career of the Future”

GigaOm wrote about a spike in demand for Data Scientists because “Petabytes of data are useless if no one can make sense of it.”  In fact, after talking to multiple recruiting firms they found that technical engineers can make a 25% salary increase for understanding hadoop architecture and big data analytics.

What Makes a Data Scientist Special?

Many say it’s their ability to create a perfect blend of math and art (in terms of data visualization).

In an interview with Forbes last fall, Monica Rogati, Senior Data Scientist at Linkedin said, “By definition all scientists are data scientists. In my opinion, they are half hacker, half analyst, they use data to build products and find insights. It’s Columbus meet Columbo – starry eyed explorers and skeptical detectives.”

These detective/ explorers will continue to be highly sought after as our big data explosion continues.  Big data analytics companies will also emerge attempting to  support (or replace) the role through their software platform.  After all, it’s not the size of the data, it’s what you do with it.

Come to our Under the Radar Conference to meet emerging big data analytics companies as well as LivePerson’s own Data Scientist, Vitaly Gordon.