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Data professionals are so valuable to their companies.

They determine which data streams are most important to specific business projects,

challenges and initiatives.

They identify key goals for the future and they give their organizations the ability

to take meaningful action by reimagining processes and improving operations.

To do all of this data teams require individuals with diverse skills,

knowledge and interests.

Therefore there are countless different data focused roles, responsibilities and

project types which are further differentiated by the industries and

businesses they support.

Among all of these possibilities,

data careers can be loosely categorized into two complementary types of work:

technical and strategic. In this video we will investigate both.

First let's find out about the folks whose work requires a heavy emphasis on

technical skills.

Some examples of these professionals are machine learning engineers and

statisticians.

These people provide high effort solutions to specific problems.

Through their expertise in mathematics, statistics and computing,

they build models and make predictions. Using tools such as R and python,

they help their teams extract value from business data sets.

The result is a solution that has a direct positive impact.

Another highly technical role is the expert data analyst whose work involves

exploring vast and complex datasets to identify directions worth pursuing in the first place.

They ensure that an organization's data science efforts

are directed as efficiently as possible, bridging the gap between other technical

data professionals and the strategic work we'll cover shortly.

Like most technical data professionals, you'll learn how to acquire scale,

organize structure and manipulate data so

that it's packaged in a way that others can work with.

In other words,

you'll know how to transform raw data into something useful for decision making.

Okay, now let's consider data professionals

on the more strategic side. These people include business intelligence

professionals and technical project managers to name a couple.

Strategic data professionals use their skills to interpret information that

affects an organization's operations, finance research and development and so

much more.

Their work aligns closely to the overall business strategy and

involves seeking solutions to problems through data analytics.

In short,

strategic data professionals maximize information to guide how a business works.

Sometimes you'll find a company has roles that blend specialist technical

knowledge with strategic data expertise, often in unusual and very creative ways.

Soon we'll learn more about some of these opportunities as well as the more

specialized technical and strategic roles.

And of course we'll discover some proven ways to tap into them as a data

professional.

Lots more to come.