Published October 21, 2026 Interested in becoming a data scientist? There’s no single pathway to the career, but many professionals share a strong theoretical foundation and mastery of technical skills. Here is what it takes to build the skills and credentials that turn that curiosity into a career as a data scientist. Key takeaways What does a data scientist do? A data scientist is a technical professional who collects, cleans, and analyzes complex data to build predictive machine learning models and solve business problems. In practice, this role bridges engineering and business through three primary functions: The number of “hats” […]