Job Role: Data Analyst
The job role of a data analyst in today’s tech market is broadly defined.
In general, experts talk about data analysts as people who collect data and use that data to provide insights. They are “translators” of raw numbers and data points into digestible information that helps to direct companies and move markets.
Let’s look at some of the major factors in what the data analyst does. One factor is the data environment – data analysts who are only working with Hadoop clusters are going to work differently than data analysts who are using high-powered artificial intelligence and machine learning platforms. Data analysts who are using a relational database will use SQL queries to route information. Others will use other types of analysis tools including fancy ERP software that takes business data assets and puts them where they need to be.
As far as core skill sets, data analysts need to be good with numbers. They need good verbal and written communication skills and critical thinking skills. They need mathematical expertise and acumen. (Think all analytics jobs are being automated? Think again: No, Data Analytics Bots Aren’t Going to Steal Your Job Anytime Soon.)
A piece by Ashley Brooks at Rasmussen College goes into the typical day in the life of a data analyst. You have reporting, which also varies according to the technology tools that you’re using. Brooks also talks about “spotting” patterns in data – another take on this refining of raw or unfiltered data into more useful formats and receptacles.
As Brooks points out, there’s also an infrastructure element here – data analysts may be deeply involved in using middleware to port data into and out of central data warehouse environments. In addition to SQL, data analysts may use Microsoft Excel, Google Analytics, Tableau or other tools.
When you really look at what a data analyst’s job is like, especially now in the new artificial intelligence age, it’s really a very diverse landscape, and that requires a range of skills.
“A data analyst is constantly learning every single day,” says Johnny Hilgers, EVP, business analytics at Spring Venture Group. “Optimizing data into actionable information to meet business objectives is an art and a science. To build a reliable and accurate model, hundreds of questions must be answered before anything is put into production.”
Some of those questions, Hilgers says, involve considering what algorithm or combination of algorithms is right for a task, what attributes will be the most helpful for feature selection, what attributes can provide the most lift in terms of feature engineering, what attributes should be left out, and what evaluation metrics the project is optimizing for.
Dr. Sonja Jones, in describing the data analyst role, points out how specifics differ. Jones is senior sales engineer at Bay Dynamics and cyber analytics and college professor for Carnegie Mellon University.
“A data analyst collects data for all divisions of a company,” Jones says. “Some areas … are sales, market research, logistics, supply chain, transportation, human resources, information technology and cybersecurity, to name a few. The data analyst’s job is then to take the data, interpret it, understand it and help companies make better business decisions based on the results. This can fall into many areas such as business intelligence, big data, data warehousing, analysis, data mining, predictive analysis, etc. … analytics is used for many use cases across various vertical markets such as finance, healthcare, retail, telecommunications, manufacturing, entertainment … data analysts have to have very strong business and technical skills as well as very good communications skills.”
Again and again, we keep coming back to the idea that a data analyst is fundamentally responsible for taking data and making it digestible, for translating data assets into insights.
