A fresher starts career as Data analyst. After gaining few years of experience, he/she becomes a data scientist. After mastering data science, he/she can even become AI engineer. In this article, let’s understand the difference between each role and how one can transform his/her career.
Let's first understand the job of a Data Analyst
Data analyst is responsible to gather raw data from different sources. Then comes data cleansing and preparation which includes removing duplicate data, removing errors, handling missing values, standardizing data. Now since data set is ready, data analyst performs various analysis like exploratory analysis, trend analysis, statistical analysis, visualization etc.
(Do not confuse between data analyst and business analyst. To know how data analyst is different from business analyst, click here Data Analyst Vs Business Analyst.)
Data analyst often deals with existing data collected from various sources. Predictive data modelling is generally not done by data analysis, it’s done by data scientist.
What is the job of a Data Scientist?
Data scientist does deeper analysis on data. He/she has to extract meaningful information from complex dataset and create predictive models and AI solutions. To do this, data scientist needs knowledge of ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) tools like Hadoop and Spark.
Data scientist has to develop algorithms to solve business problem. He/she also needs to test algorithms and data models for accuracy.
Do not confuse data scientist with data engineer. Data engineer is the person who takes care of data infrastructure where as data scientist perform analysis on data. Data engineer is responsible for building and maintaining databases, ensures that data is available for analysis.
What is the job of an AI engineer?
While data scientist is more to do with data analysis and to some extent in model development. AI engineer is responsible for developing entire stack of solution for business. AI engineer develops models, refining models for efficiently. He/she is also responsible for converting models into workable solution for business. AI engineer integrates data model with business softwares using APIs. He/she needs to be have deep understating of model deployment process like MLOps, CI/CD pipeline, Kubernetes etc. AI engineer must have very good understating of software development process.
How a Fresher Can Make Career in AI ?
The starting point for a fresher is data analyst job role. You should enroll in professional course where in you need to learn Python, SQL, Power BI, Statistical analysis etc. It takes around 2 months to learn these tools. You should do multiple projects on data analysis which are freely available on websites like Kaggle etc.
Hands on experience will given you confidence and increase weightage of your CV. Recruiters love to see your GitHub profile.
For detailed course syllabus on data analytics, click on this Data Analyst Course Syllabus.