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Month: September 2017

The Difference between Software Development and Data Science

I am fortunate enough to get regular messages from recruiters on LinkedIn asking to speak with me about software development jobs.  Here’s the thing… I’m not a software developer, I do data science and data analytics.  For the last seven years, my job title has included the words “data” and “scientist” in the title.  I have never held a position with the words “Software” and “Developer” in the title.  I have taught and am currently teaching classes with titles such as “Data Science for Security Professionals” and “Applied Data Science for Security”.   All of this is on my LinkedIn profile, yet despite this, the messages continue.

On some level, it makes sense.  If you look at my resume, you’d see that I have a degree in computer science, experience with various coding languages, and projects on github.  Hell, I’m a committer for Apache Drill…

So what’s the difference between a data scientist and software developer?

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