Getting a Big Data Job Getting a Big Data Job by Jason Williamson Getting a Big Data Job For Dummies® Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com Copyright © 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 7486008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions Trademarks: Wiley, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, Dummies.com, Making Everything Easier, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc and may not be used without written permission John Wiley & Sons, Inc is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002 For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com Library of Congress Control Number: 2014935518 ISBN 978-1-118-90340-7 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-90383-4 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-90384-1 (ebk) Manufactured in the United States of America 10 Contents at a Glance Introduction Part I: Getting a Job in Big Data Chapter 1: The Big Picture of Big Data Jobs Chapter 2: Seeing Yourself in a Big Data Job 17 Chapter 3: Key Big Data Concepts 29 Part II: Getting Your Big Data Education 47 Chapter 4: Roles in Big Data Revealed 49 Chapter 5: Foundations of a Big Data Education 63 Chapter 6: Making Your Own Way (For the Experienced Professional) 73 Chapter 7: Knowing Your Big Data Tools 85 Part III: Finding a Job with the Right Organization 101 Chapter 8: Life as a Consultant 103 Chapter 9: Working as an In-House Big Data Specialist 115 Chapter 10: Living on the Edge with a Startup 123 Chapter 11: Serving in the Public Sector or Academia 131 Part IV: Developing a Job-Landing Strategy 139 Chapter 12: Building Your Network and Brand 141 Chapter 13: Creating a Winning Résumé 151 Chapter 14: Preparing to Nail Your Interview 163 Part V: The Part of Tens 183 Chapter 15: Ten Ways to Maximize Social Media in Your Job Hunt 185 Chapter 16: Ten Interview Questions and Answers You Need to Know 191 Chapter 17: Ten Free Data Science Tools and Applications 197 Part VI: Appendixes 211 Appendix A: Resources 213 Appendix B: Glossary 219 Index 229 Table of Contents Introduction About This Book Foolish Assumptions Icons Used in This Book Beyond the Book Where to Go from Here Part I: Getting a Job in Big Data Chapter 1: The Big Picture of Big Data Jobs How We Got Here and Where We’re Headed Why companies care about big data The future of big data jobs 10 Exploring Big Data Career Paths 10 Not everyone is a data scientist 10 Requirements of big data professionals 11 Looking at Organizations That Hire Big Data Professionals 12 Public sector and academia 13 Commercial organizations 13 Corporate information technology 14 Marketing departments and business units 14 Big data firms 15 Consulting companies 15 Chapter 2: Seeing Yourself in a Big Data Job 17 Planning Your Journey into a New Frontier 17 Finding a Future Career in Big Data 18 The growth of big data jobs 18 Predictions for the next several years 19 Sizing Up Your Skills 21 Evaluating your aptitude for big data 21 Doing a self-assessment plan 22 Finding your gaps 25 Charting Your Path 25 When to fill the gaps with education 25 Filling gaps with experience 26 Planning your milestones and timeline 27 Measuring your results 28 viii Getting a Big Data Job For Dummies Chapter 3: Key Big Data Concepts 29 The Four V’s of Big Data 29 Volume 29 Variety 30 Veracity 30 Velocity 30 Value 31 Building a Big Data Platform 32 Looking into Big Data Use Cases 32 Big data in risk and compliance 33 Big data in financial services 36 Big data in healthcare 37 Big data in government 39 Big data in retail 43 Part II: Getting Your Big Data Education 47 Chapter 4: Roles in Big Data Revealed 49 Big Data Jobs for Business Analysts 49 Assessing your interest 50 Looking at a job posting 51 Big Data Jobs for Data Scientists 54 Assessing your interest 54 Looking at a job posting 55 Big Data Jobs for Software Developers 58 Assessing your interest 59 Looking at sample job postings 60 Chapter 5: Foundations of a Big Data Education 63 What’s Your Major? Undergraduate Majors That Fill Big Data Jobs 64 Math and statistics 64 Computer science and engineering 65 Business 66 Continuing Education and Graduate School 67 Programs in analytics 68 PhD programs for big data 71 Chapter 6: Making Your Own Way (For the Experienced Professional) 73 Learning on Your Own Time 74 Hitting the books 74 Online tutorials 75 240 Getting a Big Data Job For Dummies About the Author Jason Williamson is an assistant professor at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce His interests include project management, cloud computing, data integration, and analysis He also served his country in the United States Marine Corps He holds an MS in Management of IT from the University of Virginia and a BS in Information Systems from Virginia Commonwealth University His favorite job is husband to his wife and father to four children Jason has worked with the world’s leading Fortune 1000 firms, including Oracle, General Electric, and Capital One In addition to working in the corporate world, Jason was the founder and CTO for the construction industry’s first SaaS/CRM offering He led BuildLinks from a concept to a multi-million-dollar company and forged key financial and business partnerships with Sprint/Nextel and Intuit, helping to create innovative products His creative thinking and vision opened the door for him to establish a nonprofit NGO dedicated to entrepreneurial and technology education in developing nations, which enabled the establishment of multiple self-sustaining companies in Latin America Dedication I want to dedicate this work to my loving wife, Susan She is truly a modern Proverbs 31 woman Her leadership, faithfulness, hard work, and love are examples for me and all who know her Author’s Acknowledgments Thanks to all the amazing people at Wiley who worked with me to get this done — Andy Cummings, Amy Fandrei, Mark Enochs, and Connie Santisteban Thanks to my agent, Matt Wagner, for opening the doors and making things happen Thanks to Amit Okhandiar, president of mLogica, for providing research and content for some of the case studies Also, thanks to Daniel Johnson and Sean Curry for some collaboration during our days at Virginia Publisher’s Acknowledgments Acquisitions Editor: Amy Fandrei Project Coordinator: Sheree Montgomery Project Editor: Elizabeth Kuball Contributors: Mike Wessler, Stephanie Diamond, Lillian Pierson Copy Editor: Elizabeth Kuball Technical Editor: Tom Laszewski Editorial Assistant: Claire Johnson Sr Editorial Assistant: Cherie Case Cover Image: © iStock.com/Oko_SwanOmurphy WILEY END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT Go to www.wiley.com/go/eula to access Wiley’s ebook EULA ... neatly in a relational database (a database where the information is arranged in columns so that they can be compared) But big data also includes unstructured data (data that doesn’t have a predefined... Dave Smith, who taught a course on relational databases and database design After UVa, I was fortunate to get a job as a consultant with American Management Systems (AMS), an early leader in data. .. both demand and function for big data professionals Why companies care about big data Companies care about big data because the promise of big data is transformational The potential savings, new