Data Science Minimum: 10 Essential

Skills You Need to Know to Start Doing

Data Science
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Tags: Algorithms, Communication, Data Preprocessing,

Data Science, Data Science Skills, Data Visualization,
Ethics, Mathematics, Python, R

Data science is ever-evolving, so mastering its

foundational technical and soft skills will help you be
successful in a career as a Data Scientist, as well as
pursue advance concepts, such as deep learning and
artificial intelligence.

By Benjamin Obi Tayo, Ph.D., DataScienceHub.

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Data Science is such a broad field that includes several

subdivisions like data preparation and exploration, data
representation and transformation, data visualization and
presentation, predictive analytics, and machine learning,
etc. For beginners, it’s only natural to raise the following
question: What skills do I need to become a data
scientist?
This article will discuss 10 essential skills that are
necessary for practicing data scientists. These skills could
be grouped into 2 categories, namely, technological
skills (Math & Statistics, Coding Skills, Data Wrangling &
Preprocessing Skills, Data Visualization Skills, Machine
Learning Skills, and Real World Project Skills) and soft
skills (Communication Skills, Lifelong Learning Skills,
Team Player Skills, and Ethical Skills).
Data science is a field that is ever-evolving, however
mastering the foundations of data science will provide you
with the necessary background that you need to pursue
advanced concepts such as deep learning, artificial
intelligence, etc. This article will discuss 10 essential skills
for practicing data scientists.

1. Mathematics and Statistics Skills

(i) Statistics and Probability

Statistics and Probability is used for visualization of
features, data preprocessing, feature transformation, data
imputation, dimensionality reduction, feature engineering,
model evaluation, etc. Here are the topics you need to be
familiar with:
a) Mean
b) Median
c) Mode
d) Standard deviation/variance
e) Correlation coefficient and the covariance matrix
f) Probability distributions (Binomial, Poisson, Normal)
g) p-value
h) MSE (mean square error)
i) R2 Score
j) Baye’s Theorem (Precision, Recall, Positive Predictive
Value, Negative Predictive Value, Confusion Matrix, ROC
Curve)
k) A/B Testing
l) Monte Carlo Simulation
(ii) Multivariable Calculus
Most machine learning models are built with a data set
having several features or predictors. Hence, familiarity
with multivariable calculus is extremely important for
building a machine learning model. Here are the topics
you need to be familiar with:
a) Functions of several variables
b) Derivatives and gradients
c) Step function, Sigmoid function, Logit function, ReLU
(Rectified Linear Unit) function
d) Cost function
e) Plotting of functions
f) Minimum and Maximum values of a function
(iii) Linear Algebra
Linear algebra is the most important math skill in machine
learning. A data set is represented as a matrix. Linear
algebra is used in data preprocessing, data
transformation, and model evaluation. Here are the topics
you need to be familiar with:
a) Vectors
b) Matrices
c) Transpose of a matrix
d) The inverse of a matrix
e) The determinant of a matrix
f) Dot product
g) Eigenvalues
h) Eigenvectors
(iv) Optimization Methods
Most machine learning algorithms perform predictive
modeling by minimizing an objective function, thereby
learning the weights that must be applied to the testing
data in order to obtain the predicted labels. Here are the
topics you need to be familiar with:
a) Cost function/Objective function
b) Likelihood function
c) Error function
d) Gradient Descent Algorithm and its variants (e.g.,
Stochastic Gradient Descent Algorithm)
Find out more about the gradient descent algorithm
here: Machine Learning: How the Gradient Descent
Algorithm Works.

2. Essential Programming Skills

Programming skills are essential in data science. Since

Python and R are considered the two most popular
programming languages in data science, essential
knowledge in both languages are crucial. Some
organizations may only require skills in either R or Python,
not both.
(i) Skills in Python
Be familiar with basic programming skills in python. Here
are the most important packages that you should master
how to use:
a) Numpy
b) Pandas
c) Matplotlib
d) Seaborn
e) Scikit-learn
f) PyTorch
(ii) Skills in R
a) Tidyverse
b) Dplyr
c) Ggplot2
d) Caret
e) Stringr
(iii) Skills in Other Programming Languages
Skills in the following programming languages may be
required by some organizations or industries:
a) Excel
b) Tableau
c) Hadoop
d) SQL
e) Spark

3. Data Wrangling and Preprocessing Skills

Data is key for any analysis in data science, be it

inferential analysis, predictive analysis, or prescriptive
analysis. The predictive power of a model depends on the
quality of the data that was used in building the model.
Data comes in different forms, such as text, table, image,
voice, or video. Most often, data that is used for analysis
has to be mined, processed, and transformed to render it
to a form suitable for further analysis.
i) Data Wrangling: The process of data wrangling is a
critical step for any data scientist. Very rarely is data easily
accessible in a data science project for analysis. It’s more
likely for the data to be in a file, a database, or extracted
from documents such as web pages, tweets, or PDFs.
Knowing how to wrangle and clean data will enable you to
derive critical insights from your data that would otherwise
be hidden.
ii) Data Preprocessing: Knowledge about data
preprocessing is very important and include topics such
as:
a) Dealing with missing data
b) Data imputation
c) Handling categorical data
d) Encoding class labels for classification problems
e) Techniques of feature transformation and
dimensionality reduction, such as Principal Component
Analysis (PCA) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA).

4. Data Visualization Skills

Understand the essential components of good data
visualization.
a) Data Component: An important first step in deciding
how to visualize data is to know what type of data it is,
e.g., categorical data, discrete data, continuous data, time
series data, etc.
b) Geometric Component: Here is where you decide what
kind of visualization is suitable for your data, e.g., scatter
plot, line graphs, bar plots, histograms, qqplots, smooth
densities, boxplots, pair plots, heatmaps, etc.
c) Mapping Component: Here you need to decide what
variable to use as your x-variable and what to use as your
y-variable. This is important, especially when your dataset
is multi-dimensional with several features.
d) Scale Component: Here you decide what kind of scales
to use, e.g., linear scale, log scale, etc.
e) Labels Component: This includes things like axes
labels, titles, legends, font size to use, etc.
f) Ethical Component: Here, you want to make sure your
visualization tells the true story. You need to be aware of
your actions when cleaning, summarizing, manipulating,
and producing a data visualization and ensure you aren’t
using your visualization to mislead or manipulate your
audience.

5. Basic Machine Learning Skills

Machine Learning is a very important branch of data

science. It is important to understand the machine learning
framework: Problem Framing, Data Analysis, Model
Building, Testing & Evaluation, and Model Application.
Find out more about the machine learning framework from
here: The Machine Learning Process.
The following are important machine learning algorithms
to be familiar with.
i) Supervised Learning (Continuous Variable Prediction)
a) Basic regression
b) Multiregression analysis
c) Regularized regression
ii) Supervised Learning (Discrete Variable Prediction)
a) Logistic Regression Classifier
b) Support Vector Machine Classifier
c) K-nearest neighbor (KNN) Classifier
d) Decision Tree Classifier
e) Random Forest Classifier
iii) Unsupervised Learning
a) KMeans clustering algorithm

6. Skills from Real World Capstone Data Science

Projects

Skills acquired from course work alone will not make you a
data scientist. A qualified data scientist must be able to
demonstrate evidence of successful completion of a real-
world data science project that includes every stage in
data science and machine learning process such as
problem framing, data acquisition and analysis, model
building, model testing, model evaluation, and deploying
models. Real-world data science projects could be found
in the following:
a) Kaggle Projects
b) Internships
c) From Interviews

7. Communication Skills

Data scientists need to be able to communicate their ideas

with other members of the team or with business
administrators in their organizations. Good communication
skills would play a key role here to be able to convey and
present very technical information to people with little or
no understanding of technical concepts in data science.
Good communication skills will help foster an atmosphere
of unity and togetherness with other team members such
as data analysts, data engineers, field engineers, etc.

8. Be a Lifelong Learner

Data science is a field that is ever-evolving, so be

prepared to embrace and learn new technologies. One
way to keep in touch with developments in the field is to
network with other data scientists. Some platforms that
promote networking are LinkedIn, GitHub, and Medium
(Towards Data Science and Towards AI publications). The
platforms are very useful for up-to-date information about
recent developments in the field.

9. Team Player Skills

As a data scientist, you will be working in a team of data

analysts, engineers, administrators, so you need good
communication skills. You need to be a good listener, too,
especially during early project development phases where
you need to rely on engineers or other personnel to be
able to design and frame a good data science project.
Being a good team player will help you to thrive in a
business environment and maintain good relationships
with other members of your team as well as administrators
or directors of your organization.

10. Ethical Skills in Data Science

Understand the implication of your project. Be truthful to

yourself. Avoid manipulating data or using a method that
will intentionally produce bias in results. Be ethical in all
phases, from data collection and analysis to model
building, analysis, testing, and application. Avoid
fabricating results for the purpose of misleading or
manipulating your audience. Be ethical in the way you
interpret the findings from your data science project.
In summary, we’ve discussed 10 essential skills needed
for practicing data scientists. Data science is a field that is
ever-evolving, however mastering the foundations of data
science will provide you with the necessary background
that you need to pursue advance concepts such as deep
learning, artificial intelligence, etc.