So, employers, how is your company planning to build its data engineering and data science capability? Planning on finding a data science unicorn to do it all? Good luck with that. What about the possibility of taking people already in your organization, people that know your business, people that you know fit into your culture, and invest in their future.

One well known local enterprise IT organization is funding the tuition for three of their employees to attend the first Data Science class starting in October. We’re seeing strong interest from other local companies in sending current software engineers, data analysts, BI developers and others working in and around data and analytics functions to our Data Science Bootcamp.

It only makes sense that they would do so. The classic diagram used to describe the skills needed for a successful data scientist has three skill/knowledge domains - math/stats/modeling, software/data engineering, and specific business domain knowledge. Your current staff already has the industry and company domain knowledge - so one of the three critical knowledge domains is already filled in. A current employee working in data analytics, data engineering or software development has portions of the other two domains already partially filled in. So current staff are already well prepared to take the step up to data science.

So - what is a lower risk: upskilling one of your current team into a full data scientist or big data engineer or hiring someone you don’t know and who doesn’t know your company? And who is going to most appreciate an investment in their future? Who will be able to give you the benefit of their increasing knowledge even as they progress through the bootcamp? If you suspect we’re suggesting their are real benefits to you developing some of your existing talent, you’re right.

PAYING THE COST TO BE THE BOSS - B.B. KING

So employers, if you’re interested in learning more about our Data Science program, we have an information session on Wednesday, 13 September starting at 5:30pm. We’ll review our curriculum and answer your questions about why sending one of your team to an intensive bootcamp program might give you an advantage over hiring from outside your organization.

Or, prospective students, if you’d like to prepare your arguments as to why your employer should invest in your tuition and your career, please join us at our information session and learn more about careers in data science and data engineering.