Comparisons 

Data Analyst

Data Scientist

Definition

• Deals with exploratory analysis, identification of trends and patterns, and the creation of visualizations that interpret data so that business leaders can make data-driven strategic decisions.

• Deals with the design, construction, and implementation of data modeling using algorithms and predictive models.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Captures insights to solve problems such as sales forecasting in a given region, the effect of marketing campaigns on revenue, and more.

• Asks questions about defining and improving the quality of data by using data analysis algorithms (machine learning) to understand the information gathered.

• Solves the text/image classification and product recommendation problems by using deep learning or natural language processing algorithms (NLP).

Skills Required

• Tackles responsibilities such as DB administration and maintenance along with reporting and statistical tools. Specialization tools may include but are not restricted to R, SAS, SQL, and SPSS.

• Must have skills in data design/modeling, coding, problem-solving with software development using Python, Java, and Big Data.

• Should also possess some development skills and use deep learning frameworks, such as TensorFlow, Caffe, Torch, and Keras.

Expectations

• Analyzes data to answer questions, data mining, and uses statistical tools to identify trends and patterns for descriptive, predictive, diagnostic, and prescriptive analytics.

• The analyst in most cases is not involved in data extraction, but they use them to create insights for an organization to formulate its strategy to reach its objectives.

• Focuses on developing, cleaning, and organizing datasets by asking the right questions about the sources of data, and establishing a pipeline for data acquisition.

• Leverage algorithms (machine learning) and statistical models to gather and shape accumulated data that can be easily understood. 

• Followed by the repeated deployment of experiments, fine-tuning them, and measurement metrics to achieve better results.