Data Scientist
Seattle, WA
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Data science emerged as a distinct job title in the mid-2000s, popularized significantly by a widely cited 2012 Harvard Business Review article that called it "the sexiest job of the 21st century," reflecting rapidly growing corporate demand for professionals who could extract actionable insight from increasingly large datasets. The role combines statistics, programming, and domain-specific business knowledge in a way that distinguished it from more narrowly technical predecessor roles like database administrator or business analyst, requiring a genuinely interdisciplinary skill set. The rapid growth of machine learning and later generative AI throughout the 2010s and 2020s significantly expanded the scope and demand for data science roles, as companies across virtually every industry sought to apply predictive modeling to their own specific business problems. Data science's combination of its rapid rise from a barely-recognized job title to a mainstream, highly compensated career and its central role in the broader AI and machine learning boom has made it one of the most dynamic careers in modern technology.
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