Which Career Should You Choose? Data Science vs Artificial Intelligence

A comparison between data science and artificial intelligence

As career options, data science and artificial intelligence are very popular in the technology field. Here is the comparison between the jobs related to data science and artificial intelligence.

Data Scientist vs Artificial Intelligence Engineer

Data scientists extensively use statistical methods, distributed architecture, visualization tools, and diverse data-oriented technologies like Hadoop, Spark, Python, SQL, R to glean insights from data. The information extracted by data scientists is used to guide various business processes, analyze user metrics, predict potential business risks, assess market trends, and make better decisions to reach organizational goals.

On the other hand, an artificial intelligence engineer is responsible for the production of intelligent autonomous models and embedding them into applications. AI engineers use machine learning, deep learning, principles of software engineering, algorithmic computations, neural networks, and NLP to build, maintain, and deploy end-to-end AI solutions. They work in collaboration with business stakeholders to build AI solutions that can help improve operations, service delivery, and product development for business profitability.

According to PayScale, the average data scientist salary is 812, 855 lakhs per annum while the artificial intelligence engineer salary is 1,500, 641 lakhs per annum. Based on the seniority level the salaries can go as high as 30 lakhs per annum for a data scientist and 50 lakhs per annum for an artificial intelligence engineer.

Data Engineer vs Artificial Intelligence Engineer

The primary job of a Data Engineer is to design and engineer a reliable infrastructure for transforming data into such formats as can be used by Data Scientists. Apart from building scalable pipelines to convert semi-structured and unstructured data into usable formats, Data Engineers must also identify meaningful trends in large datasets. Essentially, Data Engineers work to prepare and make raw data more useful for analytical or operational uses. According to Glassdoor, the average Data Engineer salary in India is Rs.8,56,643 LPA.

What makes the job of artificial intelligence engineers is that they produce models that are autonomous as well as intelligent. Deploying AI solutions is their sole responsibility. They should know about distributed computing as AI engineers work with large amounts of data that cannot be stored on a single machine. They require an extensive amount of knowledge in cognitive science to understand human reasoning, language, perception, emotions, and memory. A deeper insight into the human thought process is a must-have skill for AI engineers.

A Mix of Both

There is an extensive train of jobs that combines both data science and artificial intelligence. Jobs like AI data analyst, big data engineer require a combined knowledge of data science as well as artificial intelligence.

The main responsibility of an AI data analyst includes procuring, preparing, cleaning, and modeling data using machine learning models and new analytical methods. Also, the AI data analyst is responsible for Designing and creating data reports to help stakeholders make better decisions. The average range of salary for an AI data analyst is from 2.5 to 7.3 lakh rupees.

Big data engineers are skilled as software developers, and they have to be proficient in coding, an excellent data scientist, and an engineer all at the same time. This is a multi-faceted role, and any big data engineer could find themselves performing a range of tasks on any day of the week. The average salary of a big data engineer ranges from 7 to 12 lakh rupees.