With your superior integrity in managing projects and nuanced approaches in leading a productive team of data scientists, you are ready to take on greater responsibilities. You can lead a DS function with a team of teams, manage managers, and solve challenges you are not there to witness directly. You can also be on the individual contributor track as a principal data scientist, influencing partners of broader scopes and leading efforts of greater complexity.
Leading at the DS function level requires a different set of skills than leading projects or teams of individuals. You are responsible for producing more significant impact over a longer horizon of time, often across multiple quarters. What differentiates this role is the clarity in focus and prioritization required for projects with longer time horizons.
The clarity in focus and prioritization comes from a deep understanding of your company’s business model. You can leverage this understanding to craft roadmaps to accomplish strategic business objectives, while avoiding management and technology pitfalls.
An effective roadmap deconstructs an ultimate goal into a step-by-step strategy for your team leaders to execute. The execution of these roadmaps requires an acute sense of emerging issues in the organization, both technical and people related. Only when the milestones are completed successfully can the ultimate business objectives be accomplished.