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Principal Data Scientist (PDS)/data-science-certifications/principal-data-scientist

PDS™ – The Ultimate Data Science Qualification

The PDS™ by the Data Science Council of America (DASCA) is only for Data Scientists who are truly accomplished and the renowned. Data Science has rapidly earned quite a reputation of having the best jobs of the 21st century for professionals hailing from a wide range of academic and work backgrounds, and PDS™ is a celebration of your having arrived in your career. As the world's most credible 3rd–party, vendor-neutral credential for eminent Big Data Architects and Data Scientists, the PDS™ is the ultimate stamp of professional class and leadership for them - most powerful validation and proof of their acumen, potential, and promise for giving Data Science and Big Data deployment a new direction.

Earning the PDS™

PDS™ is one big snob of a qualification to hanker for, if you're a gray head with 10+ years or more of accomplished experience in leading Big Data revolutions in large, complex environments, and a Graduate/ Master's degree in Business/ Technology/ Mathematics or any of the allied disciplines to boot. You'll be scanned for your contributions to pushing frontiers of Data Science led information management in the organizations you may have worked for, and the leaps of faith, profitability, and market share you've left behind as a legacy.

Like you can read in the Candidacy Tracks section, acceptance in PDS™ is stringently gated. Making an application doesn't at all imply selection or acceptance in PDS™. It's more manageable, however, if you are an alumnus of a DASCA-recognized university or institution, or you happen to work in a company that is a DASCA Corporate partner, or you hold the Senior Data Scientist (SDS™) credential of DASCA. In these cases, your odds of being accepted zoom into the zone of high certainty.Also, if you are already SDS™ certified (Track 3), you ride over the PDS™ Level I exams, and scamper up direct to the final PDS Level II assessment, in which you are required to make some writing submissions.

If, on the other hand, you apply via the open route (Track 4), your application first runs past an acceptance-check, and if you are finally selected, you study up and qualify the PDS™ Level I online exam to eventually reach the final PDS™ Level II stage.

It does look a little challenging earning the PDS™. But that's why the credential is what it is: a celebration of your arrival on the global Data Science firmament.


Click here to pre-register for PDS™

PRE-REGISTER NOW FOR THE ALL NEW PDS™

THIS PDS™ VERSION IS MARKED TO THE UPDATED DASCA-DSBoK™ VER 11-4.4.

Pre- Register Now !

Pre-registered applicants will receive a final payment link once registrations open. Please also anticipate a little delay in our responses owing to a sudden surge in the number of pre- registration applications. Our apologies in advance for the inconvenience please.

TRACK 1 – PDS™ CERTIFICATION PROGRAM FEE

$ 850 USD

TRACK 2 – PDS™ CERTIFICATION PROGRAM FEE

$ 850 USD

TRACK 3 – PDS™ CERTIFICATION PROGRAM FEE

(For eligible applicants certified on DASCA-DSBoK™ Versions 11-4.4 or earlier) $ 300 USD

TRACK 4 – PDS™ CERTIFICATION PROGRAM FEE

$ 950 USD

This is a one-time fee, covering the PDS™ standard exam preparation resources (the DASCA study kit, Preparation Resources); shipping, Online refresher program, digital badging, and credential-kit. This fee may change without notice, and does not include the Training Fee charged by training companies or universities or institutions who offer exam-preparation training for DASCA certification exams. DASCA is a standards and credentialing body and has no role to play in training delivery, and neither controls, nor is concerned with any aspect of training/ education. DASCA does not govern or mandate or control the training fee/ program fee charged for any DASCA certification program by any training company or education provider.

Check Your Readiness for PDS™

The knowledge requirements and rigor of the PDS™ necessitate that individuals intending to undergo the program have a prior, strong formal exposure and knowledge of the basic concepts in Statistics, and are hand–on with the tools and techniques of handling problems of calculating central tendencies; dispersions and averages; permutations and combinations; probability; creating graphs, charts, histograms, and scatter plots. Indeed, PDS™ aspirants should be also necessarily comfortable with handling databases and spreadsheets. Advanced knowledge of Statistical Analysis techniques and tools; exposure to analytics platforms like SPSS/ SAS; basic exposure to R; quantitative methods; fundamentals of object oriented programming and RDBMS; good exposure to working on popular/ common Big Data programming and analytics platforms etc.

Click here to pre-register for PDS™

What Exams Do You Need to Qualify for PDS™

Earning the PDS™ takes crossing two levels of assessments –PDS™ Level I and PDS™ Level II. The Level I is an online/ computer-based test; while Level II is made up of written work and submissions. Except for applicants under Track 3, all other have to qualify both the levels of PDS™ assessments to obtain the certification. Track 3, applicants, who already hold an active SDS™ credential, however, move direct to Level II assessments. Applicants of Tracks 1, 2 and 4 are provided with the full Official DASCA Certification Preparation kit to help them study and prepare for their PDS™ Level I certification exam. This kit is provided to at no extra costs after DASCA has approved their candidacy for PDS™, and their payment of the program registration fee is through.

The Candidacy Tracks

Ways to Become a PDS™

The DASCA PDS™ credential is exclusive to only the most accomplished of the world’s foremost Data Scientists, and is awarded after a rigorous evaluation, vetting and assessment of applicants from around the world. Currently, these are the three PDS™ tracks for seasoned and high-achiever Data Science thought- and practice leaders covering diverse work and educational backgrounds:

  • Educational Requirements

    Applicants should have completed Master's Degree from a DASCA-recognized institution in Data Sciences/ Machine Learning/ Artificial Intelligence/ Time Series/ Predictive Analytics/ Prescriptive Analytics/ Information Technology/ Computer Science/ Mathematics/ Statistics/ Engineering/ Applied Sciences/ Economics/ Finance/ Management/ Data Visualization/ Data Mining/ Data Warehousing/ Enterprise Data Management/ Business Process Modeling/ Descriptive statistics/ Inferential Statistics or related disciplines.

    Professional Requirements

    Applicants should have worked for minimum 10 years in technology space with at least 3 years in Big Data Architecting/ Data Engineering/ Data Analytics/ Data Products development/ Business Analytics Application Development/ Business Intelligence Solution Design/ Data Science applications in AI or IoT. The work requirements for Ph.D or Doctoral qualification is 8 years on the aggregate and at least 2 years in Data Science or linked spaces.

  • Educational Requirements

    Applicants should have completed Master’s Degree in Mathematics/ Statistics/ Engineering/ Applied Sciences/ Information Technology/ Computer Science/ Economics/ Finance/ Management/ Data Sciences/ Machine Learning/ Artificial Intelligence/ Time Series/ Predictive Analytics/ Prescriptive Analytics/ Data Visualization/ Data Mining/ Data Warehousing/ Enterprise Data Management/ Business Process Modeling/ Descriptive statistics/ Inferential Statistics or related disciplines.

    Professional Requirements

    Applicants should have a minimum 10 years of aggregate experience in technology space with at least 3 years in Data Engineering/ Big Data Architecting/ Data Analytics/ Data Products development/ Business Analytics Application Development/ Business Intelligence Solution Design/ Data Science applications in AI or IoT. The work requirements for Ph.D or Doctoral qualification is 8 years on the aggregate and at least 2 years in Data Science or linked spaces.

  • Educational Requirements

    Track 3 applicants should hold an active SDS™ credential at the time of applying, and have completed a Master's Degree in Information Technology/ Computer Science/ Mathematics/ Statistics/ Engineering/ Applied Sciences/ Economics/ Finance/ Management/ Data Sciences/ Machine Learning/ Artificial Intelligence/ Predictive Analytics/ Prescriptive Analytics/ Data Visualization/ Data Warehousing/ Enterprise Data Management/ Business Process Modeling or related disciplines

    Professional Requirements

    Applicants need to have worked minimum for 10 years in the technology space with at least 5 years in Data Engineering/ Data Analytics/ Data Products development/ Big Data Architecting/ Business Analytics Application Development/ Business Intelligence Solution Design/ Data Science applications in AI or IoT. The work requirements for Ph.D or Doctoral qualification is 8 years on the aggregate and at least 2 years in Data Science or linked spaces.

  • Educational Requirements

    Track 4 applicants should have completed a Master's Degree in Information Technology/ Computer Science/ Mathematics/ Statistics/ Engineering/ Applied Sciences/ Economics/ Finance/ Management/ Data Sciences/ Machine Learning/ Artificial Intelligence/ Time Series/ Predictive Analytics/ Prescriptive Analytics/ Data Visualization/ Data Mining/ Data Warehousing/ Enterprise Data Management/ Business Process Modeling/ Descriptive statistics/ Inferential Statistics or related disciplines

    Professional Requirements

    Applicants need to have worked minimum for 12 years in the technology space with at least 5 years in Data Engineering/ Data Analytics/ Data Products development/ Big Data Architecting/ Business Analytics Application Development/ Business Intelligence Solution Design/ Data Science applications in AI or IoT. The work requirements for Ph.D or Doctoral qualification is 10 years on the aggregate and at least 3 years in Data Science or linked spaces.

Digital Badge

The Digitally Badged PDS™

PDS™ Credential amplifies your odds to grow in higher, more complex roles and job-profiles in the Big Data architectures and science via its digital badge by CredBadge™. Your resume being gifted with the PDS™ Credential, the global employers in the industry can easily recognize and relish your talent as a Data Scientist.


Click here to pre-register for PDS™

PDS™ Level I Exam - Learning Coverage

Learning Coverage

Though the DASCA Study kit for Data Scientists is designed as a study and preparation resource for the online/ computer-based PDS™ Level I exam, the books, lab handbooks, and other learning aids included in the PDS™ kit have been put together to help aspiring Data Scientists build longer–lasting sets of skills and a more penetrative Big Data perspective. The DASCA Study kit contents therefore seek to develop in learners, a strong and complete generic, as well as platform–based understanding of the concepts, principles, tools, techniques, and technologies of designing, developing, and applying analytics frameworks and utilities required for sharper information management and decision making.

Indeed, while the exam preparation kit has been developed around the DASCA Essential Knowledge Framework (DASCA-EKF™), the idea behind its design, coverage, content, and structure is also to provide to aspiring Data Scientists, a liberal exposure to all important proprietary analytics platforms currently in vogue in the Big Data space, and concurrently, they can prepare themselves rightly for the PDS™ Level I exam as well. The contents of the DASCA Study kit straddle all essential knowledge areas – divided up into eight sections or modules.

PDS™ LEVEL I - EXAM COVERAGE INFORMATION

  • Data Science Applications in Business 10%
  • The Functional Framework of Data Science 10%
  • Driving Business Through Big Data Analytics 15%
  • Building Pan-Organization Support 10%
  • Data Science Essentials for Data Scientists 15%
  • Big Data Analytics Essentials for Data Scientists 25%
  • Advanced Data Science for Data Scientists 15%

Data Science Applications in Business

10% Framework of data science use-cases for business; organizational strategy and data analytics; information, intelligence and visualization approaches of data scientists; “by" analysis; score development; monetization and metamorphosis exercises.

The Functional Framework of Data Science

10% The framework of data science functions and tools; interconnection of business intelligence, big data analytics and data science; the Data Lake; applications of analytics in organizational decision-making and strategy implementation

Driving Business Through Big Data Analytics

15% The big data business mandate; Big data business model maturity index; preparing the big data strategy document; the importance of the user experience; catalyzing business performance and outcomes through business intelligence

Building Pan-Organization Support

10% Developing cross-departmental buy-ins to analytics-led functioning; envisioning data science impacts on organizational performance; leading development of enterprise-wide data analytics ecosystem

Data Science Fundamentals For Data Scientists

15% The Data science roadmap; programming languages; visualization and simple metrics; machine learning fundamentals; machine learning classification; technical communication and documentation

Big Data Analytics Essentials for Data Scientists

25% Unsupervised learning: clustering and dimensionality reduction; regression fundamentals; Data Encoding and File Formats; High-volume streaming data storage; real-time streaming data architectures; stream and batch data processing; software engineering best practices; Natural Language Processing; Time Series Analysis; fundamentals of Statistics, Linear Algebra and Probability

Advanced Data Science For Data Scientists

15% Performance and computer memory; computer memory and data structures; maximum likelihood estimation and optimization; advanced classifiers; stochastic modelling
Credential Case

The PDS™ Credential Case

A certificate and a lapel pin are o'er bountiful to explicit exhibition of your credential. DASCA, however, enriches it with a booklet for Code of Ethics, along with the former two elements of your credential. Your PDS™ Credential certificate comes enclosed in a royally designed spectacular credential case, in consort with a metal badge and a booklet of ethics. This astounding credential case is yet another incentive for you to appear for and nail the exam with flying colors!

PRE-REGISTER NOW FOR THE ALL NEW PDS™

Pre-registrations are currently open for the new PDS™ version marked to the updated DASCA-DSBoK™ Ver 11-4.4. The exact date of the launch of the new PDS™ will be announced shortly.

Pre-Register Now
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