He wanted to move beyond tailored marketing. He enjoyed the work, but ultimately he decided In Charlotte, N.C., Ahmer Inam, 39, recently left Sonic Automotive, a large auto retailer with 100 dealerships in 14 states, where he was director of predictive analytics. But at a large manufacturer like Ford, he said, “I’ll be influencing Ahmed explained, the work often involves producing data-derived knowledge that is then sold to a larger company. Ahmed chose to join Ford Motor as a data engineer One analyzed credit-card data to target marketing and advertising campaigns. He was recruited by several companies including start-ups. Ahmed said, has increasingly become a data science - and he has veered His field of computational physics and materials science, Mr. Khalid Ahmed, 25, is finishing up his Ph.D. Burtch said, is “you get to work on really good problems, and these established companies can offer them a decent work-life balance.” Were building up data science capabilities. Lindaīurtch, managing director of the recruiting firm that bears her name, said the change reflected how much companies in mainstream industries like retailing, consumer products, insurance, health care and manufacturing The share of workers with deep data skills who are employed by start-ups fell by more than half, to 14 percent this year from 29 percent last year. The survey also points to a shift in demand for data scientists. The report was based on telephone interviews with 371 data scientists For experienced data scientists, leading teams of 10 or more, salaries are up to $250,000. The median base salary for entry-level data scientists was $91,000 nationally and $110,000 in Silicon Valley, the survey found. Salaries rose 8 percent on average in the last year, with bonuses adding $56,000, according to a salary and employment survey released on Tuesday by Burtch Works, a recruiter of professionals with quantitative skills. Perhaps, but it remains a rising market for data scientists. The exuberance surrounding big data has passed its peak and is trending down, the technology research firm Gartner declared last August in its annual “hype cycle” report on The outlook for data scientists: less hype, more hiring.