We don't need data scientists, we need data engineers
My experience is in quant hedge funds, where sometimes you get some guys who develop the strategy and some guys who put it into production.Yes, I do admit there can be some specialization in terms of time spent on science vs engineering.But you really need people who understand both. Particularly if you have a strategist who thinks his job is just to dream up profitable models, he ends up carving that role out in a way that's detrimental to the rest of the team. You get people who just don't appreciate that there's other work to do than finding models, and that models depend on that other work to function.You also get a huge prestige gap, because inevitably management will think that there's a magician and a blacksmith. One guy needs to be paid a lot, and the other guy needs to be paid enough.These effects feed each other. Magician will say "where's my data" and expect blacksmith to make it, promptly. He won't do it himself, because spending time on mundane stuff makes the magic disappear. And not doing it yourself, or taking the time to understand it, will eventually lead to problems with the magic.