Some of the things mentioned are true- luck, networking, hard skills, etc. But keep in mind that your network can basically help you get an interview. It's highly unlikely you'll get a job at one of these companies unless you're good enough (ie. you have to pass the interview) - Strong communciation. You need to understand how to communicate the business context of your work. How have you impacted the business? - Good collaborative skills. Big companies are messy- you need to be able to work cross-functionally - Strong analytical thinking and problem-solving ability. Anybody can throw XGBoost at a problem and get something- the real skill is being able to take a business objective and translate it into a structured data problem. And simple is better than complex Context: I work at one of these big companies and hire data scientists Answer from ds_sf on reddit.com