THE BEST JOBS
You don’t have to be a math whiz or have a Ph.D. to earn $100,000
The nation’s best jobs boast salaries that average $100,000 and up, offer generous company benefits and promise to have recruiting suitors fighting for your hand.
So do you have to be a math genius to get one of these great gigs? What we found might surprise you.
USA TODAY conducted a series of interviews with people in the nation’s top jobs, as well as with those recruiting and training candidates for these roles.
A 2017 survey of the top jobs in America by employer ranking and assessment site Glassdoor — based on earning potential, job satisfaction and number of openings — ranked data scientist, DevOps engineer, data engineer and analytics manager as the 1,2, 3, and 5 top jobs (the fourth was tax manager).
The good news? Not only do you not have to be a rocket scientist, some folks in these roles are entirely self-taught. You also don’t need to be a numbers whiz — or even like math.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Here’s a quick dive into the job descriptions (according to Glassdoor) as well as three critical skills associated with each (provided to USA TODAY by two tech recruiting firms, CyberCoders and ZipRecruiter):
Data scientist: Analyze raw data sets to extract learnings and insights. Skills needed: Machine Learning, Python, R, SQL (according to CyberCoders); Statistics, Machine Learning, Python (ZipRecruiter). Median base
salary: $110,000 a year.
DevOps engineer: Familiar with IT infrastructure software development in order to work across teams. Skills needed: Linux, Amazon Web Services, Chef (CyberCoders); Linux, AWS, Puppet (ZipRecruiter). Median base
salary: $110,000.
Data engineer: Work closely with data architects and scientists to prepare data so it can be analyzed. Skills needed: Hadoop, Python, SQL (CyberCoders); SQL, ETL, Computer Science (ZipRecruiter). Median base salary: $106,000.
Analytics manager: Determine strategies for collecting data, implement solutions and conduct research. Skills needed: Google analytics, data analysis, marketing spent metrics (CyberCoders); communications skills, statistics, SQL (ZipRecruiter).
Median base salary: $112,000.