Free Career Roadmap
Become a Data Scientist
Where math, code, and business insight collide
Duration
12 months
Salary Range
$80k – $220k+
Difficulty
advanced
Job Demand
high
4
Phases
19
Skills to Learn
11
Projects
4
Certifications
1
Phase 1 · Months 1–3
Math & Programming
Python, statistics, and linear algebra foundations.
Core Skills to Master
Recommended Projects
10 published Kaggle notebooks
Statistical inference project
Python fundamentals to intermediate
Industry Certifications
IBM Data Science Certificate (Coursera)
Key Milestones (3)
Comfortable with pandas + numpy
Statistical thinking
10 GitHub data projects
2
Phase 2 · Months 4–6
Machine Learning Fundamentals
Supervised, unsupervised, and evaluation methods.
Core Skills to Master
Recommended Projects
End-to-end ML pipeline on Kaggle
Customer churn prediction model
Recommendation system
Industry Certifications
Machine Learning by Andrew Ng (Coursera)
Key Milestones (3)
Scikit-learn proficiency
Model evaluation mastery
Top 25% in Kaggle competition
3
Phase 3 · Months 7–9
Deep Learning & MLOps
Neural networks and production-grade ML.
Core Skills to Master
Recommended Projects
Deep learning project (vision or NLP)
Model deployed via FastAPI
Full MLOps pipeline with monitoring
Industry Certifications
TensorFlow Developer Certificate ($100)
AWS ML Specialty
Key Milestones (3)
Deployed production model
Deep learning portfolio
Open source ML contributions
4
Phase 4 · Months 10–12
Land Your DS Role
Target ML-first companies and AI labs.
Core Skills to Master
Recommended Projects
Published Kaggle notebooks
ML technical blog posts
Key Milestones (3)
30+ applications
5+ technical interviews
DS offer signed
Job Ready — Data Scientist
Completing this pathway equips you with verified projects, assessment scores, and the exact skills required by current hiring managers.