The Stacked Data Podcast · 2026-03-25 · 46 min
The Data Science Identity Crisis | Anurag Gangal (Spotify) on Data Roles, Analytics Engineering & AI What does a data scientist actually do anymore? In this episode of the Stacked Data Podcast, Harry sits down with Anurag Gangal from Spotify to unpack one of the biggest challenges in modern data: the growing confusion around data role titles. From data scientists and analytics engineers to product analysts, machine learning engineers, and more, the data landscape has become increasingly hard to navigate. Anurag shares the story behind his framework for understanding data roles, why he built his now-popular quadrant model, and how it can help both companies and individuals make better decisions. The "Data Scientist" identity crisis - Anurag's Substack [ They explore why so many businesses still use the title data scientist to describe completely different jobs, how that creates problems in hiring and team design, and what it means for people trying to build careers in data. The conversation also dives into generalists vs specialists, the evolution of the modern data stack, and how AI could reshape the future of analytics, data science, and self-serve data work.
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