How to use this guide

Data science is one of the broadest careers in tech, and that breadth is exactly what makes it intimidating to start. This free guide fixes that. It gives you the foundation every data scientist needs, regardless of which flavor of the role you end up in, taught the way a mentor would explain it rather than the way a textbook presents it.

When you finish this guide you will understand the role and its variants, be comfortable with Python for data work, have a real grasp of the statistics and probability that underpin everything, know how to explore and clean data, and understand the core machine learning ideas and the five algorithms every beginner should know. That is the platform on which the premium Intermediate and Advanced track is built.

The tiers, and where this guide sits#

AfterKarma structures data science learning in three tiers. This free guide is the foundation. The premium track then takes you through Intermediate craft and Advanced depth, with company-tagged interview questions to make you job-ready. Here is the whole journey at a glance.