Tableau is a popular tool. It's cost-effective, easy-to-learn, and makes data viz and reporting look sexy.

More and more companies are investing in Tableau as well. From 2015 until its purchase by Salesforce, Tableau's revenue grew approximately 77%.

It also has a huge following among data professionals. Tableau User Groups – once small niche events – are filled with individuals who not only see Tableau as a job skill, but an outright hobby.

This excitement and growing talent base has led many employers to ask themselves – should I hire a tableau developer?

Well, just like most questions in data science, the answer is a solid “it depends.” You need to answer three key questions before you invest in a tableau developer.

I published a new article on Medium about the recent election forecasting issues. As you probably noticed, we did not get the Democrat landslide victory the pollsters told us we would.

Funny enough, this massive discrepancy illustrates two common problems the private sector has with data science:

1. Prediction errors
2. Data quality issues

In my article, I focus on the latter and explain how companies and data scientists can learn from the mistakes of pollsters.