What happens to senior roles when Data & AI splits out of IT?
Posted by Direct_Historian_899@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 11 comments
In large companies where Data & AI becomes a separate function outside of IT, I’m curious how this typically plays out, especially at a senior level.
A pattern I’m seeing is that Data & AI takes ownership of data engineering, analytics, data science, and of course AI. IT is then left to focus more on "traditional" areas such as infra, IT operations, security, etc. This often leaves a set of senior roles that used to sit between data, applications, and the business without a clear place. These roles made sure everything worked together and delivered value, but after the split they don’t clearly belong to either Data or IT.
For those who have seen this in practice: how do these roles usually evolve? what tends to remain valuable vs. what gets marginalized?
originalchronoguy@reddit
Depends on what AI team is doing. There is more to AI than running models. Our data science team is literally a research lab; building out their own custom models and writing technical academic white papers for scholarly review. None of the academic stuff is even relevant or in the domain of the IT dept.
yxhuvud@reddit
What? They become a subdepartment of Tech, just as Development and Ops and similar are. It is more questionable if IT is part of Tech department then - I've seen places where it has been part of HR.
Typhon_Vex@reddit
not really, often times they are outside of it completely
Typhon_Vex@reddit
I´m living in this. Essentially almost nothing. Few Architecs, security guy, ops not so much, the so called data teams tend to make their own OPS
Wide-Pop6050@reddit
Huh? I think in most large enough companies IT and data are already separate. I've seen this split happen between data & engineering though.
What are the senior roles you're thinking of? Usually those people just become heads of one of the 2 departments.
pacman326@reddit
I think the elephant in room is why do you think product was dissatisfied with IT department.
Direct_Historian_899@reddit (OP)
You mean that as the underlying cause of the split? Then I’d say slow delivery, poor project management, lack of talented people.
nomoreplsthx@reddit
I'm a bit confused, haven't those functions been separate for a long time?
I haven't seen IT used to refer to anything outside of desktop support and IT operations since... like 2017 maybe?
Direct_Historian_899@reddit (OP)
That’s fair. In some organizations, especially in more traditional sectors like agriculture, IT still owns applications and integrations, so the split happens later.
Dry_Bird1790@reddit
I've never seen AI being part of IT
Direct_Historian_899@reddit (OP)
Based on my experience, I still see some struggle around where AI should sit, but it often ends up outside IT. What I’m trying to understand is what happens to the roles between Data and IT once data and AI are combined into one department.