Data scientist has matured from a catch-all title into a defined role: framing a business problem statistically, building a model and defending the result to people who will act on it. Indian hiring has moved decisively toward candidates who can ship — versioned code, reproducible pipelines, honest evaluation — rather than notebook demonstrations. Pune demand comes from analytics consultancies, BFSI captives and manufacturing analytics teams. It is not a fresher role in most organisations; the usual entry is through analyst or engineering work.