Should an Automation test engineer switch career to data science/analytic

You are already having a job as automation test engineer and now want to swap it for a better proposition. The data science / analytics is an emerging area and there are good opportunities to make a career in it as many big companies and multinationals are giving a thrust in this area to adopt it for management information and decision making process. It is already expanding at a fast pace and going to be a vast field soon. In this situation, I feel, that this is a right decision to go for this swap and undergo some good data science / analytics course before entering the industry in a suitable position.

In addition to the two good sources which you have mentioned (Great Lakes and Praxis), there are some other good ones in this area from where you can learn the intricacies of Data Science / Analytics. These are -

1. Certificate Program in Data Science & Engineering (Big Data & Visual Analytics) By SP Jain School of Global Management.
2. Post-Graduate Diploma in Business Analytics (Jointly offered By IIM Calcutta, ISI Kolkata, IIT Kharagpur).
3. Postgraduate Diploma in Data Science by Jigsaw Academy.
4. Post-Graduate Program in Data Science By Great Learning.
5. M.Tech Data Science & Artificial Intelligence By NMIMS's Mukesh Patel School of Technology Management & Engineering.
6. Big Data Analytics course By Goa Institute of Management.
7. Leadership Through Analytics and Decision Sciences By T. A. Pai Management Institute.
8. MBA in Data Sciences & Data Analytics by Symbiosis Centre for Information Technology.

Data science/analytics is an emerging subject and many opportunities are coming for the people qualified in this area. Many compnaies are going into this area and there is a high thrust these days for this subject.
An automation test engineer is also a good line. But the opportunities will be definitely more in Data Science/ Analytics.
For any candidate to excel in his career interest is very much required and as you have more interest in Data Science/ Analytics, you will definitely excel better in that line. So your idea is correct and you can go to that line and you have to acquire some knowledge in that subject. The two institutes you have mentioned are good. But there are some other institutes also., Some of them are
1. Jigsaw Academy. Their website is https://www.jigsawacademy.com/
2. AnalytixLabs. Their website is https://www.analytixlabs.co.in/
3.Simplilearn. Their website is https://www.simplilearn.com/
They have various courses. you can search these sites and try for the best certification which suites your interest.

Data science and it's associated streams is an emerging field for professionals from various backgrounds. As you've mentioned you're an Automation test engineer you must be very familiar with visualizations in CAD/CAM processes. Well in data science you'll learn the very nature of how visualizations and data work, and how we can extract meaningful data from structured orvunstructured output. You can easily get a certificate in data analytics instead of pursuing it full time. However there are full time courses too. Depending on the time available to you after your professional pursuits you can dedicate your time to improving your knowledge in this field. The above mentioned resources should be enough to meet your requirement for time being. Hope this answers your query.

Switching from the job of Automation Test Engineer to Data Science would be much more comfortable if you get a correct guidance. In this context, your joining in the class room programmes as indicated by you appears to be quite relevant in the sense that you will be acquainted with the different tools applicable to the Data Science.
There are three entry points which need to be looked into and these are indicated below -
1) Statistics- You should be sound enough to Statistics so as to use your statistical knowledge to help you in taking up better decisions in the crucial moments. You will have to revise these texts so as have a clear concepts in the statistical analysis.
2) Programming- Data needs to be collected and fed into the models developed for the statistical analysis and the results should be visualised for aiding decision making. This would require sufficient programming skills.
3) Business and other domain expertise- If you are an expert in a given business domain ( Say Automation Testing), you would know the nature of the decision making and you should be aware of the usage of the appropriate datas in the crucial timing. You should have the vision to decide what additional data would be required and how it can be procured so the strategy in mind could be achieved.
You need to follow the following strategies -
Step 1 - Take up the classes to learn the inputs and in your case, you have taken a right decision to attend an institute and being a student, you should explore the following points -
1) To what extent, do you like this domain?
2) How much effort should be exerted so as to get the right professional skill?
3) Your passion for learning the Data Science especially when you are encountered with a complicated technical stuff.
Step 2 - Concentrate on the programming languages such as Python, R, etc helping you in exploiting the domain languages, you have used in your automation testing.
Step 3 - In the midst of the course, begin visualising and designing the project according to your proficiency level. Ensure the following points as well -
1) Allow the accessor to know that you have decent knowledge in the statistical models and you can sort out the domain related problems if it occurs.
2) Demonstrate your some degree of professionalism while using code and show how effectively you can use programming to collect, process and visualise the data related domain.
Step 4 - Get your project be reviewed by the people connected with your profession having wide experience in this field and any suggestion provided by them may be incorporated if it matches to your idea. With a little bit of alertness and tactfulness, you should land in a space where you could accelerate your growth further.

When you want to leave the present job for another one then there are certain considerations one has to do. Are you aware about the new area what it is and is it really of interest to you or you are simply going to it for making a good career and earning money. So, what I would suggest is that you first go through the basics of Data Science / Analytics and get a feel of the subject and its syllabus. I can briefly say that Data Science is a method of getting answers to some business challenges by mining a large data base and analysing the data using software techniques, predictive analysis, statistics, and machine learning. So the role of a data engineer or data scientist is to explore the data to demarcate potential trends and patterns which could help the business to grow and sustain in the competitive arena. It relates to thinking ahead in time through data study in a structured form.

So, with that background if you feel that you are the right person for that ambition then you can think of joining a Data Analytics course either online or regular classes as per your convenience. You might require to enhance your capabilities in some computer languages and new told being devised by the experts for this work and that would be more clear to you during the progression of the said course. There are many reputed sources which can be explored further before joining a particular course. Some of these are -
1. Great Learning.
2. Jigsaw Academy.
3. SP Jain School of Global Management.

You can switch your career from Automation test engineer to Data science or Analytics. There is no problem with that. In the sector of IT, anyone from any skill can move to other one. Your choice of Data science does have a bright future and there will be more requirement for skilled Data science engineer. Doing a course for entering this vast field is a good thing. I would suggest you not to stop with the course but also do some short project and maintain your source code in Github. You can showcase your project when you attend interviews. Companies will be very much willing to hire candidates who have done some own project rather than someone who gives only answers to the questions.