DataScientist

Summary

A job function policy that grants permissions to AWS data analytics services.

Permissions imported from the AWS Managed Policy Reference Guide; other sections reviewed against the listed AWS sources.

Identity

ARN

arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/job-function/DataScientistCopy ARN

Default version

v6

Created

2016-11-10

Last edited

2026-09-02

Services

autoscaling, cloudformation, cloudwatch, datapipeline, dynamodb, ec2, elasticfilesystem, elasticmapreduce, es, firehose, fsx, iam, kinesis, kms, lambda, logs, machinelearning, rds, redshift, s3, sagemaker, sdb, sns

Control-plane actions (1859)

By access level: 529 List, 31 Permissions management, 393 Read, 34 Tagging, 872 Write.

Data-plane actions (68)

By access level: 5 List, 31 Read, 32 Write.

Excluded and conditional actions

No patterns are excluded by NotAction or Deny statements.

Resource scope and attachment

Resource scope across granted actions: all-resources.

Can be attached: Yes, to users, groups and roles.

Why this tier

• Grants at least 80% of the write and permissions-management actions of: autoscaling (43 of 43), cloudwatch (89 of 89), dynamodb (45 of 45), elasticfilesystem (21 of 21), elasticmapreduce (54 of 54), es (73 of 73), firehose (7 of 7), kinesis (26 of 26), machinelearning (17 of 17), and 4 more.
• Grants data-plane write actions on a data store on all resources without conditions.
• Grants iam:PassRole, but only for scoped roles or under conditions (for example iam:PassedToService).
• 30 granted write or permissions-management actions have no data-plane classification from AWS, so the data-plane rule cannot assess them.

Guidance

Related policies

Same service

• AccessAnalyzerServiceRolePolicy
• AdministratorAccess-AWSElasticBeanstalk
• AIDevOpsReleaseManagementVPCPolicy
• AmazonAppFlowFullAccess
• AmazonApplicationRecoveryControllerRegionSwitchPlanExecutionPolicy
• AmazonAppStreamServiceAccess
• AmazonAthenaServiceRolePolicy
• AmazonAugmentedAIFullAccess

Same domain

• AmazonODBAutonomousDatabaseAdmin
• AmazonODBAutonomousVmClusterAdmin
• AmazonODBExadataInfrastructureAdmin
• AmazonODBExadataVmClusterAdmin
• AmazonODBExascaleStorageVaultAdmin
• AmazonODBExascaleVmClusterAdmin
• AmazonODBNetworkAdmin
• AWSManagementConsoleAdministratorAccess

Frequently asked questions

When should I attach DataScientist?

Attach it to a user who runs Hadoop jobs and queries and accesses and analyzes information for data analytics and business intelligence. It is the Data scientist job function.

What does DataScientist grant?

It grants permissions to AWS data analytics services: create, manage and run queries on an Amazon EMR cluster and perform data analytics with tools such as Amazon QuickSight, with access to services such as AWS Data Pipeline, Amazon EC2, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon Machine Learning and SageMaker AI.

What are the security risks of DataScientist?

One statement allows passing any role to SageMaker AI, and most other actions apply to all resources, including ec2:RunInstances, ec2:TerminateInstances and full access to services such as Amazon EMR and Amazon Redshift. AWS managed policies don't grant least privilege permissions, and you must consider the security risk of granting principals more permissions than they need. AWS updates to the policy affect every identity it is attached to.

Policy JSON

Download policy.json

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Action": [
        "autoscaling:*",
        "cloudwatch:*",
        "cloudformation:DescribeStackEvents",
        "datapipeline:Describe*",
        "datapipeline:ListPipelines",
        "datapipeline:GetPipelineDefinition",
        "datapipeline:QueryObjects",
        "dynamodb:*",
        "ec2:CancelSpotInstanceRequests",
        "ec2:CancelSpotFleetRequests",
        "ec2:CreateTags",
        "ec2:DeleteTags",
        "ec2:Describe*",
        "ec2:ModifyImageAttribute",
        "ec2:ModifyInstanceAttribute",
        "ec2:ModifySpotFleetRequest",
        "ec2:RequestSpotInstances",
        "ec2:RequestSpotFleet",
        "elasticfilesystem:*",
        "elasticmapreduce:*",
        "es:*",
        "firehose:*",
        "fsx:DescribeFileSystems",
        "iam:GetInstanceProfile",
        "iam:GetRole",
        "iam:GetPolicy",
        "iam:GetPolicyVersion",
        "iam:ListRoles",
        "kinesis:*",
        "kms:List*",
        "lambda:Create*",
        "lambda:Delete*",
        "lambda:Get*",
        "lambda:InvokeFunction",
        "lambda:PublishVersion",
        "lambda:Update*",
        "lambda:List*",
        "machinelearning:*",
        "sdb:*",
        "rds:*",
        "sns:ListSubscriptions",
        "sns:ListTopics",
        "logs:DescribeLogStreams",
        "logs:GetLogEvents",
        "redshift:*",
        "s3:CreateBucket",
        "sns:CreateTopic",
        "sns:Get*",
        "sns:List*"
      ],
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Resource": "*"
    },
    {
      "Sid": "CloudFormationCreateStackSameAccount",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "cloudformation:CreateStack"
      ],
      "Resource": "*",
      "Condition": {
        "StringEquals": {
          "aws:ResourceAccount": "${aws:PrincipalAccount}"
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "Sid": "CloudFormationTagOnCreate",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "cloudformation:TagResource"
      ],
      "Resource": "*",
      "Condition": {
        "StringEquals": {
          "cloudformation:CreateAction": [
            "CreateStack"
          ],
          "aws:ResourceAccount": "${aws:PrincipalAccount}"
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "s3:Abort*",
        "s3:DeleteObject",
        "s3:Get*",
        "s3:List*",
        "s3:PutAccelerateConfiguration",
        "s3:PutBucketCors",
        "s3:PutBucketLogging",
        "s3:PutBucketNotification",
        "s3:PutBucketTagging",
        "s3:PutObject",
        "s3:Replicate*",
        "s3:RestoreObject"
      ],
      "Resource": [
        "*"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "ec2:RunInstances",
        "ec2:TerminateInstances"
      ],
      "Resource": [
        "*"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "iam:PassRole"
      ],
      "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:iam::*:role/DataPipelineDefaultRole",
        "arn:aws:iam::*:role/DataPipelineDefaultResourceRole",
        "arn:aws:iam::*:role/EMR_EC2_DefaultRole",
        "arn:aws:iam::*:role/EMR_DefaultRole",
        "arn:aws:iam::*:role/kinesis-*"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "iam:PassRole"
      ],
      "Resource": "*",
      "Condition": {
        "StringEquals": {
          "iam:PassedToService": "sagemaker.amazonaws.com"
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "sagemaker:*"
      ],
      "NotResource": [
        "arn:aws:sagemaker:*:*:domain/*",
        "arn:aws:sagemaker:*:*:user-profile/*",
        "arn:aws:sagemaker:*:*:app/*",
        "arn:aws:sagemaker:*:*:flow-definition/*"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "sagemaker:CreatePresignedDomainUrl",
        "sagemaker:DescribeDomain",
        "sagemaker:ListDomains",
        "sagemaker:DescribeUserProfile",
        "sagemaker:ListUserProfiles",
        "sagemaker:*App",
        "sagemaker:ListApps"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "sagemaker:*FlowDefinition",
        "sagemaker:*FlowDefinitions"
      ],
      "Resource": "*",
      "Condition": {
        "StringEqualsIfExists": {
          "sagemaker:WorkteamType": [
            "private-crowd",
            "vendor-crowd"
          ]
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Version history

Current version v6, edited by AWS on 2026-09-02. Version history is recorded from 2026-11-11. Earlier versions are in the IAM console under Policy versions.

Attach snippets

aws iam attach-role-policy --role-name ROLE_NAME --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/job-function/DataScientist
aws iam attach-user-policy --user-name USER_NAME --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/job-function/DataScientist
aws iam attach-group-policy --group-name GROUP_NAME --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/job-function/DataScientist

Resources:
  ExampleRole:
    Type: AWS::IAM::Role
    Properties:
      AssumeRolePolicyDocument: {}  # replace with your trust policy
      ManagedPolicyArns:
        - arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/job-function/DataScientist

resource "aws_iam_role_policy_attachment" "job_function_datascientist" {
  role       = aws_iam_role.example.name
  policy_arn = "arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/job-function/DataScientist"
}

role.addManagedPolicy(
  iam.ManagedPolicy.fromAwsManagedPolicyName("job-function/DataScientist"),
);

Sources

• DataScientist (AWS Managed Policy Reference Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-12; supports summary, practicalScope, securityConsiderations, assignmentGuidance, faqs)
• AWS managed policies for job functions (IAM User Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-12; supports practicalScope, useCases, prerequisites, bestPractices, securityConsiderations, assignmentGuidance, faqs)
• Managed policies and inline policies (IAM User Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-12; supports securityConsiderations, faqs)

• Official AWS reference for DataScientist
• Report a data issue