The way we've laid it out, there are some core skills we want you to have. The most succinct way to describe the requirements are we need you to be fluent in data. Able to explore and transform it, communicate your discoveries in non-technical ways, and able to discuss it with other analysts in a very technical manner.
Beyond that we understand the perfect data scientist is really a team of data scientists who complement each other's skill sets. Because of that we have a bonus skills section. We don't expect the right candidate to be great at all of them but there should be some unique strength that they bring to the table.
EDIT: Oh and P.S. side projects are fine and dandy but they don't speak to us very well. The problems tend to be handed to you on a silver platter. I want to see how you can go from discovering business needs to choosing the right data to analyze with the right techniques.
