There are plenty of "data scientists" who use canned tools and play around with parameters because that's all "the business" thinks it needs.

As with a software engineer, it is a role that is different in every place. Every place has its own definition of the role. This is not bad. It is a mere reflection of the market conditions where there are a lot of people are simultaneously bad at Linear Algebra, Probability and Statistics and dangerous enough to write production code fast. (Your standard C.S. grad SWE).