This study applies the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) framework for eScience professionals to data service positions in academic libraries. Understanding the KSAs needed to provide data services is of crucial concern. The current study looks at KSAs of data professionals working in the United States academic libraries. An exploratory sequential mixed method design was adopted to discover the KSAs. The study was divided into two phases, a qualitative content analysis of 260 job advertisements for data professionals for Phase 1, and distribution of a self-administered online survey to data professionals working in academic libraries research data services (RDS) for Phase 2. The discovery of the KSAs from the content analysis of 260 job ads and the survey results from 167 data professionals were analyzed separately, and then Spearman rank order correlation was conducted in order to triangulate the data and compare results. The results from the study provide evidence on what hiring managers seek through job advertisements in terms of KSAs and which KSAs data professionals find to be important for working in RDS. The Spearman rank order correlation found strong agreement between job advertisement KSAs and data professionals perceptions of the KSAs.