Tips for a new data scientist
I think there are a lot of important soft skills to consider in the Data Science domain. 

Here are some of them:


Know for a fact what the goal is, spending a lot of time on data wrangling, models, visualization and reports when it was not all for the specific goal in mind is a waste. Communicating with less technical people is a skill in itself.
Iterate repeatedly with the product owner. Keep making sure you are on the right path.
If the data doesn't tell the story they thought/want tell them it is not the case, be clear in why this is happening, what biases might be playing a role etcetera. Do not apply all kinds of filters or keep changing parameters to get the desired results.


Regarding your second question:

The objective has to be either gotten from the product owner explicitly or derived from a less mathematical objective. An example could be where you need to predict train arrivals based on some features. They want the model to predict as many times as possible within a 10-minute error range. This is relatively explicit. 

Sometimes it is less clear than that, they might say we need it as accurate as possible. Then you will have to decide what to optimize, in some cases, this will just be minimizing the MSE but in other cases, other things might make more sense for your case. Usually, this will be clear from the implicit objective and something that you will get better at with more experience. Both implicit and explicit objectives derive from clear communication with the product owner.