Click to favorite this career!
A great way to learn more about a career is to hear from real people in the job or see what it's like in a real workplace. The same job at different companies can be pretty different too, so it's helpful to learn about it from as many settings as you can!
-
Tour Yummly
-
Hear
Rohith, Data Engineer
-
Hear
Every company might describe a Data Engineering job differently when they post an opening. They might have a slightly different mix of duties or even call the job by different titles, like Data Engineer, Database Architect, Database Programmer, or Principal Data Engineer.
Here's a picture of a sample job description you might find on a job search engine. If you'd like to try out some real online searches, check out some first steps you can take!
Data Engineer
You're responsible for expanding, optimizing, and troubleshooting our data pipelines which receive, process and extract data we use. This position works with data analysts on initiatives for different operational and business objectives, so you will support the data needs of multiple teams, systems and products.
Your duties include:
- Gather, collate and integrate new data sources for the data science team
- Create and maintain data pipelines to feed into our data pool
- Optimize complex joins across massive data sets of billions of records
- Evaluate logs across a wide range of systems
- Identify, design, and implement internal process improvements and automations
- Respond to and address operational data pipeline failures
- Generate accurate and effective documentation
You'll need to show your working SQL and database knowledge in a technical interview, and be able to manipulate, transform, and extract value from large data sets. You can program in Python or Java, and have some experience with big data tools like Hadoop, Hive, Spark or Yarn. We're looking for an organized collaborator who is comfortable functioning across the company and has strong project management and communication skills. Ideal for a technology new grad or someone with 1-2 years of industry experience, and a Master's degree in Computer Science helps you stand out.
Here are some general skills needed in this career. Ask your teachers about how your classes today strengthen these skills.
![Skills banner image](/images/action-plans/ap-1.png)
- Analyzing data
- Complex problem solving
- Computers and programming
- Critical thinking and reasoning
- Databases
- Engineering and technology
- Judgment and decision making
- Listening and communication
- Math
Want to get even more familiar with these skills? Try them out for yourself!
Data Engineer |
Senior Data Engineer |
$74,000
|
US average annual salary
|
$135,000
|