What Is Data Engineering?
Your business most likely creates data from internal systems or services, interfaces with third-party apps and providers, and must offer data in a certain format for various users and use cases.
Data generated and gathered by your company is likely subject to compliance standards, which you must preserve under the law. When this is the situation, your data’s security becomes a primary responsibility, posing new technical hurdles for data in transit or at rest.
Not only should your data be safe, but it must also be accessible to your end-users, function well enough to meet your business needs, and be accurate. Your data cannot bring value to your firm if it is secure but unused. Many parts of a data governance approach necessitate specialist knowledge.
What Is a Data Engineer?
Data engineers design systems that gather, handle, and transform raw data into useful information for data analysts and industry experts to comprehend in a range of scenarios. Their main goal is to make the data more available so that businesses may assess and improve their performance.
Performing in a generalist capacity in a smaller company frequently entails taking on a broader variety of data-related activities. Data engineers are dedicated to developing data pipelines at larger companies, while others are focused on maintaining database systems.
Read: Data Engineer vs. Software Engineer: Key Differences
Top 10 Skills for Data Engineer
If you are keen to make a career as a data engineer, below are a few of the key skills that you must master.
1. Understanding of Database Management Systems
The SQL programming language is the industry standard for organizing and maintaining relational database applications. NoSQL databases come in a number of shapes and sizes, based on their data model, including a graph or text. It is a required knowledge for data engineers.
2. Python
Python is a popular programming language that continues to grow in popularity. To be able to develop manageable, reusable, and complicated functions, data engineers must be proficient in Python. This language is fast, flexible, and ideal for text analytics. It also provides a solid basis for big data support.
3. Data Warehouse Solutions
For inquiry and research, data warehouses hold massive amounts of new and historical data. This information comes from a variety of places, including CRM systems, accounting systems, and ERP software.
The data is then used for monitoring, analysis, and data mining by the organization. Most employers require entry-level engineers to be conversant with Amazon Web Services (AWS), a cloud computing platform that includes a diverse set of data storage technologies.
4. Writing That Is Clear and Concise
Many ambitious data engineers overlook soft skills, putting themselves at a disadvantage in terms of job chances. The following are the most significant advantages of writing for data engineers:
- Consolidate your understanding: Writing blogs helps to process and strengthen your understanding of complicated professional concepts.
- Others will be able to understand complex facts: You may be responsible for communicating data and results to supervisors, team members, and third parties, which necessitates the ability to write effectively and concisely.
5. Communication With People
Sorry, but it’s necessary 🙂
A data engineer works with a variety of stakeholders, including data scientists, chief technology officers, programmers, designers, customers, machine learning engineers, and many others.
According to LinkedIn research, communication – especially interpersonal communication – is the most desired soft skill by employers. You must improve your interpersonal communication abilities.
6. ETL (Extract, Transfer, and Load) Tools
ETL is the process of extracting data from a source, converting it into a structure that can be analyzed and storing it in a data warehouse. This procedure uses batch processing to assist users in analyzing data that is relevant to a particular business challenge.
The ETL collects data from a variety of sources and implements business rules to the data, which is why knowing ETL tools will help you in getting a good job. You can use data monitoring tools to collect data from several sources. Some of the top data monitoring tools include:
- DataDog: You can use Datadog’s maturity model to assess your DevSecOps skills and automate data.
- Moogsoft: Moogsoft’s sophisticated correlation finds anomalies and links the tissue between all warnings, allowing you to find the root cause more quickly.
- Splunk: Splunk creates web-based applications for finding, monitoring, and analyzing machine-generated data.
- Resolve.io: Using SaaS, you may rapidly automate your common IT activities with unique accelerator packs in a no-code experience.
- Acure: This AIOps platform helps you collect logs and monitor data by using a low-code automation engine.
- PageDuty: PagerDuty can easily be integrated into and added to the arsenal of any team for AIOps.
- ScienceLogic: Customers can manage IT environments with ScienceLogic and AIOps at speed, scalability, and in real-time.
7. Time Management
Every part of a data engineer’s job can be improved if they have strong time management abilities. In our line of business, there are a lot of things that might keep you up at night, so being able to organize your day and stick to it is a huge plus.
Time management improvements that contribute to happy data engineers include:
- Less worry and stress;
- A more favorable work-life balance;
- On-time project completion;
- More time to devote to own pursuits or leisure activities;
- There will be less procrastinating.
8. API Data
An API is a data access interface for software applications. It enables two apps or devices to communicate with one another for the purpose of completing a certain job. Web apps, for example, employ API to interact between the user-facing front end and the back-end functions and data. In order for data analysts and business analysts to explore the data, data engineers create APIs in databases.
9. Learning the Fundamentals of Distributed Systems
One of the most valuable data engineer skills is to learn Hadoop fluency. The Apache Hadoop software is a system that utilizes basic programming principles to provide for the distributed processing of massive data volumes across clusters of machines. It’s built to expand from a single server to hundreds of devices, each with its own computation and storage capabilities.
10. Algorithm and Data Structure Knowledge
Although data engineers primarily focus on data filtering and refining, comprehending the large picture of the company’s overall data function, as well as defining milestones and ultimate goals for the business issue at hand, requires a fundamental understanding of algorithms.
What Is the Data Engineer Salary in Different Countries?
| Country 🌏 | Average Salary 💰 |
| UK | £ 40,360 |
| Germany | € 56,531 |
| USA | $ 92,541 |
| Canada | C$ 80,554 |
| India | ₹ 560,000 |
Why Would You Want to Work in Data Engineering?
Data engineering is a lucrative and tough field to work in. You’ll play a crucial part in an organization’s performance by making data scientists, researchers, and decision-makers more accessible to the data they need to accomplish their jobs. To build scalable solutions, you’ll use your coding and problem-solving talents.
Read: Data Engineer Roles and Responsibilities
Data engineers with strong soft and hard skills will be in high demand as long as there is data to analyze. Data engineering is one of the top trending careers in the technology industry.
Data engineering isn’t usually a junior position. Many data engineers begin their careers as software engineers or business analysts. As your career progresses, you may be promoted to management positions or work as a data architect, or machine learning expert.
What Are the Requirements to Become a Data Engineer with Skills in Demand in 2022?
You may start or advance a successful career in data engineering with the correct mix of skills and knowledge. A bachelor’s degree in computer science or a similar subject is common among data engineers. You may establish the foundation of knowledge you’ll need in this rapidly changing sector by acquiring a degree.
Consider pursuing a master’s degree to advance your career and gain access to possibly higher-paying positions.
🎓 The 7 Best Data Engineering Courses in 2022:
- IBM Professional Certificate in Data Engineering – a 14-course program in the development of apllications for the collection, storage, and retrieval of big data for meaningful insights.
- Udacity Data Engineer Nanodegree Program – 5 month long intensive course that will teach you how to work with big data, automate data pipelines and build data warehouses.
- Data Engineering Career Path – 21 courses where you will learn how to build data pipelines, use PostgreSQL for data engineering, and analyze large data sets using SQL queries.
- Microsoft Azure Data Engineering Associate DP-203 Exam Prep Specialization – 10 courses offered by Courserra suitable for those with no experience in data engineering and those who have some experience but want to take their skills to the next level.
- Introduction to Designing Data Lakes in AWS – 14-hours course where you will learn data lakes in AWS; one of the best cloud computing platforms for data-intensive workloads.
- Python, Bash and SQL Essentials for Data Engineering – the 4-month course form Duke University that provides overview of these fundamental skills (Python, Bash and SQL) needed for entering the world of data engineering.
- Google Cloud Data Engineer Professional Certification – 5 months course that focuses on the Google Cloud Platform ecosystem, with topics such as BigQuery, Cloud SQL, Cloud Spanner, Dataflow, Firebase and more.
📺 Watch: Autonomous IT Talk w/ Radovan Bacovic, Senior Data Engineer at GitLab.com
