Data Engineering 101: Introduction to Data Engineering

As data becomes ever more critical to organizations of all sizes, there has been a need for more data professionals such as Data Scientists, Data Analysts, ML Engineers and Data Engineers. In this article, we'll go through the difference between data engineering and data science and the skills of a data engineer.

What is Data Engineering?

Data engineering is the practice of designing and building systems for collecting, storing, and analyzing data at scale.

Who is a Data Engineer?

A Data Engineer is responsible for ingesting data from different sources, optimizing databases for analysis, removing corrupted data and developing, testing and maintaining data architectures.
Generally, a Data Engineer makes data accessible so that organizations can use it to evaluate and optimize their performance.

Data Engineering vs Data Science

Data Engineering focuses on building infrastructure and architecture for data generation, while Data Science focuses on advanced mathematics and statistical analysis of the generated data. It is not a requirement for a data engineer to have advanced math or statistics skills, unlike a data scientist.

Skills that a Data Engineer should have?

Listed below are some of the skills that a data engineer should have.

1. Programming: Python, Java or Scala.
2. Scripting and Automation: Shell, Cron
3. Databases: SQL, NoSQL, Data Modeling and Map Reduce
4. Data Analysis: Pandas, Numpy, Web Scraping, Data Visualization
5. Data Processing Techniques: Batch Processing, Stream Processing, Build Data Pipelines, Target Databases, Machine learning Algorithms
6. Big Data: HDFS, Hadoop Yarn, Sqoop Hadoop, Hadoop Yarn, Hive, Pig, Hbase
7. Workflows and Scheduling: Airflow, Jenkins, Autosys, Java Spring
8. Cloud Computing: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure
9. Infrastructure: Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform

N.B: This is not a comprehensive list of skills, nor does it mean that you should master everything listed here.

The average salary for a Data Engineer

According to Payscale, the average salary for a Data Engineer is $93,654 per year. However, salaries depend on various variables such as the type of role, skills, experience, and location.