Data Engineer
Career Area: Information Technology
Occupation Group: Database Specialists
Salary
Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.
An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.
A typical Data Engineer earns the following wages (national and state):
State
The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $112,017
National
The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $116,137
What Does a Professional in this Career Do?
Designs, builds and manages the information or big data infrastructure. Develops the architecture that helps analyze and process data-áin the way the organization needs it. Makes sure those systems are performing smoothly.
Employment Trends
The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.
Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:
| Location | Growth | |
|---|---|---|
| North Carolina | 1949 | +13.1% |
| Nationwide | 46181 | +9% |
Skills
A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:
Baseline Skills
The following are baseline skills every Data Engineer is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:
- Teamwork / Collaboration: Experience working in collaborative efforts with a team to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way.
- Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
- Problem Solving: Problem solving consists of using generic or ad hoc methods, in an orderly manner, for finding solutions to problems.
- Writing: Experience expressing business messages effectively in written form. This may include planning drafting and revising as necessary.
- Troubleshooting: Troubleshooting or dpanneuring is a form of problem solving, often applied to repair failed products or processes on a machine or a system.
Specialized Skills
These skills are specific to working in this career:
- Python: Python is a widely used high-level programming language for general-purpose programming, created by Guido van Rossum and first released in 1991.
- SQL: SQL ( ESS-kew-EL or SEE-kwl, Structured Query Language) is a domain-specific language used in programming and designed for managing data held in a relational database management system (RDBMS), or for stream processing in a relational data stream management system (RDSMS).
- Extraction Transformation and Loading (ETL): In computing, Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) refers to a process in database usage and especially in data warehousing.
- Pipeline (Computing): Working experience of pipelines. In computing, a pipeline is a set of data processing elements connected in series, where the output of one element is the input of the next one.
- Big Data: Big data is a term for data sets that are so large or complex that traditional data processing application software is inadequate to deal with them.
Distinguishing Skills
Any Data Engineer that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:
- Amazon Web Services (AWS): Working experience with one or many of Amazon's cloud computing platforms. These platforms allows subscribers to have at their disposal a full-fledged virtual cluster of computers, available all the time, through the Internet.
- Relational DataBase Management System (RDBMS): A relational database management system (RDBMS) is a database management system (DBMS) that is based on the relational model as invented by Edgar F.Codd, of IBM's San Jose Research Laboratory.
- MongoDB: MongoDB is a free and open-source cross-platform document-oriented database program.
- Big Data Analytics: Working experience of Big Data Analytics, which refers to the use of predictive analytics, user behavior analytics, or certain other advanced data analytics methods that extract value from big data - data sets that are so voluminous and complex that traditional data-processing application software are inadequate to deal with them.
- Cassandra: Apache Cassandra is a free and open-source distributed NoSQL database management system designed to handle large amounts of data across many commodity servers, providing high availability with no single point of failure.
Experience
This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.
| Experience Required | % |
| 0 to 2 years | 13% |
| 3 to 5 years | 57% |
| 6 to 8 years | 21% |
Many of the programs offered through NC State are designed for working professionals who need additional credentials to enhance existing work experience.
Students who do not have the expected level of experience may wish to look into internship and employment opportunities.
Common Job Titles
It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:
- Data Engineer
- Senior Data Engineer
- Big Data Engineer
- Lead Data Engineer
- Azure Data Engineer
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