In today’s highly competitive job market, if you know how to mine big data, then you are in for handsome compensation. No wonder data engineering has become a touchstone discipline for businesses as well as its practitioners. Businesses from all industries are now seeking skilled professionals from the big data industry to make more informed decisions, determine their key performance indicators, and stay competitive in the market. The most common job in this field is the big data engineer – someone who works with sophisticated tools and software and is a crucial point of information and success for organizations.
If you are new to this field, the role of a big data engineer may not garner much attention initially. The role of a data scientist is rather hyped in the digital world. However, when you step into this data-driven industry, you will understand that the data engineer job is a promising career option associated with several career benefits. In fact, many professionals are seeking Data engineer courses to build a strong foundation in this domain.
Do you want to have a clear understanding of the job outlook of a big data engineer? Read on to find out what does the future hold for a data engineer job.
Job Outlook of a Data Engineer
Let us look at some of the important surveys and reports that highlight the growing popularity of the data engineering field. Considering the Dice Tech Job Report 2020, for example, we come to know that data engineering is the fastest-growing job in technology with an estimated 50% Y-o-Y growth in the number of open job positions. Further, AIM Research conducted the annual salary study in June 2021 and found that data engineers commanded a greater average salary than data scientists or AI engineers. In fact, Cloudera, SAS, Google, and IBM have launched data engineering certification programs to help professionals polish their skills in this domain.
According to LinkedIn’s US Jobs on the Rise report, the data engineer role made it to the list of top emerging jobs with around 35% average annual growth. The top skills required to succeed in such a role were SQL, R, and Tableau. The top US regions where data engineers are in high demand are Washington, the Greater Chicago area, the DC-Baltimore area, and Atlanta metropolitan area.
Here are the top reasons that are driving the demand for data engineering talent (as per the State of Data Engineering report) –
- Data has become integral to a company’s operations. Data engineers own the analysis and organization of business data.
- Due to the advances in machine learning, firms are getting access to proprietary data and taking competitive advantage. Data engineers perform the key strategic function of collecting and making this data available.
- Today, companies are building data products and are scrambling to hire people that build and maintain data systems. Spotify, Airbnb, and Uber are some popular examples.
Salary Prospects
As pointed out by CareerFoundry, data engineer was at a low rank of 33 on Glassdoor’s list of top 50 most sought-after job roles in the US in 2018. By 2020, the rank moved to a whopping number 6, revealing that the average salary of data engineers increased from $100,000 in 2018 to $112,493 in 2021. The salary varies on a number of factors like years of experience, location, company, and so on.
Payscale points out that entry-level data engineers earn around $58K to 78K. There are some skills that can help you earn more salaries, like Python programming, Structured Query Language (SQL), Hadoop, Apache Spark, basic knowledge of data analytics, big data architectures, and ETL procedures (Extract, Transform, Load).
Similarly, mid-career data engineers with around 5 to 9 of experience can earn around $79K to $104K. Apart from the skills mentioned for entry-level data engineers, mid-career professionals can polish their skills along with knowledge of additional databases, warehousing products like Amazon Redshift and PostgreSQL, Apache Hive, and Apache Kafka.
Lastly, a senior-level data engineer can earn a median salary of around $86K to $117K per year in the US. On reaching this level, you are expected to have expert knowledge of all the skills mentioned above along with Java, Scala programming, and a broader understanding of big data analytics.
Bottom Line
Now that you have a clear understanding of the job outlook of a data engineer, would you not want to become one? If you are interested, there are a number of reliable data engineering training programs online to help you become job-ready. For example, Simplilearn’s Big Data Engineer Master’s program designed in collaboration with IBM imparts you all the necessary skills that employers seek for their data engineer open positions. With Masterclass by IBM experts, Ask me anything sessions with IBM leadership, and Hackathons conducted by IBM, learners get a full-fledged practical learning experience apart from the theoretical classes.
Enroll in a reliable training program today and witness a flourishing career as a data engineer in the future.
