Another common question I hear is what is the difference between a database administrator or a DBA and a data engineer? I think the best way to describe the difference is that the database administrator or DBA knows the platform while the data engineer knows the data. So a DBA will focus on creating and improving queries, optimizing the database to run as efficiently as possible, and of course, maintaining backups and data integrity.

The data engineer will be aware of the database structures, but focused on the data within that database. So the DBA might be focused on creating a query or a stored procedure. The data engineer will ask for improvements to that query or stored procedure to best reduce issues with the data that is being returned by it, e.g. removing duplicate rows that are in the dataset due to a possible human error, etc. It's a very viable career path to move from DBA to data engineer.

If you look at industry benchmarks, you'll see data engineers are generally well remunerated and often paid more than DBAs. I'm hoping this is sounding slightly curious and you're interested and you're now data curious. Now, remember every skill needed to be a data engineer is learned. It's not a question of whether you think you could do it or not. It is a question of whether you think it would be interesting to you or not.

Let's now look at the skills and character traits that often work well for a data engineer so you can start to define whether this role might be right for you.

Lectures

Introduction - What Does a Data Engineer Do? - Data Engineer vs. Data Scientist - Key Skills of a Data Engineer - Key Traits of a Data Engineer - Is This Role Right For Me?