Data Engineer
What Does a Professional in this Career Do?
A Data Engineer designs, builds and manages the information or big data infrastructure. Develops the architecture that helps analyze and process data in the way the organization needs it. Makes sure those systems are performing smoothly.
Job Outlook
There were 1664 Data Engineer job postings in North Carolina in the past year and 43895 in the United States.
In combination with other careers in the Data Engineer industry, which includes the Data Engineer career, the following graph shows the number of people employed for each year since 2015:
Salary
Many new Data Engineer jobs have salaries estimated to be in the following ranges, based on the requirements and responsibilities listed in job postings from the past year.
National
The average estimated salary in the United States for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $111,370.
State
The average estimated salary in North Carolina for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $103,548.
Percentiles represent the percentage that is lower than the value. For example, 25% of estimated salaries for Data Engineer postings in the United States in the past year were lower than $97,886.
Education and Experience
Posted Data Engineer jobs typically require the following level of education. The numbers below are based on job postings in the United States from the past year. Not all job postings list education requirements.
| Education Level | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Associate's Degree | 1.34% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 60.44% |
| Master's Degree | 20.53% |
| Doctoral Degree | 3.42% |
| Other | 2.67% |
Posted Data Engineer jobs typically require the following number of years of experience. The numbers below are based on job postings in the United States from the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.
| Years of Experience | Percentage |
|---|---|
| 0 to 2 years | 12.93% |
| 3 to 5 years | 52.07% |
| 6 to 8 years | 22.08% |
| 9+ years | 12.92% |
Skills
Below are listings of the most common general and specialized skills Data Engineer positions expect applicants to have as well as the most common skills that distinguish individuals from their peers. The percentage of job postings that specifically mention each skill is also listed.
Baseline Skills
A skill that is required across a broad range of occupations, including this one.
- Communication (32%)
- Problem Solving (22.57%)
- Management (21.36%)
- Troubleshooting (Problem Solving) (17.51%)
- Operations (14.46%)
- Leadership (12.46%)
- Innovation (11.68%)
- Mentorship (10.47%)
- Writing (10.29%)
- Research (9.71%)
Defining Skills
A core skill for this occupation, it occurs frequently in job postings.
- Data Engineering (82.99%)
- Databricks (13.81%)
- Data Lakes (14.33%)
- Amazon Web Services (40.76%)
- Data Architecture (12.31%)
- Data Quality (22.49%)
- Big Data (29.08%)
- Scalability (25.95%)
- Java (Programming Language) (24.86%)
- Scala (Programming Language) (19.51%)
- Real Time Data (7.41%)
- Data Integration (14.29%)
- Synapse Citrix (6.23%)
- Azure Data Factory (9.95%)
- Data Warehousing (38.25%)
- Apache Kafka (18.04%)
- Apache Hive (12.39%)
- Data Pipelines (37.16%)
- Computer Science (41.82%)
- Agile Methodology (30.16%)
- Apache Spark (31.43%)
- SQL (Programming Language) (65.33%)
- Amazon Redshift (15.11%)
- Pyspark (9.98%)
- Apache Hadoop (17.93%)
- Data Analysis (25.77%)
- Data Modeling (31.97%)
- Extract Transform Load (ETL) (47.69%)
- Apache Airflow (12.69%)
- Python (Programming Language) (63.35%)
- Microsoft Azure (31.17%)
Necessary Skills
A skill that is requested frequently in this occupation but isn’t specific to it.
- Git (Version Control System) (10.71%)
- Kubernetes (7.63%)
- MySQL (9.51%)
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP) (10.64%)
- Power BI (13.43%)
- Unix (8.68%)
- Workflow Management (13.46%)
- Scripting (13.7%)
- Project Management (8%)
- Business Process (5.48%)
- Data Science (18.35%)
- Linux (10.85%)
- Scrum (Software Development) (8.45%)
- Public Cloud (5.98%)
- Data Management (15.04%)
- Microservices (7.8%)
- Data Visualization (10.05%)
- Artificial Intelligence (8.42%)
- Automation (20.31%)
- Docker (Software) (7.59%)
- Software Development (12.5%)
- Jenkins (6.69%)
- Database Systems (3.4%)
- MongoDB (8.78%)
- Machine Learning (20.37%)
- Business Intelligence (18.09%)
- PostgreSQL (9.77%)
- SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) (7.86%)
- Dashboard (10.41%)
- Tableau (Business Intelligence Software) (14.5%)
- NoSQL (17.44%)
- Relational Database Management Systems (8.23%)
- Github (6.23%)
- Finance (4.73%)
- Software Engineering (13.95%)
- Amazon S3 (11.05%)
- CI/CD (15.99%)
- Application Programming Interface (API) (15.87%)
- DevOps (11.61%)
- Business Requirements (12.49%)
- Relational Databases (12.85%)
- Data Structures (8.99%)
- R (Programming Language) (8.95%)
- Shell Script (7.63%)
- Application Development (7.47%)
- Data Processing (11.49%)
- Data Governance (12.61%)
- Code Review (6.16%)
Distinguishing Skills
A skill that may distinguish a subset of the occupation.
- Azure Databricks (3.54%)
- Data Profiling (2.76%)
- Data Infrastructure (7.71%)
- Informatica (7.83%)
- Dimensional Modeling (2.18%)
- Apache Cassandra (7%)
- Unstructured Data (7.14%)
- Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) (2.6%)
- Distributed Data Store (5.99%)
- Data Ingestion (7.8%)
- MapReduce (4.87%)
- AWS Glue (3.03%)
- Data Storage (6.56%)
- BigQuery (4.44%)
- Data Transformation (6.67%)
- AWS Kinesis (3.38%)
- Azure Data Lake (2.87%)
Salary Boosting Skills
A professional who wishes to excel in this career path may consider developing the following highly valued skills. The percentage of job postings that specifically mention each skill is listed.
- Distributed Data Store (9.07%)
- Apache Hadoop (27.13%)
- Python (Programming Language) (95.89%)
Alternative Job Titles
Sometimes employers post jobs with Data Engineer skills but a different job title. Some common alternative job titles include:
- Lead Data Engineer
- Database Engineer
- Big Data Engineer
- Azure Engineer
- Principal Engineer
- Analytics Engineer
- Data Engineer/Consultant
- Staff Data Engineer
- Manager/Data Engineer
Similar Occupations
If you are interested in exploring occupations with similar skills, you may want to research the following job titles. Note that we only list occupations that have at least one corresponding NC State Online and Distance Education program.
- ETL Developer
- Data Warehouse Developer
- Database Architect
- Database Analyst / Developer
- Data Manager
- SQL Developer
Common Employers
Here are the employers that have posted the most Data Engineer jobs in the past year along with how many they have posted.
United States
- Capital One (1704)
- Randstad (578)
- Kforce (475)
- Guidehouse (469)
- Humana (441)
- UnitedHealth Group (435)
- Travelers (388)
- Ford (346)
- Larsen & Toubro (340)
- Motion Recruitment (335)
North Carolina
- Randstad (110)
- Eliassen Group (37)
- MetLife (34)
- Fidelity Investments (30)
- Wells Fargo (29)
- Cognizant Technology Solutions (28)
- ManpowerGroup (27)
- Robert Half (27)
- Spectraforce Technologies (26)
- Charlotte, Nc (23)
NC State Programs Relevant to this Career
If you are interested in preparing for a career in this field, the following NC State Online and Distance Education programs offer a great place to start!
- Agriculture Data Science Graduate Certificates
- Data Science Foundations Graduate Certificates
- Engineering – 2+2 Undergraduate Degrees
- Foundations of Data Science Master's Degrees
- Statistics Master's Degrees
All wages, job posting statistics, employment trend projections, and information about skill desirability on this page represents historical data and does not guarantee future conditions. Data is provided by and downloaded regularly from Lightcast. For more information about how Lightcast gathers data and what it represents, see Lightcast Data: Basic Overview on Lightcast's Knowledge Base website.