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 1457 Data Engineer job postings in North Carolina in the past year and 39469 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 2016:
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 $115,557.
State
The average estimated salary in North Carolina for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $115,048.
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 $100,903.
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 | 0% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 58.76% |
| Master's Degree | 21.44% |
| Doctoral Degree | 2.5% |
| Other | 2.49% |
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 | 11.16% |
| 3 to 5 years | 51.5% |
| 6 to 8 years | 22.97% |
| 9+ years | 14.37% |
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 (35%)
- Problem Solving (29.4%)
- Troubleshooting (Problem Solving) (22.01%)
- Management (18.66%)
- Innovation (14.7%)
- Operations (14.29%)
- Leadership (13.8%)
- Information Technology (11.24%)
- Mentorship (11.18%)
- Governance (10.49%)
Defining Skills
A core skill for this occupation, it occurs frequently in job postings.
- Data Engineering (92.55%)
- SQL (Programming Language) (69.64%)
- Python (Programming Language) (68.07%)
- Extract Transform Load (ETL) (57.14%)
- Data Pipelines (53.22%)
- Computer Science (44.77%)
- Data Warehousing (40.24%)
- Amazon Web Services (41.09%)
- Data Modeling (41.14%)
- Scalability (42.7%)
- Apache Spark (26.19%)
- Microsoft Azure (34.14%)
- Big Data (27.34%)
- Agile Methodology (27.97%)
- Data Quality (31.99%)
- Data Analysis (25.1%)
- Snowflake (Data Warehouse) (25.22%)
- Automation (23.89%)
- Java (Programming Language) (19.49%)
- Business Intelligence (20.62%)
- Scala (Programming Language) (18.02%)
- Databricks (22.14%)
- Apache Hadoop (15.46%)
- Data Lakes (17.09%)
- Apache Airflow (17.05%)
- Amazon Redshift (15.44%)
- PySpark (13.24%)
- Apache Hive (9.73%)
- Azure Data Factory (12.73%)
- Data Ingestion (12.11%)
- Data Infrastructure (12.2%)
- Informatica (7.92%)
- Data Transformation (8.58%)
- Unstructured Data (8.04%)
Necessary Skills
A skill that is requested frequently in this occupation but isn’t specific to it.
- Machine Learning (20.83%)
- Data Science (19.01%)
- Apache Kafka (18.24%)
- CI/CD (21.37%)
- Workflow Management (24.94%)
- Data Governance (21.36%)
- Application Programming Interface (API) (17.73%)
- Data Management (14.62%)
- Data Integration (18.71%)
- NoSQL (14.95%)
- Scripting (15.87%)
- Tableau (Business Intelligence Software) (13.91%)
- Power BI (16.12%)
- Data Processing (18.39%)
- Data Architecture (16.84%)
- Software Engineering (12.86%)
- Business Requirements (13.51%)
- Relational Databases (13.01%)
- DevOps (12.53%)
- Programming Languages (12.22%)
- Software Development (9.61%)
- Dashboard (12.17%)
- Data Visualization (11.88%)
- Git (Version Control System) (11.26%)
- PostgreSQL (10.29%)
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP) (11.25%)
- Artificial Intelligence (12.68%)
- Data Structures (7.71%)
- R (Programming Language) (7.4%)
- Scrum (Software Development) (7.82%)
- Data Security (11.45%)
- Version Control (10.62%)
- Information Systems (9.45%)
- Project Management (8.22%)
- Kubernetes (8.06%)
- Statistics (6.56%)
- Docker (Software) (7.06%)
- SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) (6.6%)
- Data Storage (9.29%)
- MySQL (7.14%)
Distinguishing Skills
A skill that may distinguish a subset of the occupation.
- Real Time Data (7.04%)
- Google BigQuery (7.39%)
- Azure Synapse Analytics (4.61%)
- Azure Databricks (4.36%)
- AWS Glue (5.32%)
- AWS Kinesis (3.96%)
- Distributed Data Store (4.91%)
- Azure Data Lake (4.33%)
- Talend (3.17%)
- Synapse Citrix (3.09%)
- MapReduce (2.81%)
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.
- Informatica (9.24%)
- AWS Kinesis (4.62%)
- Big Data (31.92%)
- Computer Science (52.26%)
- Apache Hive (11.36%)
- Python (Programming Language) (79.46%)
- Apache Spark (30.57%)
- PySpark (15.45%)
- Apache Flink (3.71%)
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
- Manager/Data Engineer
- Azure Engineer
- Big Data Engineer
- Staff Data Engineer
- Principal Engineer
- Analytics Engineer
- Business Intelligence Engineer
- Data Engineering Intern
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
- Data Manager
- Business Intelligence Developer / Architect
- Data Analyst
- Database Architect
- Database Analyst / 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
- Amazon (847)
- Insight Global (709)
- Eliassen Group (652)
- Capital One (544)
- Robert Half (525)
- GovCIO (474)
- Cardinal Health (355)
- CVS Health (351)
- The Judge Group (326)
- General Motors (323)
North Carolina
- Randstad (36)
- The Hartford (35)
- Truist Financial (26)
- Lowe's (24)
- ManpowerGroup (24)
- Strategic Staffing Solutions (21)
- Motion Recruitment (19)
- Wells Fargo (19)
- Insight Global (17)
- Genesis10 (17)
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
- 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.