Traits of Great Data Engineers

Adrian Macal
5 min readMar 22, 2023

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On the hunt for exceptional talent to upgrade your data team? Find versatile professionals who can take on any challenge and adapt to various scenarios, making your team ready to conquer any data project.

I was pondering how data engineers operate these days and noticed there’s quite a gap between various data professionals. It feels like data engineers are often underrated, with people assuming they just shuffle data around. But that is not really beneficial for companies. It creates teams where everyone just handles a single task before passing it along. To make things better, data professionals should be open to learning and expanding their skills in different areas, ultimately becoming Great Data Engineers.

Data Engineer is a Software Developer

When thinking like software developers, great data engineers are good at many programming languages, not just Python or Scala. They can change how they work based on what a project needs, making their solutions easy to keep up and efficient. They know about things like OOP design and functional programming, which helps them make flexible solutions that can change as needed.

Great data engineers can work with different languages and systems showing off their skills as software developers. They also make sure their code is high-quality, works well, and is easy to maintain. They follow good practices like version control and automated testing, so their data systems meet high standards. They can even build great APIs, just like skilled software developers.

Data Engineer is a DevOps Engineer

With a DevOps mindset, great data engineers know how to connect development and operations to make deploying and managing data systems easier. They use DevOps ways to make a smooth workflow that fixes problems and makes data products fast and reliable. They use tools to automate setting up and managing data systems, which helps to avoid mistakes and make things work better. They also know that monitoring is important to keep data systems healthy and fix issues fast. They’re good at using CI/CD pipelines to make sure their code is always good, tested, and up-to-date, making the system more efficient and stable.

Data Engineer is a Cloud Developer

When thinking like a cloud developer, great data engineers use cloud computing platforms to make scalable and flexible data systems. By using cloud technologies, they improve cost, efficiency, and how easy it is to change their data systems for their company’s needs. They know a lot about cloud providers and can choose the best cloud solutions for data storage, processing, and analysis.

Great data engineers also focus on security when working with cloud systems. They keep learning about the newest security ways and are aware cloud provider changes, so their data systems are safe from threats and follow the right standards and company policies.

Data Engineer is a Data Architect

When thinking like a data architect, great data engineers see the whole picture and find possible problems in the company’s data systems. They know how to fix performance issues, protect data, and think about how it affects people.

Great data engineers understand how data moves in the company and can plan the data structure well. They choose the right tools and technologies and know how to use data systems like SQL and NoSQL databases, data warehouses, and real-time processing. They are skilled in data modeling and can make systems that handle a lot of data and hard tasks.

By seeing the whole data situation, they can guess and get ready for future needs, while keeping the data system flexible and strong.

Data Engineer is a Data Analyst

Data analysts change raw data into useful information for making smart decisions. Great data engineers have the right skills for data analysis, like knowing statistics and how to use data visualization tools. They understand the data they work with and what their users need. They can find the meaning in data and see trends that help make business plans.

Great data engineers are curious and think carefully about data. They want to find out what the data means and use it to find chances, solve problems, and make new things. They also know about the tools and technologies for data analysis. This helps them pick the best tools for their work, making their analysis helpful, fast, and easy for people to use.

Data Engineer is a BI Developer

Business Intelligence developers make reporting solutions to help companies use data to make decisions. Great data engineers know it’s important to show data in nice looking and easy to understand ways. They can use business intelligence tools to make interactive dashboards and reports with helpful information for decision makers.

Great data engineers are skilled in data modeling techniques, so they can create useful data marts. They know concepts like star schema or denormalization, making their data models fit their company’s needs. They’re also excellent at SQL and use it to make data tasks easier. Their SQL skills help them explore and understand data better, giving useful insights to the people they work with.

Data Engineer is a Machine Learning Engineer

Machine Learning engineers make and keep models that predict things and find patterns in data. Great data engineers know about machine learning methods and can build, train, and make models better. They’re good at changing raw data into useful inputs for models and making models work well and give correct results. They also handle complex parts of data science easily.

Great data engineers help with model and data versioning, which is very important for working together and keeping the machine learning process strong. By using versioning, they make sure their solutions are trustworthy and clear.

Data Engineer is a Data Scientist

Data engineers with data scientist mindset use statistics and machine learning to study complex data and make prediction models. They know math and model structures, so they know what machine learning can do and can’t do. Great data engineers understand data science, which helps them change hard ideas into useful information for their company. They know about model details and can choose or make models for solving problems.

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Adrian Macal
Adrian Macal

Written by Adrian Macal

Software Developer, Data Engineer with solid knowledge of Business Intelligence. Passionate about programming.

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