Key Skills for a high-growth career as a Data Engineer
There is an increased demand for data engineers in the current job market. According to the World Economic Forum, Data engineers or data warehouse specialists are among the fastest growing jobs from 2025-30.
As the demand for data engineers is on the rise, it would be highly beneficial for aspirants to learn in-demand data engineer skills that can boost their career opportunities. This article discusses some of the fundamental skills needed for a data engineer to excel in the field of data.
Who Is A Data Engineer ?
The data within an organization can be stored in various formats, such as SQL databases, AWS S3 buckets or plain old CSV files. The raw data is then cleaned and transformed into a more usable format, enabling analysis and extraction of meaningful insights. Finally, predictive analysis is performed on the processed data sets.
Data engineers are responsible for the first step in this process, where they build and optimise systems for data analysts and scientists. The key-role of data engineer is to build data pipelines to transform raw data into a desirable format, which can be used by data scientists and analysts to to make BI dashboards and machine learning models respectively.
Key responsibilities of a data engineer include,
Designing and building data pipelines
Ensure the quality of data
Preparing data for data analysis
Data integration
Coordinating with data scientists and data analysts
Key Data Engineer Skills
There are some common data engineer skills that determine the expertise and proficiency of a data engineer. Below we discuss some of the primary skills needed for a data engineer to build a successful career.
1. SQL and Data base management
SQL or Structured Query Language is a domain specific language that is used to communicate with relational databases. It is a widely used language in various industries. For an instance, an e-commerce company like Amazon, might apply SQL to analyse sales data and trends to make informed decisions that boost their growth. Gaining proficiency in SQL is one of the most important skills required to become a data engineer.
2.ETL and Data Pipelines
Data engineers perform ETL(extract, transform, and load) on raw datasets
to transfer them into a data warehouse. This process involves data pipelines that convert available data into a usable and applicable format.
In a nutshell, ETL can be defined as a process of combining data from different sources into a single, large data warehouse. This ability to design ETL pipelines in an efficient manner is considered one among the top skills for a data engineer.
3.Programming
A deep understanding of Programming languages is part of the basic data engineering skills required for data engineering jobs. Knowledge of programming languages is an important element in the field of data engineering enabling optimal manipulation and analysis of data.
Strong grasp of popular and widely used programming languages like Python is among the top skills for data engineers. Other programming languages include R, which is used for statistical analysis, data visualisation and machine learning and SAS which is used to perform complex statistical analysis.
4. Cloud Computing
As a data engineer, cloud computing refers to the use of platforms like Azure, AWS or Google Cloud to store and manage large sets of data. This combination of data engineer skills with cloud computing is highly beneficial, as in recent years companies are migrating their big data projects to cloud.
If you are interested in pursuing data engineer jobs in 2025, gaining familiarity with above mentioned data engineer skills required, can lead you to a career of success. Understanding how the top skills for data engineers align with your abilities and interests will help you determine whether data engineering is the right career option for you. It is highly recommended to develop these in-demand data engineer skills that guarantee you a high paying career with extensive future scope and growth.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
The first step towards building a career in data engineering is to enrol in a bachelors degree in computer science, data science, IT or engineering. Gain necessary data engineer skills, along with relevant experience and certifications to land in a higher paying position in the field of data engineering.
As a data engineer in India, with one to seven years of experience in the field, you can expect an annual salary around Rs. Rs.3.6 lakhs - Rs. 20 lakhs.
(Salary source: Ambitionbox)
Yes, a data engineer does coding. They should gain familiarity with various coding languages like Python, Java, R, SQL, NoSQL, and Scala to build and manage data pipelines and structure. It is among the important skills required to become a data engineer.
Yes, data engineering is a profession that is highly in demand today. This growing profession is offering numerous opportunities with attractive pay scales making it a feasible career choice for many.
Achieving a job as a data engineer is based on various subjective elements. If you are someone with a great experience level and knowledge of programming languages, coding, ETL, SQL and other skills needed for data engineer, the process of getting a job in this field can be comparatively easier. However, this process can be challenging to some candidates.