Big data engineer

The best and the most productive way of becoming a big data engineer

The universe of data science is developing, and it’s evolving quickly. In bygone times, all your data was readily accessible in a solitary database, which data scientists take care of and harness insights. As organizations grow, increasingly more data sources definitely get added. Some of that information shows up in clumps and others stream in through different channels. For this, the need for a big data engineer has emerged.

Most of us don’t have an idea about what a big data engineer does, its responsibilities and how it is different from a data scientist. This ambiguity can be cleared once we begin understanding roles & responsibilities with adept skill sets and tracking down the best and productive way of becoming a big data engineer. Let’s get started!

Who is a Big Data Engineer?

To put it simply, Data Engineers are the ones who create, develop, test and maintain the complete architecture of the large-scale processing system. Their responsibilities are very different from a data scientist.

What Skills Big Data Engineers Need to Have?

Skilled at Programming

Though it is important for data scientists, programming skills are crucial for big data engineers as well. Before we jump into the tools you’ll need to learn, you need to comprehend that data engineers lay at the intersection of data science and software engineering. If you wish to become a data engineer, you’ll need to initially turn into a software engineer. Brush up your basic programming skills and go ahead to learn new skills such as R, Python, etc.

Data Structures

A data structure is a method of streamlining data for better management. While dealing with data, you need to keep it in a productive order so you can access it easily. Hence, big data aspirants, you need to learn and understand different data structures. The more data structures you are adept with, the better. Some of them are Graph,  Array, Binary Tree, Matrix, etc.

Understand Databases

As a big data engineer, it’s important to comprehend your databases. For this, you need to learn SQL. SQL has  multiple dialects. However, unlike learning all types of data structures, you don’t really have to know all of the SQL dialects. Yet, you should focus on learning PostgreSQL and MySQL

Big Data Tools

As discussed earlier, you also need hands-on experience in using different big data tools. There are many well-known tools in this field, which are Apache Kafka, Apache Hadoop, Apache Spark, etc. Try learning more about them. Learning about these big data tools and innovation is important because they make the operation of data storage and management seamless. If you wish to apply for a big data engineer job, this skill is the most demanded one.

Go Through a Course

Having these skills is very important. However, we recommend you join a full-time course to help you prepare for the job. Through such courses, you get an opportunity to work on real-world use cases and enhance your skills. If you aren’t aware of big data engineering, you can join a beginners course through which you can learn about advanced concepts as well.