{"id":174920,"date":"2023-12-09T20:49:10","date_gmt":"2023-12-09T19:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/liora.io\/en\/?p=174920"},"modified":"2026-02-06T08:42:39","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T07:42:39","slug":"become-a-data-engineer-the-must-have-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/liora.io\/en\/become-a-data-engineer-the-must-have-skills","title":{"rendered":"Become a Data Engineer \u2013 The Must-Have Skills"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Data-related professions, whether in Big Data, transformation, artificial intelligence, etc., require a panoply of knowledge and tools that you need to master, if not have at least some notions of.<\/strong><\/p><p>These different professions require different levels of knowledge and\/or expertise. For the purposes of this article, we&#8217;re going to <a href=\"https:\/\/liora.io\/en\/cloud-data-engineer-course-the-best-options\">focus on the Data Engineer profession.<\/a><\/p><p>As a reminder, the Data Engineer is responsible for developing <a href=\"https:\/\/liora.io\/en\/all-about-data-pipeline\">data pipelines<\/a> and ensuring their high availability and maintenance. They must also be able to understand and analyze data science algorithms.<\/p>\t\t\n\t\t\t<figure>\n  <table>\n    <tbody>\n      <tr>\n        <td data-align=\"center\"><strong><em>Domain<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n        <td data-align=\"center\"><strong><em>Summary<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n        <td data-align=\"center\"><strong><em>Example Technologies<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n      <\/tr>\n      <tr>\n        <td data-align=\"center\"><strong>Operating Systems<\/strong><\/td>\n        <td data-align=\"center\">Excellent mastery of operating systems<\/td>\n        <td data-align=\"center\">Windows, Linux, Solaris<\/td>\n      <\/tr>\n      <tr>\n        <td data-align=\"center\"><strong>Development<\/strong><\/td>\n        <td data-align=\"center\">Perfect command of programming languages<\/td>\n        <td data-align=\"center\">Python, R, Scala<\/td>\n      <\/tr>\n      <tr>\n        <td data-align=\"center\"><strong>Database<\/strong><\/td>\n        <td data-align=\"center\">Expertise in database manipulation<\/td>\n        <td data-align=\"center\">SQL, MongoDB, Neo4j<\/td>\n      <\/tr>\n      <tr>\n        <td data-align=\"center\"><strong>Big Data<\/strong><\/td>\n        <td data-align=\"center\">Expertise in managing large data volumes<\/td>\n        <td data-align=\"center\">Hive, HBase<\/td>\n      <\/tr>\n      <tr>\n        <td data-align=\"center\"><strong>Machine Learning<\/strong><\/td>\n        <td data-align=\"center\">Knowledge of certain algorithms and understanding of their functioning<\/td>\n        <td data-align=\"center\">Scikit-learn, Matplotlib<\/td>\n      <\/tr>\n      <tr>\n        <td data-align=\"center\"><strong>Communication<\/strong><\/td>\n        <td data-align=\"center\">Excellent communication and ability to simplify work<\/td>\n        <td data-align=\"center\">Emails, presentations<\/td>\n      <\/tr>\n      <tr>\n        <td data-align=\"center\"><strong>Deployment and APIs<\/strong><\/td>\n        <td data-align=\"center\">Excellent understanding of API functioning<\/td>\n        <td data-align=\"center\">FastAPI, Flask<\/td>\n      <\/tr>\n      <tr>\n        <td data-align=\"center\"><strong>Data Warehouse<\/strong><\/td>\n        <td data-align=\"center\">Knowledge of cloud technologies<\/td>\n        <td data-align=\"center\">Azure, AWS, Snowflake<\/td>\n      <\/tr>\n    <\/tbody>\n  <\/table>\n<\/figure>\n\t\t<p>Must-have skills can be grouped into different categories.<\/p><ul><li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><strong>Database tools :<\/strong> Storing, organizing and handling large volumes of data is essential for the data engineer. <a href=\"https:\/\/liora.io\/en\/sql-vs-nosql\">Mastery of SQL and NoSQL technologies<\/a> is imperative, and an integral part of daily work.<\/li><li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><strong>Development<\/strong> is an integral part of the Data Engineer&#8217;s job. The most commonly used languages are Python, R and <a href=\"https:\/\/liora.io\/en\/comparing-scala-and-python-choosing-the-right-language-for-your-projects*\">Scala<\/a>. However, his knowledge of development also enables him to quickly upgrade to languages he doesn&#8217;t necessarily master, such as Golang, Ruby or Perl, to name but a few.<\/li><li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><strong>Data warehousing.<\/strong> These are modern, mainly cloud-oriented technologies that enable data to be stored and accessed easily. The main players in data warehousing are Amazon with Redshift, and Microsoft with Azure <a href=\"https:\/\/liora.io\/en\/sql-learn-all-about-the-programming-language-for-databases\">SQL Database.<\/a><\/li><li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><strong>But Google&#8217;s Big Query<\/strong> and <a href=\"https:\/\/liora.io\/en\/snowflake-training-master-the-1st-cloud-data-warehouse\">Snowflake are also technologies that may be in demand.<\/a><br>It may seem obvious, but a strong knowledge of Windows and Linux operating systems is essential.<\/li><li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\">As data volumes can be very large, the Data Engineer needs to be proficient in analyzing them (and the associated tools). <a href=\"https:\/\/liora.io\/en\/hadoop-what-is-it\">Hadoop-based solutions<\/a>, such as Hive or HBase, are among the most sought-after tools, and therefore the most important to master.<\/li><li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\">Skills in understanding Machine Learning algorithms. This is primarily the core business of <strong>Data Scientists,<\/strong> but their understanding (without entering into the same level of competence) is important for Data Engineers. This will enable them to have a good understanding of how their data will be used, but also to be able to act on these algorithms if necessary.<\/li><li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\">Although it may still seem obvious, strong communication skills are essential. <strong>Data Engineers<\/strong> will have to collaborate and present results to colleagues or managers who do not have the necessary expertise to grasp the various analyses. The ability to communicate in layman&#8217;s terms and make oneself understood by one&#8217;s audience is very important, whether in person, or now increasingly remotely, via presentations or e-mails.<\/li><li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\">Knowledge of the steps involved in putting data into production, particularly via <strong>APIs<\/strong>, is very important for the Data Engineer.<\/li><li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\">Indeed, they will be required to write APIs to enable users and other services to perform actions on datasets and Machine Learning models. The<a href=\"https:\/\/liora.io\/en\/docker-tutorial-how-to-create-your-first-container\"> use of Docker<\/a> and Kubernetes to ensure seamless deployment is essential.<\/li><\/ul><p>We hope this article has shed some light on the skills required of<strong> any self-respecting Data Engineer.<\/strong> However, we mustn&#8217;t forget that these professions are constantly evolving, and so it&#8217;s vital to their performance that Data Engineers maintain a constant technological watch.<\/p>\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/liora.io\/app\/uploads\/2022\/09\/DE-Must-Have-Skills_schema_070922.png\" title=\"\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\">\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<figcaption><\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<p>To becopme a Data Engineer, find out more about the Liora training program.<\/p>\t\t\n\t\t\t\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex is-content-justification-center\"><div class=\"wp-block-button \"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button \" href=\"\/en\/courses\/data-ai\/data-engineer\">Discover the Data Engineer career path<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Data-related professions, whether in Big Data, transformation, artificial intelligence, etc., require a panoply of knowledge and tools that you need to master, if not have at least some notions of. These different professions require different levels of knowledge and\/or expertise. For the purposes of this article, we&#8217;re going to focus on the Data Engineer profession. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":174921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[2433],"class_list":["post-174920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-data-ai"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liora.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liora.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liora.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liora.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liora.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/liora.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206186,"href":"https:\/\/liora.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174920\/revisions\/206186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liora.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liora.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liora.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}