Data Engineer Learning Path

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 Table of Contents
How to Become a Data Engineer With No Experience?..................................................... 4

What is Data Engineering? ............................................................................................... 4

Why do companies hire a Data Engineer? ...................................................................... 4

Data Engineer: Job Growth in Future .............................................................................. 4

What do Data Engineers do? ........................................................................................... 5

Data Engineering Requirements ...................................................................................... 5

Data Engineer Learning Path: Self-Taught ...................................................................... 6

Learn Data Engineering through Practical Projects ....................................................... 8

Azure Data Engineer Vs AWS Data Engineer Vs GCP Data Engineer ........................... 9

FAQs on Data Engineer Job Role .......................................................................................11

How long does it take to become a data engineer?.......................................................11

How much python should you know to become a data engineer? ..............................11

How to become a data engineer without a degree ? .....................................................11

How to become a data engineer from a BI developer? .................................................11

How to become a data engineer from being a data analyst? ........................................11

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Data Engineering is gradually becoming a popular career option for young enthusiasts.
What is the precise reason behind it? Explore this page further and learn everything
about data engineers to find the answer. We will cover it all, from its definition, skills,
responsibilities to the significance of data engineer in an institution.

Furthermore, we will also lay out a learning path on how to become a data engineer that
will help one explore this exciting domain. So, get set, go!

Take a look at the image below and notice the exponential growth of data we humans
produce every year. The graph makes it pretty evident that data is the future, and it is high
time businesses start considering it as a helpful resource.

Source: Image uploaded by Tawfik Borgi on (researchgate.net)

So, what is the first step towards leveraging data? The first step is to work on cleaning it
and eliminating the unwanted information in the dataset so that data analysts and data
scientists can use it for analysis. That needs to be done because raw data is painful to read
and work with. Making raw data more readable and accessible falls under the umbrella of a
data engineer’s responsibilities. Thus, given that a data engineer is the first to interact with
the data resource, anyone’s curiosity about pursuing a data engineer career path is justified.
And for such curious beings, ProjectPro has prepared a blueprint to help beginners learn
data engineering from scratch effortlessly.

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How to Become a Data Engineer With No
Experience?
If you have landed on this page, you will likely be looking for a learning path that can list all
the data engineering tools and guide you about a source for learning them. ProjectPro has
precisely that in this section, but before presenting it, we would like to answer a few
common questions to strengthen your inclination towards data engineering further.

What is Data Engineering?

Data Engineering refers to creating practical designs for systems that can extract, keep, and
inspect data at a large scale. It involves building pipelines that can fetch data from the
source, transform it into a usable form, and analyze variables present in the data. These
pipelines draw hidden insights about a business’s overall functioning and help stakeholders
understand their customers, outreach, sales, etc.

Why do companies hire a Data Engineer?

In 2017, Gartner predicted that 85%of the data-based projects would fail and deliver the
desired results. But, with companies gradually raising their investments in data
infrastructures, the prediction is likely to turn out to be false. Along with that, the companies
are likely to hire experts who can help them leverage data efficiently. And that is why the
business managers look for data engineers, as they are the ones who will interact with the
raw data, clean it, polish it, and make it analysis-ready. Data analysts and data scientists
then use clean data to help stakeholders develop better business strategies.

Build an Awesome Job Winning Data Engineering Projects Portfolio

Data Engineer: Job Growth in Future

The demand for data engineers has been on a sharp rise since 2016. Years after that, we
find a shortage in the number of skilled data engineers and an increase in the number of
jobs. As per a 2020 report by DICE, data engineer is the fastest-growing job role and
witnessed 50% annual growth in 2019.

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The report also mentioned that big tech giants like Amazon and Accenture are willing to dig
a deep hole in their pockets for hiring skilled data engineers. And one can verify the fact that
data engineers are among one of the highest-paid professionals if they take a look at the
average salary of a data engineer. According to Indeed, the average salary of a data
engineer in the US is $116,525 per year, and it is £40769 per year in the UK. The numbers
are lucrative, and it is high time you start turning your dream of pursuing a data engineer
career into reality.

What do Data Engineers do?

Here are the responsibilities of a data engineer:

 Serve as a data resource expert for the organization.

 Build and execute data ETL solution pipelines for multiple clients in different
industries.
 Independently create data-driven solutions that are accurate and informative.
 Interact with the data scientists team and assist them in providing suitable datasets
for analysis.
 Leverage various big data engineering tools and cloud service providing platforms to
create data extractions and storage pipelines.

Data Engineering Requirements

Here is a list of skills needed to become a data engineer:

 Highly skilled at graduation-level mathematics.

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  Good skills in computer programming languages like R, Python, Java, C++, etc.
 High efficiency in advanced probability and statistics.
 Ability to demonstrate expertise in database management systems.
 Experience with using cloud services providing platforms like AWS/GCP/Azure.
 Good knowledge of various machine learning and deep learning algorithms will be a
bonus.
 Knowledge of popular big data tools like Apache Spark, Apache Hadoop, etc.
 Good communication skills as a data engineer directly works with the different
teams.

Data Engineer Learning Path: Self-Taught

So, after reading the basic description of a data engineer, we hope you have decided to
become a self-taught data engineer. We have prepared a how-to be data engineer roadmap
for you.

1. Computer Programming

A decent understanding and experience of a computer programming language is necessary

for data engineering. And, considering how Python is becoming the most popular language
(Statistics times), we suggest you start learning it if you haven’t already. Here is a book
recommendation: Python for Absolute Beginners by Michael Dawson. The book is a fun
read for an entry-level data engineer aspirant, and you won’t feel bored if you work on the
exercises given in the book. It has an exciting way of introducing the readers to different
variables and data types used in Python. Through fun challenges like word jumble game, tic
tac toe game, pizza panic game, it explains strings, tuples, file handling, functions, Object-
oriented programming, GUI, and animation in Python. You may skip chapters 11 and 12 as
they are less useful for a database engineer.

2. Advanced Mathematics

By advanced mathematics, we mean that a data engineer should be good with vector
calculus, differential equations, and linear algebra. As these mathematics topics are usually
covered in most high school level textbooks, you don’t need to worry about learning them
explicitly. However, for someone who wants to dive deeper, a book recommendation is
Advanced Engineering Mathematics by Erwin Kreyszig. This book has detailed chapters
that have been divided into eight parts. The first three parts (A, B, and C) will be enough for
the mentioned topics. The book has many solved and unsolved problems, so make sure to
go through them.

3. Probability and statistics

When handling huge datasets, it is essential to look at various statistical parameters like
mean, mode, median, etc., as they effectively summarise and label the data. Learning
statistics becomes mandatory for a data engineer who has to work with large datasets. And
suppose you are a budding data engineer who is new to the world of probability and
statistics. In that case, we suggest you go through the textbook, Introduction to

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Mathematical Statistics by Robert Hogg, Joseph McKean, and Allan Craig. This is a popular
book among graduate students for its beginner-friendly approach to laying the foundations
of probability and statistics. After each sub-topic, the book has tons of solved examples and
many unsolved exercises that one can practice alongside.

4. Database Management Systems

Softwares, called database management systems that assist in handling large datasets, are
a part of data engineers’ everyday lives. These softwares allow editing and querying
databases easily. Depending on the type of database a data engineer is working with, they
will use specific software. Below, we mention a few popular databases and the different
softwares used for them.

Type of Database Softwares Used for Database Management

Relational MySQL, IBM Db2, Oracle Database, Microsoft SQL Server,
Database PostgreSQL
Graph Database Neo4J, Datastax Enterprise Graph
Columnar HBase, MariaDB, Cassandra, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Google
Database BigQuery
NoSQL Database Apache Cassandra, MongoDB, CouchBase, CouchDB,
You don’t need to worry about learning all the DBMS mentioned above at once. Depending
on the company you want to work with, you will be asked to learn them deeply. However,
you may refer to Introduction to Database Systems by Korth, Silberschatz & Sudarshan for
exploring things in brief.

5. Cloud Services Providers Platforms

As companies are gradually becoming more inclined towards investing in cloud computing
for storing their data instead of bulky hardware systems, engineers who can work on cloud
computing tools are in demand. The three most popular cloud service providing platforms
are Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure. All three platforms
provide official certifications that one can pursue through official websites.

6. Big Data Engineering Tools

The data size that a data engineer handles is usually large. To do that, a data engineer is
likely to be expected to learn big data tools. These tools complement the knowledge of
cloud computing as data engineers often implement codes that can handle large datasets
over the cloud. Thus, having worked on projects that use tools like Apache Spark, Apache
Hadoop, Apache Hive, etc., and their implementation on the cloud is a must for data
engineers.

7. Machine Learning and Deep Learning

Understanding machine learning and deep learning algorithms aren’t a must for data
engineers. However, as data engineers support the data scientist team, it will prove to be

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helpful if they learn ML and DL thoroughly. For machine learning, an introductory text by
Gareth M. James, Daniela Witten, Trevor Hastie, Robert Tibshirani, and for deep learning,
the book by Ian Goodfellow and Yoshua Bengio and Aaron Courville will serve as a good
reference. As a beginner, our suggestion is to not jump directly to deep learning and
complete the machine learning book first.

Learn Data Engineering through Practical Projects

After going through the resources mentioned in the previous section; one is not needed to
pursue any of the data engineer courses that charge a hefty fee. You need a way to
practice all that you have learned. Doing so will develop your skills and give you an idea of
how data engineering tools are implemented in the real world. So, here is a list of projects
that will rightly support your data engineering learning path.

Wine Quality Prediction: This data engineering project is a must for those interested in
exploring the application of machine learning algorithms in Python. It is an easy project that
beginners will find pretty helpful. It covers the details of different variables in the dataset and
will teach you how to convert one data type into another in Python. Along with that, you will
learn the basics of classification problems in machine learning and their application in
predicting results.

Deep Learning Project for Beginners with Source Code: This project is a fun, beginner-
friendly project for learning algorithms in deep learning. It will introduce all the basic blocks
of a deep neural network: activation functions, feedforward network, backpropagation, loss
function, and dropout regularization. The project will introduce deep learning libraries,
including Tensorflow, Pytorch, Pytorch lightning, and Horovod.

Yelp Dataset Challenge Ideas- Analyse ratings from users: This project will allow you to
explore different types of databases in the most practical way possible. You will learn
different types of Databases like Hbase, Cassandra, Graph Databases and understand how
to pick one for a given kind of database. Along with this, you will learn how to perform data
analysis using GraphX and Neo4j.

Apache Zeppelin Demo Big Data Project for Data Analysis: This project is best for
beginners exploring big data tools. It will introduce you to Apache Zeppelin and guide you to
write Spark, Hive, and Pig code in notebooks.

No, No! The list does not end here. There are many Big Data tools that you can explore
depending on the requirements of the business. Here are a few end-to-end solved projects
for popular big data tools that you must check out:

Hadoop Projects

Hive Projects

Hbase Projects

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Apache Pig Projects

HDFS Hadoop Projects

Oozie Example Projects

Spark Projects

We have a separate section for cloud service providing platforms that you can refer to
below after you have completed the above projects.

Azure Data Engineer Vs AWS Data Engineer Vs GCP

Data Engineer
It might be difficult for an entry-level data engineer to pick one of the three popular cloud
platforms; that is why we have prepared an easy table that you can refer to make an
informed and quick decision.

Microsoft Azure Amazon Web Services Google Cloud Platform

 Offers integration
with Microsoft  Best suited for those  Supports high
Windows. looking availability for data
 Best suited for those for infrastructure-as-a- storage.
looking for Platform- service (IaaS)  Supports uniform
as-a-service (PaaS)  Popular among the consistency of data
provider. open-source throughout different
 Subscription plans community members. locations.
are not so flexible.  The more you use the  Provides Google
 It nicely supports product, the cheaper Developer console
Hybrid Cloud Space. the subscription plans. projects.
 Yet to become a  Support large-scale  Similar pricing as
popular choice for big implementation of AWS.
data technology. machine learning  Support large-scale
 Offers fun UI for the algorithms. implementation of
implementation of  Supports big data machine learning
machine learning technology well. algorithms.
algorithms.

These are merely basic pointers that we have listed in brief. You must further explore AWS
vs Azure and AWS vs GCP for a detailed analysis. After reading that, you are likely to
conclude that as AWS was launched in 2002 and is usually considered the easiest to learn,
it is the best option. However, make a note of other features as well when implementing
cloud computing technology from a business perspective; a lot of different things have to be
taken into consideration.

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AWS has the top-most share in the market, and that’s primarily because it was launched in
2002 while Microsoft and Google launched their cloud computing services in 2010 and
2009, respectively. And, that is why most beginners are instantly inclined towards exploring
AWS. But, what if GCP and Azure are better choices for your organization? Given that it
could be a possibility, we suggest you try out the following hands-on projects to understand
the three services better and then decide.

AWS Projects

AWS Project-Website Monitoring using AWS Lambda and Aurora

How to deal with slowly changing dimensions using Snowflake?

Building Real-Time AWS Log Analytics Solution

Snowflake Real-Time Data Warehouse Project for Beginners-1

AWS Snowflake Data Pipeline Example using Kinesis and Airflow

Orchestrate Redshift ETL using AWS Glue and Step Functions

Azure Projects

Analyze yelp reviews csv dataset project with spark parquet format

Azure Stream Analytics for Real-Time Cab Service Monitoring

Azure databricks tutorial project - Analysis of movielens dataset

GCP Projects

GCP Project-Build Pipeline using Dataflow Apache Beam Python

Google Cloud - GCP Data Ingestion with SQL using Google Cloud Dataflow

GCP Project to Explore Cloud Functions using Python Part 1

Build a Scalable Event-Based GCP Data Pipeline using DataFlow

GCP Project to Learn using BigQuery for Exploring Data

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FAQs on Data Engineer Job Role

How long does it take to become a data engineer?

If you have the correct data engineering learning path with you, you can easily become a
data engineer in six months. All you have to do is work hard with utmost dedication on
building those skills.

How much python should you know to become a data

engineer?
Data Engineering with Python becomes easy, and that is why it has become a must for a
data engineer. Python is relatively easy to learn, and practicing simple programs is usually
enough for an aspiring data engineer. For starters, you should target learning different data
types, file handling, and loops. After that, the more you work on industry projects, the better
you will learn.

How to become a data engineer without a degree ?

Follow the learning path mentioned in this article to learn the basics of data engineering on
your own and practise industry-relevant projects in the ProjectPro repository to become an
expert in the domain.

How to become a data engineer from a BI developer?

The first step should be to hone the relevant skills a BI developer doesn’t have to become a
data engineer. For appropriate resources, refer to this blog’s data engineering learning path.
After that, work on enterprise-grade projects from the ProjectPro library to gain practical
knowledge.

How to become a data engineer from being a data analyst?

A data analyst will easily comprehend the role of a data engineer. So, if they learn big data
engineering tools and cloud computing, they should land a data engineer job easily.
However, these two skills are best learned when working in the industry. Thus, we
recommend you to check out the ProjectPro library and hone the two skills by working on
their insightful projects.

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