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Senior data architect vs data engineer

The differences between senior data architects and data engineers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. Additionally, a senior data architect has an average salary of $120,247, which is higher than the $109,675 average annual salary of a data engineer.

The top three skills for a senior data architect include analytics, data lake and AWS. The most important skills for a data engineer are python, java, and cloud.

Senior data architect vs data engineer overview

Senior Data ArchitectData Engineer
Yearly salary$120,247$109,675
Hourly rate$57.81$52.73
Growth rate5%21%
Number of jobs150,336303,105
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 63%Bachelor's Degree, 65%
Average age4439
Years of experience-4

What does a senior data architect do?

A senior data architect is responsible for analyzing the company's existing database, ensuring its efficiency and accuracy to support business functions and operational processes. Data architects manage network systems according to business requirements and specifications, upgrading the database's infrastructure, and conducting regular configuration. They also create alternative database models that would secure the information from the company's networks to prevent unauthorized access and malfunctions. A senior data architect runs quality checks with every database to monitor its structural condition and modify procedures as necessary.

What does a data engineer do?

A data engineer is someone who makes data science possible. This IT job requires the search for data set trends and algorithm development to make raw data more beneficial to the enterprise. Data engineers are responsible for establishing and maintaining an environment that permits other data functions. The necessary skills for the job include in-depth knowledge of multiple programming languages and SQL database design. Among the other skills data engineers should develop include data warehousing and architecture, data mining and modeling, and statistical regression analysis.

Senior data architect vs data engineer salary

Senior data architects and data engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.

Senior Data ArchitectData Engineer
Average salary$120,247$109,675
Salary rangeBetween $90,000 And $160,000Between $80,000 And $149,000
Highest paying CitySan Francisco, CASan Francisco, CA
Highest paying stateCaliforniaCalifornia
Best paying companyLyftThe Citadel
Best paying industryTechnologyTechnology

Differences between senior data architect and data engineer education

There are a few differences between a senior data architect and a data engineer in terms of educational background:

Senior Data ArchitectData Engineer
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 63%Bachelor's Degree, 65%
Most common majorComputer ScienceComputer Science
Most common collegeMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyCalifornia State University - Long Beach

Senior data architect vs data engineer demographics

Here are the differences between senior data architects' and data engineers' demographics:

Senior Data ArchitectData Engineer
Average age4439
Gender ratioMale, 78.9% Female, 21.1%Male, 81.5% Female, 18.5%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 6.2% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 8.8% Asian, 12.0% White, 67.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.5%Black or African American, 4.3% Unknown, 4.8% Hispanic or Latino, 8.0% Asian, 30.1% White, 52.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%
LGBT Percentage11%8%

Differences between senior data architect and data engineer duties and responsibilities

Senior data architect example responsibilities.

  • Develop shell scripts to automate some db maintaining and monitoring tasks.
  • Report procedures against SSAS are constructed and ExcelWriter templates are developed to automate and replace existing manually generate, client-contract reports.
  • Work at length with pycassa (python driver) and Astyanax (Java driver).
  • Implement enterprise grade platform (mark logic) for ETL from mainframe to NOSQL (cassandra).
  • Analyze the existing ETL application (python base), which is written using BTEQs to understand the ETL transformations.
  • Establish escalation policies for the db team.
  • Show more

Data engineer example responsibilities.

  • Used SQOOP to import the data from RDBMS to HDFS to achieve the reliability of data.
  • Develop automation scripts in python to automate the test, analyze, plot and report the results.
  • Used Linux shell scripts to automate the build process, and to perform regular jobs like file transfers between different hosts.
  • Increase audit efficiency by developing SAS programs to automate manual testing procedures.
  • Used Teradata database management system to manage the warehousing operations and parallel processing.
  • Configure and manage JobScope ERP system for a make-to-order/make-to-stock design and manufacturing environment.
  • Show more

Senior data architect vs data engineer skills

Common senior data architect skills
  • Analytics, 10%
  • Data Lake, 7%
  • AWS, 6%
  • Python, 5%
  • Hadoop, 5%
  • Java, 4%
Common data engineer skills
  • Python, 12%
  • Java, 9%
  • Cloud, 5%
  • ETL, 5%
  • Scala, 4%
  • Kafka, 4%

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