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Senior database engineer vs data engineer

The differences between senior database engineers and data engineers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 2-4 years to become both a senior database engineer and a data engineer. Additionally, a senior database engineer has an average salary of $123,540, which is higher than the $109,675 average annual salary of a data engineer.

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

Senior database engineer vs data engineer overview

Senior Database EngineerData Engineer
Yearly salary$123,540$109,675
Hourly rate$59.39$52.73
Growth rate9%21%
Number of jobs110,265303,105
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 63%Bachelor's Degree, 65%
Average age4639
Years of experience44

What does a senior database engineer do?

A senior database engineer specializes in designing and developing databases for a company. Among their responsibilities include identifying and understanding the company's needs, creating and maintaining database projects and programs, writing scripts, troubleshooting errors, fixing bugs, and performing upgrades. They must also provide technical support to employees, addressing and resolving issues promptly and efficiently. Furthermore, as a senior engineer, it is essential to lead and serve as a mentor to junior engineers while implementing the company's policies and regulations.

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 database engineer vs data engineer salary

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

Senior Database EngineerData Engineer
Average salary$123,540$109,675
Salary rangeBetween $95,000 And $159,000Between $80,000 And $149,000
Highest paying CitySan Francisco, CASan Francisco, CA
Highest paying stateCaliforniaCalifornia
Best paying companyTwitterThe Citadel
Best paying industryInternetTechnology

Differences between senior database engineer and data engineer education

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

Senior Database EngineerData 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 database engineer vs data engineer demographics

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

Senior Database EngineerData Engineer
Average age4639
Gender ratioMale, 85.6% Female, 14.4%Male, 81.5% Female, 18.5%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 7.4% Unknown, 5.2% Hispanic or Latino, 8.8% Asian, 23.4% White, 54.6% 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 Percentage6%8%

Differences between senior database engineer and data engineer duties and responsibilities

Senior database engineer example responsibilities.

  • Lead multiple infrastructure planning and implementation including instance strategy, technical platform selection, architecture design, backup and recovery strategy.
  • Develop scripts in PL/SQL, UNIX shell scripts to facilitate database management.
  • Design and code PL/SQL packages to extract data from CDW/CDM repository and update database objects.
  • Develop many Java script functions for database administration.
  • Analyze and design Linux applications and MySQL databases host on Linux servers.
  • Develop bash, perl and python scripts as monitoring and maintenance tools.
  • 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 database engineer vs data engineer skills

Common senior database engineer skills
  • AWS, 6%
  • Java, 5%
  • ETL, 5%
  • Linux, 5%
  • Database Design, 5%
  • Troubleshoot, 4%
Common data engineer skills
  • Python, 12%
  • Java, 9%
  • Cloud, 5%
  • ETL, 5%
  • Scala, 4%
  • Kafka, 4%

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