The Responsibility of a Data Engineer

Data Engineering at Factored AI — an AI Fund company

There are quite a few roles in the data science field: data engineers, data analysts, data scientists, machine learning engineers, data architects, BI developers, and so on… The list of roles is rather long. There are so many roles, in fact, that it’s easy to get lost along the way and experience confusion as to which avenue to take for a career in data science.

In this post, I’m not going to cover the wide spectrum of roles in the data science field. I do want to talk about a specific role that’s in increasing demand but is often misunderstood: the data engineer.

To be honest, most people don’t know what a data engineer’s job actually entails. Data engineers’ workings are sometimes in the shadows; they might seem a little bit abstract and complex. Nonetheless, data engineers are one of the most crucial roles in a data science team. Without them, using data wouldn’t be easy.

Here’s a straightforward and digestible description of a data engineer’s role:

Perhaps this sounds a little bit fuzzy, so I’ll unwrap that for you. But first, let me tell you a short story that will help you better understand where data engineers come from.

Here’s the story… A couple of boys go to a cave full of gnomes. These gnomes are not regular gnomes. These gnomes run a business, one that involves stealing underpants.

The boys were curious about this venture. They wanted to understand what the plan was for the stolen underpants. So, they ask them — “What are you gonna do with all the underpants you steal?”

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