Backend Developer
Build the logic, data and APIs behind every product.
Software Development
Intermediate6–9 months
All careers
Data Engineer
Build the pipelines that move and shape a company's data.
- Category
- Data & AI
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Estimated learning journey
- 9–13 months
- Demand
- High demand
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We haven't written the roadmap for this path yet. You can still choose it — we'll record the direction — but there is nothing to follow here until it lands.
What is a Data Engineer?
A data engineer builds the plumbing everyone else depends on. Data arrives from many systems in inconsistent shapes; your job is to collect it, clean it, and land it somewhere reliable and queryable, on a schedule, without silently losing anything. Analysts and data scientists can only do their work if this layer is trustworthy, which makes it quietly one of the most important roles in a data team.
What do they build?
- ETL and ELT pipelines
- Data warehouses and lakes
- Streaming ingestion systems
- Data quality and validation checks
- Scheduled jobs that run unattended
What will you learn?
A high-level preview of the areas this journey covers. Your detailed roadmap comes next.
- Programming fundamentals
- Python
- SQL, in depth
- Databases and data modelling
- Git and GitHub
- Batch and streaming processing
- Workflow orchestration
- Cloud data platforms
- Monitoring and reliability
You may enjoy this if…
- You like building systems that run without you
- You care about correctness and reliability
- You enjoy SQL and thinking about data shapes
- You are comfortable with infrastructure
- You would rather enable others than present findings
What might be challenging
Worth knowing before you commit. Every path has these.
- Failures are often discovered downstream, late
- Upstream systems change without warning
- Debugging a pipeline at scale is slow
- Backfilling historical data is painful
- The work is invisible when it goes well
Related paths
Close enough that much of what you learn carries over.
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Advanced8–12 monthsRoadmap in progressCloud Engineer
Design infrastructure that scales without falling over.
Infrastructure & Cloud
Intermediate7–11 monthsRoadmap in progress
Ready to explore this journey?
Choosing a path sets your direction. You can change it later — nothing here is permanent.