What Is Big Data Engineering?
Big data engineering is a highly specialized field that involves designing, building, and managing large-scale data infrastructure with confidence.
Skilled professionals in this field work with massive datasets, data pipelines, and storage systems to ensure that data is collected, processed, and analyzed effectively. They use powerful tools and technologies such as Hadoop, Spark, and NoSQL Databases to handle the complexity of large datasets with ease.
How are engineers, analysts, and scientists different in the field of data?
It's easy to confuse all these different names. However, let us break it down. It's a data chain that is passed down from one role to the next.
A Data Engineer works with data by building and maintaining the Data infrastructure that will collect and extract data for the Data Analyst.
Next, A Data Analyst will analyze this cleaned-up data from the Data Engineer to generate new meaningful business insights and solve business problems and pass this on to the Data Scientist.
Finally, A data scientist gets the data from a data analyst and will be responsible for building new algorithms to make predictions or explain previous events.
How much can you expect to make as a big data engineer?
The average annual salary for big data engineers in the US is $126,585, according to Glassdoor [1]. However, salaries can be affected by a range of factors, including location, industry, and experience. Below are additional salary estimates from popular job boards.
Glassdoor | Salary.com | ZipRecruiter | Payscale |
$126,585 | $131,059 | $131,001 | $89,838 |
Big data engineer salaries by location
Where you live (or where your company is based) can impact how much you'll make as a big data engineer. Typically, working from bigger cities like New York or San Francisco means a higher salary, to accommodate higher costs of living. But, as companies continue to shift toward a more remote workforce, some of them may offer location-based salaries, while others remain commensurate with experience levels.
Here’s a sampling of big data engineer salaries in large- and medium-sized cities across the United States:
City | Average base salary (Glassdoor) |
Seattle, WA | $133,913 |
San Francisco, CA | $143,330 |
Austin, TX | $116,855 |
New York, NY | $131,071 |
Los Angeles, CA | $129,330 |
Cincinnati, OH | $108,259 |
Miami, FL | $112,290 |
Des Moines, IA | $108,597 |
Denver, CO | $116,719 |
Washington, DC |
Remote work vs. digital nomad
Salaries may also differ depending on your nationality and the country you choose to work from. While digital nomadism is on the rise, many tech companies in the US still do not allow employees to work permanently from another country.
It may be attractive to work in Portugal, Thailand, or Costa Rica, but you may need to be comfortable taking a pay cut if you are employed by a company based in any of these countries.
Big data engineer salaries by industry
Nearly every industry today uses big data, so there is a huge demand for big data engineers to harness that data to drive decision-making. But, not every industry pays the same. Knowing which ones pay more can be beneficial for your career.
You can find big data engineering roles in many high-earning industries. Finance and insurance; professional, scientific, and technical services; information technology; management; and manufacturing make up over 75 percent of data job openings, according to The Quant Crunch, an IBM report on the demand for data science skills [2].
Tech companies are popular to work for because they tend to pay well. Meta, for example, ranges from $150,000 to $193,000 for big data engineer base salaries, while Google pays between $139,000 to $185,000 [3,4].
Big data engineer salaries by experience
One of the factors that can influence your salary is your experience level. Generally, the more years of experience you gain as a big data engineer, the more you’ll earn. Here’s how experience can impact your base salary, according to Glassdoor [5].
2-4 years, Data Engineer: $106,716
5-7 years, Lead Data Engineer: $137,302
8+ years, Principal Data Engineer: $163,026
8+ years, Director of Data Engineering: $172,999
8+ years, Vice President (VP) of Data Engineering: $174,470
In many of the roles above, “Senior” can be tacked onto the front of the job title and usually indicates a higher salary, typically of a few thousand extra dollars.
Many big data engineers start in other entry-level positions, such as software engineers, business analysts, or data analysts. As you advance in your career, you might move into managerial positions or become a big data engineer, and then progress as you gain experience.
Salaries for other big data and engineering professionals
Before and after you step into a role as a big data engineer, there are plenty of opportunities to work in big data and engineering. Here are a few of their expected salaries, according to Glassdoor.
Data analyst: $76,962
Business intelligence analyst: $89,511
Database administrator: $105,882
Data engineer: $106,716
Data scientist: $129,634
Data architect: $139,885
The job outlook for big data engineers
Big data is being used across all industries, including manufacturing, government, and agriculture, to inform business decisions. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) places big data engineers under statisticians and computer and information research scientists, which have projected job growth of 30 percent and 23 percent, respectively, between 2022 and 2032 [6, 7].
Additionally, 75 percent of companies surveyed in the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2023 said they’d be using big data, cloud computing, and AI by 2027. In the same report, a data engineer is ranked 14th for jobs with increasing demand across industries [8].
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