The current strong demand for data engineers means lucrative salaries abound for this job role.
Notably, an experienced data engineer earns close to $118,000 per year, with senior-level data engineers enjoying salaries around $134,000 annually. This high pay grade probably makes you wonder about how to qualify for open data engineering positions.
If you already work in IT, especially in a DBA role, transitioning into data engineering remains relatively easy. Taking some classes and earning a few relevant certifications helps you qualify for these open positions. So let’s look at what certifications to include on your résumé to become a successful data engineer.
What Are The Best Certifications To Help Advance Your Career?
Purdue University: Post-Graduate Data Engineering Certification Program
Purdue University enjoys a sterling reputation for its top-ranked technical degrees and post-graduate education programs. The school offers a data engineering certification program suitable for anyone considering a career as a data engineer. Notably, IBM worked with Purdue in the creation of the program.
The program covers a variety of critical topics providing practical experience in many of the duties of data engineer. These include building data pipelines with Kafka, Python programming, and distributed architectures using Hadoop. This course and certification positions technical professionals for a rewarding career in data engineering. It lasts 8 months, requiring 5 to 10 hours per week.
MIT-xPRO: Professional Certificate in Data Engineering
MIT and xPRO teamed up to offer a course in data engineering, awarding a professional certificate upon completion. This program serves potential entry-level data engineers well by offering introductory classes in Python programming and SQL database design. Course attendees build their own GitHub portfolio helping their job search efforts after graduation.
The attendees use Python to perform data analytics routines using databases containing millions of records. They also receive instruction in creating data pipelines, analyzing data security, and API creation. The course lasts six months and requires 15 to 20 hours per week.
Coursera: Data Engineering With Google Cloud
Completing this data engineering program from Coursera prepares students to earn the Google Cloud Professional Data Engineer certification. This popular certification qualifies you for many data engineer roles at companies using Google Cloud. The material also covers critical topics including the design, building, and management of Cloud-based data processing systems.
It also touches on other related topics to a data engineer, such as machine learning, BigQuery, and Spark. This self-paced course might be a valid option in tandem with your regular job duties.
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