I’m currently working as a data engineer. I used to be a DBA for 5 years. I’m thinking now that the role of Data Engineer is the combining of what were three roles at my first job: Data warehouse engineer, DBA, and software engineer: it’s really the best of many worlds. I really enjoy it. I get to write the Python I’m good at (was never really good at general software engineering and feature development), gate keep a bit to keep my DBA chops up (SQL code quality, query tuning, access control etc but without all the need to be intimately well versed in any particular database), and spend my time creating new ETL processes and maintaining various EDW’s and data lakes.
It’s my favorite role I’ve had to date and I’m really happy in it.
This is a bit of a hail mary but I also really enjoy the data engineer role. I came in to the role from the software engineer side when I took a job at a data first type start up. I was recently offered an opportunity at Amazon as a data engineer but while the SE reviews are good the DE reviews are not. Any experience with either Amazon or other FAANG type DE jobs?
It was a hail-Mary for me too. Turns out I am not SW Engineer material. I went DBA then EDW developer then Python developer at a startup and then Python dev at a fintech company and then SRE and then Data Engineer.
As for the SW at the big firms I do not know. I was hoping to end up at an Apple or Amazon or Google so the culture or stress being not so great is disconcerting.
It’s my favorite role I’ve had to date and I’m really happy in it.