How do you hire a data engineer for a technology company?

In short

Hire a data engineer who can design the databases and data models your products and analysts depend on, and keep them scalable, secure and documented. O*NET lists Data Engineer as a reported title under Database Architects, whose core tasks centre on designing databases for scalability, security, performance and reliability, and on building the data models behind them.

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What does a data engineer do day to day at a technology company?

A data engineer at a technology company builds and maintains the databases and data structures that applications and analysts read from. O*NET files Data Engineer under Database Architects (O*NET 15-1243.00), and its core tasks include:

  • Develop and document database architectures.
  • Collaborate with system architects, software architects, design analysts, and others to understand business or industry requirements.
  • Design databases to support business applications, ensuring system scalability, security, performance, and reliability.
  • Develop data models for applications, metadata tables, views or related database structures.
  • Design database applications, such as interfaces, data transfer mechanisms, global temporary tables, data partitions, and function-based indexes to enable efficient access of the generic database structure.
  • Create and enforce database development standards.

Which skills should a data engineer job description ask for?

A data engineer job description should ask for designs the candidate built and then had to run: data models, partitions and indexes, and the standards other developers followed. A design the candidate never operated shows less than one that survived real load.

O*NET's technology list for Database Architects includes Apache Airflow, Apache Cassandra, Amazon Redshift, Amazon DynamoDB and Ansible software. List the stack your team runs, and test data modelling judgement, which carries across stacks.

  • Designed a data model for an application and documented its schema
  • Chose partitions or indexes to fix a slow query, with the before and after
  • Integrated a new system into an existing warehouse
  • Wrote database development standards that a team followed

Which titles do data engineer candidates use?

Data engineer candidates use database and architecture titles as well as Data Engineer. The titles O*NET reports for Database Architects include:

  • Data Engineer
  • Data Architect
  • Database Architect
  • Database Developer
  • Database Analyst
  • Information Architect

How much of a data engineer's work do people bring to AI tools?

0.14% of sampled Claude.ai conversations in May 2026 were about the tasks of Database Architects, the O*NET occupation that lists Data Engineer, according to the Anthropic Economic Index. In those conversations, 58.66% asked Claude to complete the task directly (automation) and 41.34% worked with it iteratively (augmentation).

Database Architects is one of the occupations where automation outweighed augmentation in that sample. For hiring, ask how the candidate reviews a schema, query or migration an assistant drafted before it reaches production. The figures describe how people used Claude, not how many data engineering jobs exist.

Common questions

Is a data engineer the same as a data scientist?
A data engineer builds the databases and data structures that hold the data, while a data scientist analyses that data and builds predictive models. O*NET files Data Engineer under Database Architects and data scientists under Data Scientists.
Which O*NET occupation covers data engineers?
Database Architects (O*NET 15-1243.00) lists Data Engineer among its reported titles. Its core tasks cover the design and data modelling side of the work.

Where this data comes from

  • O*NET 31.0 DatabaseThis page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. EmployLabs has modified all or some of this information. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications.
  • Anthropic Economic Index, release_2026_06_26 (claude_ai, global, soc_occupation, May 2026)Anthropic Economic Index (Anthropic), data released under CC BY. Usage share is the share of sampled Claude.ai conversations classified to this occupation; the automation/augmentation split describes how those conversations used Claude. Neither measures the labour market.

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