Data Scientist, Data Engineer, and Data Analyst may all sound similar but are, in fact, quite different from each other. All three of them deal with data but have specific roles and responsibilities. The insights gained through data are highly trusted. Hence, there is a huge demand for applicants in this field. The pay is good, and there are many job opportunities.
Data Engineer
An IT worker who mainly prepares data for analytical or operational uses is adata engineer. They are software engineers responsible for building data pipelines to gather information from different source systems. They merge, converge, clean and structure data for analytics applications. Their goal is to make easily-accessible data for data scientists and analysts to use.
Together with data science teams, data engineers work to improve data transparency. This helps business decisions be more trustworthy.
Data engineers are categorised into:
Generalists:
- Small teams
- End-to-end data collection
- Intake and processing of data
- More skill but less knowledge of systems architecture
Pipeline-centric engineers:
- A midsized data analytics team
- Take care of more complicated projects across distributed systems
Database-centric engineers:
-
Implementing, maintaining and populating analytics databases
-
For companies with data distributed across several databases
-
Work with pipelines
-
Tune databases
-
Create table schemas
To become a data engineer, you would require a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics, computer science, physics or engineering. You can opt for online courses to improve your skills.
In India, the salary of a Data Engineer starts at INR 3 Lakh and can go up to INR 22 Lakhs, with an annual average of INR 8.5 Lakhs.
Data Scientist:
Data engineers work together with Data Scientists. Unlike the former, data scientists have specialised focus areas. Data scientists tackle new, overall problems. They are concerned with exploratory data analysis and combine mathematics, statistics and computer science to create actionable plans from data. With the help of technology, they find trends and use their industry knowledge to find solutions to business problems.
They work with other teams such as marketing, operations and customer success to develop the best practices for a company.
Most data science careers require a master's degree. However, you will need at least a bachelor's degree in data science or a computer-related field to apply for a job as a data scientist. But, if you don't have a relevant degree yet manage to learn the required skills through online courses, you can still be hired.
The average data scientist's salary is INR 8.5 Lakhs but can go up to INR 10 Lakhs in a mid-level position.
Data Analysts:
Data Analysts make a valuable interpretation of data and apply it to benefit the business. The data is analysed to form meaningful conclusions expressed through visual, written and verbal communication. Every data-driven business needs data analysts to understand their available data, which helps them make the correct investment decisions. Analysing data also gives companies insights into customer behaviour, risk assessments, and fund allocation.
In India, the average national salary for a Data Analyst is ₹6,00,000 per year.
You can learn the skills required online. The Glow & Lovely Careers (formerly known as Fair & Lovely Careers Foundation) provides a variety of courses that you can choose from.
