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What to study for being a database engineer

What to Study?

You need a strong foundation in computer science. Fundamental knowledge in data structures, algorithms, and, of course, some programming languages is essential. Key courses to develop understanding in database engineering include:

  1. Database Management Systems (DBMS): Data models, schema design, normalization, indexing, query languages (SQL), transaction management, and concurrency control.
  2. Data Structures and Algorithms: Arrays, linked lists, trees, graphs, and hash tables for efficient data manipulation, retrieval, and storage.
  3. SQL Programming: SQL language for relational databases covering SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, ALTER, DROP, joins, subqueries, and advanced queries.
  4. Database Design and Implementation: Entity-relationship modeling, schema normalization, indexing, partitioning, and optimization techniques.
  5. Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence: Designing and managing large-scale data repositories, ETL processes, OLAP, and data mining techniques.
  6. Distributed Databases: Distributed data storage, replication, consistency models, query processing, and transaction management.
  7. NoSQL Databases: Different data models and scalability options, including document-oriented databases (e.g., MongoDB), key-value stores (e.g., Redis), column-family stores (e.g., Cassandra), and graph databases (e.g., Neo4j).
  8. Big Data Technologies: Technologies like Hadoop, Spark, and HDFS, including data processing frameworks, parallel computing, MapReduce, and distributed data storage.
  9. Cloud Databases: Cloud database services like Amazon RDS, Google Cloud SQL, and Azure SQL Database. Topics include deployment, scalability, security, and performance tuning in the cloud.
  10. Advanced Topics in Database Systems: Database security, data privacy, data integration, query optimization, transaction management, and emerging trends in database technology.

How to Prove Your Knowledge

Certifications and certificates exist:

  • Certificates are proof that an individual completed a professional training course.
  • Certifications are proof that an individual took and passed a specific exam. Many certificates allow you to take an exam upon completion that can result in a certification. (found in Coursera).

Here are some relevant certifications/certificates:

Where to Study?

Data engineering degrees are not commonly offered by universities. Typically, individuals with computer science backgrounds specialize in data engineering through work and projects. Online resources are plentiful: Coursera, EdX, LinkedIn Learning, Udemy, and major cloud platforms like AWS and Google offer training.

Don’t Forget

Make projects or work for companies to demonstrate and test your knowledge. Don’t feel overwhelmed by the amount of information and the changing landscape of technologies, but you already know this.

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