Data Engineering Salary: Your 2024 Guide

As a data engineer, you organise databases and data warehouses, optimising them for storage and retrieval. Data engineers help companies make sense of big data with SQL, NoSQL, or hybrid infrastructures. 

Collecting, storing, and analysing massive amounts of data is easier than ever. That has consequently increased the demand for database engineer skills and experience. According to Payscale, as of May 2024, data engineers earn an average annual salary of  ₹8,87,206 in India [1].

In this guide, you’ll learn what data engineers do, what can affect data engineer salaries, and how you can get started on this exciting career path. 

What does a data engineer do?

Data engineers are responsible for the engineering behind the systems that store, extract, and process data. They build and maintain applications' databases and manage the infrastructure that allows them to run. As a data engineer, you might be responsible for a SQL data store and a MongoDB NoSQL data warehouse, where you’ll take care of all the activities that ensure that data is accessible.

Data engineers are also part of a team that includes software engineers and developers, data analysts, and designers. Together, these professionals have the expertise to collect and manipulate data others use to achieve critical business objectives.

Data engineer responsibilities vary widely by organisation. As a data engineer, you may do some or all of the following:

• Design indexes on data stores (where queries will be fast) 

• Choose the best storage technology (SQL or NoSQL) 

• Ensure that the datastore is up-to-date and replicating it across multiple machines 

• Tune data warehouses 

• Create query plans and validate results

• Identify patterns in historical data 

• Analyse and optimise database performance

In a career as a data engineer, you’ll combine cutting-edge technical skills with creativity and often do so in business-critical applications.

How much do data engineers make?

According to Payscale, the average data engineer earns an annual wage of ₹8,87,206 [1], and the average salary for a senior data engineer is ₹1,802,146 [2]. 

Factors affecting salary

How much you’ll earn as a data engineer depends on your level of education, certifications, years of experience, company size, industry, and location. Here's what you need to know: 

Education

The education requirements vary by employer. In general, however, you will likely need an undergraduate degree in computer science or a related field, such as statistics, information technology, or applied mathematics. Advanced degrees can increase earning potential by rapidly elevating you to senior roles.

Certifications

Specialised certifications, such as Cloudera Certified Data Engineer, demonstrate specific skills employers seek. Certifications from IBM, Amazon, Google, Oracle, and Microsoft can also help you earn more and get jobs in specialist roles. Here are some data engineer certifications to consider:

• Google Certified Data Engineer Certification

• Data Engineer Certifications by Microsoft

• SAS Certified Big Data Professional

• Google Professional Data Engineer

• Data Science Council of America (DASCA) Associate Big Data Engineer

• Data Science Council of America (DASCA) Senior Big Data Engineer

• Amazon Web Services (AWS) Certified Data Analytics – Specialty

• Cloudera Data Platform Generalist Certification

Level of experience 

As you gain more experience as a data engineer, your salary will likely increase. According to data from Payscale, years of experience affect a data engineer's average annual salary as such [1]:

• Less than one year: ₹5,18,000

• 1-4 years: ₹7,61,000

• 5–9 years: ₹10,00,000

• 10–19 years: ₹20,00,000

Location

How much you'll earn varies by location as well. At least a part of the reason for salary disparity between regions is that it costs less to live in some areas based on a metric that measures the difference in cost of living. The following are the salaries for various areas provided by Payscale [1]:

• Bangalore, Karnataka: ₹10,20,974

• Pune, Maharashtra: ₹8,55,939

• Chennai, Tamil Nadu: ₹8,42,576

• Mumbai, Maharashtra: ₹8,24,435

• Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh: ₹8,83,605

Company size

Company size often impacts data engineer salaries. Companies offering higher salaries tend to be more significant employers—such as IBM, Amazon, Meta,  and Google—and often have larger, more experienced data science teams.

Job title variations and salary

Data engineer job titles vary by company, tasks, and skills required. Here are some common titles that data engineers can have:

• Data architect: ₹21,86,530 [3]

• Machine learning engineer: ₹8,76,859 [4]

• Data warehouse developer: ₹4,68,690 [5]

• Technical architect: ₹22,91,308 [6]

• Solutions architect: ₹23,19,440 [7]

How to become a data engineer: Next steps

To become a data engineer, you should work to build and demonstrate a solid competency base across database technologies and coding. Typically, data engineers need at least a bachelor’s degree, some certifications, and professional experience.

Getting started with data engineering

Suppose you’re ready to take the next step in your data engineering career. In that case, you may want to consider the Data Engineering Foundations Specialisation offered by IBM or the IBM Data Engineering Professional Certificate. These provide you with the opportunity to learn foundational knowledge in data engineering.