Data Architect Vs Data Engineer: An Easy Overview(2021)

Introduction

In a world where data is everything, there is a huge demand for skilled workers in the fields of Data management tasks as organizations are becoming increasingly aware of the role data plays in their business processes. There is still confusion among students and early professionals on what to choose between the rising roles of data architect vs data engineer. Both these roles bring value to businesses, but the information below will help you make a better choice!

1. What is Data Architect?
2. What is a Data Engineer?
3. Difference between a Data Architect and Data Engineer

 

 

1. What is Data Architect?

In order to integrate the latest technologies into the present IT infrastructures, Data Architecture is required. Data Architects will usually act as intermediates between the corporation’s IT sector and the remaining departments. They help define the data principles and standards by translating the business requirements into technical requirements. Typically, they work with people from various other teams, including data miners, data engineers, data analysts, and data scientists. Therefore, they help areas related to data storage, data collection, data systems access, and data security. 

How to become a data architect? Since it is an evolving role, there is no training program or industry-standard certifications and data architects will have to learn on the job as solution architects, data scientists, or data engineers. 

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2. What is a Data Engineer?

Data Engineering is a field of knowledge science that mainly focuses on the practical uses of knowledge collection and analysis. Certain mechanisms are running at the back-end of the work each data scientists do to answer questions using a huge collection of data. In order for the work to have any value, it is necessary to collect relevant data and validate it before usage. These should even contain certain mechanisms in order to apply them to real-world problems and operations. Situations like these- the application of science to practical and functioning systems – are engineering tasks. 

Therefore, a Data Engineer will have to focus on harvesting huge amounts of data and applying it to problems. A Data Engineering role usually would not include coming up with complex experimental designs or algorithm study. Instead, they would be out in the world hunting for the large data. Therefore, Data Engineering helps to make mechanisms and interfaces for the smooth flow and access to reliable data. 

How to Become a Data Engineer? People who wish to become a Data Engineer will have to have a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering, computer software, applied math, statistics, or any other related field. They should also hone their big data and computer engineering skills while getting real-world experiences through internships and projects. 

3. Difference between a Data Architect and Data Engineer

A data architect vs data engineer comparison can sometimes be tricky since their work usually revolves around the same thing- data. One of the major differences between Data Engineers vs Data Scientists is that Data Architects visualize and conceptualize data frameworks while Data Engineers build and maintain the frameworks. 

A Data Engineer works on the organizational data blueprint, which is usually provided by the Data Architect. The engineers use them to collect, maintain, and prepare the required information in the framework. Data Architects will also work on this framework. This helps the Data Analysts and the Data Scientists by relieving them of enormous data preparation efforts and focusing on the analysis and exploration part of data. 

Data Architects that are database experts will help the organization visualize how the changes in data acquisitions can have an impact on the data that are used. Data Engineers with incredible expertise in deep software-engineering can help maintain and build an information system that supports those specifications and changes. 

The comparison of the working lives of data architect vs data engineer often relies on what tools they use to work with their data. Data Architects usually require practical skills in a large number of Data Management tools like data warehousing, data modeling, ETL tools, and data management. Specific programs might require architects who are experts in the fields of data replication and data lineage. The role of the data architect has evolved over the past few years, and the new field of data engineering has allowed the data architects to focus on visualizing frameworks instead of building them. Due to this, data architects would now have to be experts in query languages like NoSQL and Spark. 

The data engineer, on the other hand, uses organizational data blueprints given by the data architects to collect, store, and prepare the data in the framework. While data architects provide guidance and knowledge of handling data sources from different databases, data engineers will take the vision of these architects and create, maintain, and process the architecture for the other data professionals. 

Conclusion

The growth of Data Engineers and Data Architects is inevitable in the years to come due to the exponential rise of incoming data pipelines and data sources. Big Data technologies across various sectors of industries have made it clear their requirements of Data Science teams and Data Engineers. These teams must have a combination of Database Managements and software engineering skills.

If you are interested in making a career in the Data Science domain, our 11-month in-person Postgraduate Certificate Diploma in Data Science course can help you immensely in becoming a successful Data Science professional. 

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