What employers ask for in Data Engineer jobs

We read 25 current Data Engineer postings from 23 companies' own career sites on November 4, 2026 and counted, posting by posting, what they ask candidates for.

Tools and technologies

Share of postings that name each one.

• Python92% · 23 of 25
• SQL92% · 23 of 25
• Snowflake48% · 12 of 25
• Airflow40% · 10 of 25
• dbt40% · 10 of 25
• AWS36% · 9 of 25
• Databricks36% · 9 of 25
• GCP32% · 8 of 25
• Kafka28% · 7 of 25
• Azure24% · 6 of 25
• Spark24% · 6 of 25
• Terraform24% · 6 of 25
• BigQuery20% · 5 of 25
• Git20% · 5 of 25
• Kubernetes20% · 5 of 25

Skills and methods

• Data modeling52% · 13 of 25
• Data pipelines40% · 10 of 25
• CI/CD32% · 8 of 25
• Data governance24% · 6 of 25
• Data warehousing20% · 5 of 25
• Data quality12% · 3 of 25
• Query optimization12% · 3 of 25
• Agile8% · 2 of 25
• Automated testing8% · 2 of 25
• Data engineering8% · 2 of 25

Soft skills

• Communication24% · 6 of 25
• Problem-solving16% · 4 of 25
• Mentoring8% · 2 of 25

Experience

20 of 25 postings state a minimum number of years; the median is 3 years.

• 0–2 years20% · 4
• 3–4 years55% · 11
• 5–7 years15% · 3
• 8+ years10% · 2

Where and with what degree

• Remote40%
• Hybrid28%
• On-site16%
• Not stated16%
• Degree required20%
• Degree preferred12%

Using this on your resume

• Applicant tracking systems match words. If you have the tools above, name them the way the posting does ("Python", not a synonym).
• Every posting is different: check the one you apply to, not just the average. The free match shows what a specific posting asks for that your resume doesn't mention.
• Only claim what you've done. ApplyLoop's AI rewrite works from your own resume, and a review pass checks the result for skills your resume doesn't support.

Postings we read

Read on November 4, 2026; some may have closed since.

How we counted

We searched company career sites hosted on Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workable and SmartRecruiters for current postings titled “data engineer”, at most two per company, and read each one. An AI model listed what each posting asks for; we kept an item only when the posting contains it word for word, and list it here when at least two postings ask for it. Seniority levels are mixed. Updated November 4, 2026.

Related roles

• Business Analyst22 postings · Jira, Python, SQL
• Data Analyst23 postings · SQL, Python, Tableau
• Data Scientist16 postings · Python, SQL, dbt
• Machine Learning Engineer17 postings · Python, PyTorch, TensorFlow