Data Engineer Salary, Skills & Requirements (2026)
Advertised pay, starting pay, skills and experience from 6,394 US job postings by 1,842 employers. Data as of October 2026.
What US employers post for data engineers: advertised pay, the skills and experience they ask for, and the job titles they use, from 6,394 open job postings (October 2026).
- The median advertised pay for data engineers in US job postings is $145,000 a year (1,140 postings from 590 employers, October 2026).
- The middle half of those postings offer $121,000 to $175,000.
- The skills that most set data engineer postings apart are SQL, Python, Spark.
- Postings that state a minimum ask for a median of 4 years of experience.
Data Engineer job postings in the US, October 2026
- $145,000
- Median advertised pay (1,140 postings)
- $121,000–$175,000
- Middle 50% of postings
- 6,394
- US job postings from 1,842 employers
- 4 years
- Median experience asked
How much does a data engineer make?
The median advertised pay is $145,000 a year, from 1,140 US job postings by 590 employers that state pay. One in ten postings offers $202,000 or more.
Advertised pay in 1,140 US data engineer job postings: median $145,000 a year, middle half $121,000 to $175,000.
- Median: $145,000
- 25th percentile: $121,000
- 75th percentile: $175,000
The figures as a table
| Annual pay | Share of postings |
|---|---|
| $40K–$50K | 0.5% |
| $50K–$60K | 0.2% |
| $60K–$70K | 0.9% |
| $70K–$80K | 1.0% |
| $80K–$90K | 1.4% |
| $90K–$100K | 3.5% |
| $100K–$110K | 7.3% |
| $110K–$120K | 7.8% |
| $120K–$130K | 9.7% |
| $130K–$140K | 10.6% |
| $140K–$150K | 11.6% |
| $150K–$160K | 8.1% |
| $160K–$170K | 8.4% |
| $170K–$180K | 5.5% |
| $180K–$190K | 4.8% |
| $190K–$200K | 6.7% |
| $200K–$210K | 4.9% |
| $210K–$220K | 1.1% |
| $220K–$230K | 1.4% |
| $230K–$240K | 1.1% |
| $240K–$250K | 0.7% |
| $250K–$260K | 0.5% |
| $260K–$270K | 0.6% |
| $270K–$280K | 0.8% |
| $280K–$290K | 0.1% |
Midpoint of each posting's pay range, hourly pay × 2,080 hours; at most 20 postings per employer; US, October 2026.
| Median | Middle 50% | Postings | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Postings that state an annual salary | $147,000 | $125K–$180K | 940 |
| All pay postings, annualised | $145,000 | $121K–$175K | 1,140 |
What is the starting salary for a data engineer?
Figure withheld: fewer than 250 US postings list pay. How we decide.
Data engineer levels and pay
Levels as they appear in job titles, ordered by the median experience asked. Senior data engineers have a median advertised pay of $160,000 a year.
| Level in title | Share of postings | Median experience asked | Median pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| No level in title | 71.9% | 3 years | $135,000 |
| Senior | 17.2% | 5 years | $160,000 |
| Lead | 4.6% | 6 years | – |
Highest-paying data engineer jobs
Specializations with at least 250 postings that state pay.
| Specialization | Median pay | Postings with pay | Employers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Data Engineer (general) | $145,000 | 726 | 414 |
Data engineer pay by state
Single-location US postings; states with at least 100 postings that state pay. States with pay-transparency laws (such as California, Colorado, New York and Washington) are over-represented among postings that state pay.
| State | Median pay | Middle 50% | Postings with pay | Share of postings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | $166,000 | $130,000–$198,000 | 117 | 15.5% |
Skills employers ask for in data engineer job postings
| Skill | Share of postings |
|---|---|
| Python | 56% |
| SQL | 51% |
| Communication | 32% |
| Spark | 28% |
| AWS | 25% |
| Problem-solving | 20% |
| Data modeling | 19% |
| Java | 18% |
| Databricks | 18% |
| Azure | 17% |
Skills named in the posting text; at most 20 postings per employer; US, October 2026. Methodology.
Skills that set data engineers apart
- SQL27.7× as often as in all postings · 51%
- Python17.1× as often as in all postings · 56%
- Spark105.5× as often as in all postings · 28%
- Data engineering115.1× as often as in all postings · 17%
- Data modeling64× as often as in all postings · 19%
- ETL103.3× as often as in all postings · 17%
- Databricks82.7× as often as in all postings · 18%
- AWS17.7× as often as in all postings · 25%
- Snowflake74.4× as often as in all postings · 17%
- Airflow117.2× as often as in all postings · 14%
- PySpark151.4× as often as in all postings · 13%
- Kafka59.9× as often as in all postings · 16%
Skills named in at least 5% of these postings and at least 3 times as often as in job postings overall.
Have a data engineer job posting in front of you? See which of its skills your resume is missing.
What does a data engineer do?
Employers post these jobs as Senior Data Engineer, Sr. Data Engineer, Lead Data Engineer, ETL Developer, Principal Data Engineer and other titles. The largest specializations are Data Platform Engineer (3%), Big Data Engineer (12%), ETL Developer (9%), Cloud Data Engineer (6%), Data Developer (5%), Data Integration Engineer (2%).
The closest official occupation is Database Architects (15-1243.00). Its most important tasks:
- Develop and document database architectures.
- Collaborate with system architects, software architects, design analysts, and others to understand business or industry requirements.
- Develop database architectural strategies at the modeling, design and implementation stages to address business or industry requirements.
- Design databases to support business applications, ensuring system scalability, security, performance, and reliability.
- Develop data models for applications, metadata tables, views or related database structures.
Source: O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (CC BY 4.0).
How much experience do you need to be a data engineer?
Among 2,533 postings that state a minimum, the median is 4 years. Under 1% say 0 years and 8% ask for 1 year or less.
Minimum experience asked in 2,533 US data engineer job postings: median 4 years, and 8% ask for 1 year or less.
The figures as a table
| Minimum experience asked | Share of postings |
|---|---|
| 0 yr | under 1% |
| 1 yr | 7% |
| 2 yrs | 15% |
| 3-4 yrs | 27% |
| 5-7 yrs | 33% |
| 8-9 yrs | 8% |
| 10+ yrs | 8% |
Postings that state a minimum (required or preferred); at most 20 postings per employer; US, October 2026.
We do not show a degree figure: in our checks, degree requirements in posting text were found too rarely to publish one. Why.
Full-time 98% of the 430 postings that state working hours.
Other names for a data engineer: job titles employers use
| Job title | Employers using it |
|---|---|
| Data Engineer | 437 (23.7%) |
| Senior Data Engineer | 408 (22.1%) |
| Sr. Data Engineer | 93 (5.1%) |
| Lead Data Engineer | 87 (4.7%) |
| ETL Developer | 83 (4.5%) |
| Principal Data Engineer | 72 (3.9%) |
| Staff Data Engineer | 57 (3.1%) |
| Data Engineer II | 56 (3.0%) |
| Hadoop Developer | 54 (2.9%) |
| Data Platform Engineer | 50 (2.7%) |
| Big Data Engineer | 44 (2.4%) |
| Big Data Architect | 33 (1.8%) |
| Azure Data Engineer | 32 (1.7%) |
| AI Data Engineer | 30 (1.6%) |
| AWS Data Engineer | 29 (1.6%) |
| Data Integration Engineer | 26 (1.4%) |
| Data Engineer III | 26 (1.4%) |
| Sr Data Engineer | 26 (1.4%) |
| Ab Initio Developer | 25 (1.4%) |
| Senior Data Platform Engineer | 25 (1.4%) |
Titles read in our audit and used by at least 3 employers.
Data Engineer compared with similar careers
| Career | Median pay | Median experience | Postings | Shares N of top 25 skills |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data Engineer | $145K | 4 years | 6,394 | – |
| Solutions Architect | $175K | 5 years | 7,307 | 10 |
| Data Analyst | $112K | 3 years | 6,766 | 8 |
| Engineering Manager | $200K | 5 years | 5,505 | 10 |
| Data Scientist | $162K | 4 years | 4,113 | 8 |
Similar careers
| Career | Shares N of the top 25 skills | Median pay |
|---|---|---|
| Solutions Architect | 10 | $175K |
| Data Analyst | 8 | $112K |
| Engineering Manager | 10 | $200K |
| Data Scientist | 8 | $162K |
| Database Administrator | 10 | $133K |
| Software Engineer | 11 | $164K |
Applying for data engineer jobs?
- Data engineer resume examples: one-page examples for these roles
- Match your resume to a job: paste a posting and see the skills your resume is missing
- Check your resume: see how an applicant tracking system reads it
- Find data engineer jobs: search open postings
Frequently asked questions
How much does a data engineer make?
Source and method
Open US job postings collected from employers' applicant tracking systems, de-duplicated, counted only when their job title was read in our audit. Shares count at most 20 postings per employer, and franchise locations of one brand count as one employer. Pay uses hourly and annual figures only; a figure is shown when leaving out the largest employer moves it by 10% or less. Every figure states its number of postings. Methodology and measured accuracy.
Accuracy check: we read 18 randomly chosen postings counted on this page in full; 18 of them were this career or a closely related one (October 2026).
Download the figures on this page (CSV): every number above with its count of postings. Aggregate figures are licensed CC BY 4.0; cite the page when you reuse them.