Organizations and start-ups across the globe are rapidly adopting advanced technologies, almost all of which are tied together by one field – data. Data is quickly becoming the lifeblood of digital transformation, and companies are scrambling to re-invent themselves as data-driven organizations. Given the huge amount of data that is being produced every second, there is a rising demand for Data Engineers who could store, organize, and manage the ever-increasing amount of data. To help aspiring data engineers capitalize on this unparalleled opportunity, Udacity, the Silicon Valley-based lifelong learning platform, has launched its new Data Engineering Nanodegree Program.
A quick search for Data Engineer on Glassdoor or Indeed yields roughly 100,000 job openings, nearly five times the number of jobs when you search for Data Scientist. Also, Data Engineer topped the ‘Hottest Tech Jobs’ list in December 2018, with job openings growing nearly 100% year over year. However, the number of such jobs is likely to see significant growth soon and a scarcity of skilled professionals.
The Data Engineering Nanodegree Program is a 5-month long program, if students spend approximately 5-10 hours per week. The course curriculum has been made in collaboration with professionals from companies including Insight Data Engineering, Slack, Stitchfix, and Uber. During the program, participants will learn to create scalable and efficient data warehouses, identify the appropriate use cases for different big data technologies, and work efficiently with massive datasets, in addition to learning how to work with specific tools and automate the management and analysis of data.
“Data engineers are responsible for making data accessible to all the people who use it across an organization,” said Sam Nelson, Product Lead, School of Data Science, Udacity. “Students who take this program will learn the technical skills required to become a data engineer … Companies all over the world are looking for data engineers and our goal is to help anyone who wishes to land a job in the field do so.”
Ishan Gupta, MD, Udacity India, said, “There has been a clear dearth of advanced data engineering courses for aspiring professionals to enroll in as there are many separate components that one must master in order to be a data engineer. At Udacity, we identify and provide the training required to create the workforce of the future who can contribute to further developing nascent technologies, based on the requirement and demand for them in the market. The enormous growth in the demand for data engineering skills at the global level made the Data Engineering program an obvious next addition to our Nanodegree offerings. We are confident that the program will be the perfect vehicle to launch high-flying careers in this field of incredible potential.”
The program is divided into four courses, namely Data Modeling, Cloud Data Warehouses, Data Lakes with Apache Spark and Data Pipelines with Apache Airflow. Along with learning about these key concepts and tools pertaining to data engineering, participants will also get relevant and extensive practical exposure to the application of these concepts through various projects following each course, access to a mentor to help effective learning outcomes, benefit of student community and quality career services including access to Udacity’s career fair, Udacity Propel.