Data Analyst vs Data Engineer vs Data Scientist

Aishwarya Sharma
3 min readSep 2, 2021

Data Analyst

A data analyst gathers, organizes and interprets statistical data using data analysis tools to come up with meaningful results. The client then uses these interpretations to make important business decisions.

A data analyst doesn’t require the high-level data interpretation expertise of data scientists or the software engineering abilities of data engineers. It is an entry-level career — which means that one does not need to be an expert. Graduates who have bachelor degrees in mathematics, statistics, economics or any other field related to math can pursue it.

Also, data analysts are usually generalists, which means that they can fit in different teams or roles to help make data-driven decisions.

Data Engineer

Big data engineering was ranked high among emerging jobs on LinkedIn. A data engineer is a professional who prepares and manages big data that is then analyzed by data analysts and scientists. They are responsible for designing, building, integrating, and maintaining data from several sources.

Data engineers play no part in the analysis of the data that they receive and store. Their job is to make sure it is available to the users — who are the data analysts and data scientists. If a company wants to use data to better their business, a data engineer is the first to come in to build data pipelines. They also improve on these pipelines regularly to make sure the data stored for analysis is accurate and accessible. Data engineers need advanced software development skills, which are not as essential for data analysts and data scientists.

Data Scientist

Data scientist was named the most promising job of 2019 in the U.S. The work of a data scientist is to analyze and interpret raw data into business solutions using machine learning and algorithms.

A data scientist performs the same duties as a data analyst, but possess more advanced algorithms and statistics expertise. Additionally, they know how to build, train, and use machine learning and deep learning models to understand data — skills that data analysts don’t possess. These skills make data scientists immensely valuable in interpreting answers from open-ended questions and also identifying hidden insights.

Data scientists can be engineers who have strong business acumen and communication skills. However, they are not usually in charge of developing or maintaining data architecture. Most data scientist jobs ask for a master’s degree in data science or a related field.

Skill set

Roles and Responsibilities

Salary

  • On average, a Data Analyst earns an annual salary of $67,377
  • A Data Engineer earns $116,591 per annum
  • And a Data Scientist, on average, makes $117,345 in a year

Hope now you understand which is the best role for you.

I love Data Scientist job and recommend you the same as it is the most sexiest job of the 21st century. So, what are you waiting for? Start working on yourself and get a good job.

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Aishwarya Sharma

Unicorns are real. They are called data scientists now ;)