What Staff Data Engineering Jobs Ask For
Across 1,060 open Staff Data Engineering postings that list skills, the ones mentioned most often are ai, python, cloud.
Updated September 19, 2026
1,113 open Staff Data Engineering postings. The percentages below are measured over the 1,060 of them that list skills at all.
| Skill | Mentioned in |
|---|---|
| ai | 64% |
| python | 62% |
| cloud | 54% |
| data-engineering | 54% |
| analytics | 52% |
| sql | 50% |
| data-pipelines | 49% |
| aws | 45% |
| data-quality | 43% |
| spark | 39% |
| machine-learning | 35% |
| observability | 34% |
| kafka | 34% |
| etl | 32% |
| dbt | 31% |
| ci-cd | 28% |
| airflow | 27% |
| snowflake | 26% |
| gcp | 26% |
| api | 25% |
| data-modeling | 25% |
| automation | 24% |
| data-governance | 24% |
| agentic-ai | 20% |
| java | 20% |
| data-science | 19% |
| azure | 19% |
| databricks | 19% |
| kubernetes | 19% |
| distributed-systems | 18% |
| flink | 18% |
| terraform | 17% |
| data-warehousing | 17% |
| infrastructure-as-code | 15% |
| bigquery | 15% |
| elt | 15% |
| postgresql | 15% |
| scala | 14% |
| lakehouse | 13% |
| llm | 13% |
"Mentioned in" counts postings that name the skill anywhere — including as a nice-to-have — so treat it as the ceiling, not the bar.
Browse 1,113 open Staff Data Engineering jobs →
Across all Data Engineering levels
Most Data Engineering postings never state a level. This wider list covers them too.
- sql 44,839
- python 43,571
- cloud 39,467
- data-engineering 35,398
- data-pipelines 32,707
- analytics 32,318
- etl 30,540
- azure 26,991
- ai 26,672
- aws 24,714
- data-quality 24,270
- ci-cd 21,143