What Staff Data Engineering Jobs Ask For
Across 756 open Staff Data Engineering postings that list skills, the ones mentioned most often are cloud, python, ai.
Updated November 3, 2026
768 open Staff Data Engineering postings. The percentages below are measured over the 756 of them that list skills at all.
| Skill | Mentioned in |
|---|---|
| cloud | 65% |
| python | 65% |
| ai | 64% |
| sql | 60% |
| analytics | 59% |
| data-engineering | 57% |
| data-pipelines | 54% |
| aws | 47% |
| observability | 44% |
| spark | 42% |
| machine-learning | 41% |
| data-quality | 40% |
| airflow | 37% |
| ci-cd | 34% |
| data-modeling | 33% |
| kafka | 33% |
| api | 32% |
| snowflake | 32% |
| dbt | 31% |
| etl | 27% |
| gcp | 27% |
| automation | 25% |
| databricks | 25% |
| data-governance | 24% |
| azure | 23% |
| kubernetes | 22% |
| terraform | 21% |
| agentic-ai | 21% |
| bigquery | 20% |
| data-warehousing | 20% |
| java | 20% |
| data-science | 19% |
| infrastructure-as-code | 19% |
| distributed-systems | 19% |
| llm | 18% |
| s3 | 18% |
| lakehouse | 18% |
| elt | 16% |
| cloud-native | 16% |
| postgresql | 16% |
"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 768 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 37,551
- python 34,758
- cloud 32,101
- data-engineering 30,136
- data-pipelines 28,862
- analytics 26,703
- etl 25,202
- ai 21,717
- azure 21,526
- data-quality 20,587
- aws 19,492
- ci-cd 18,656