How high is the Starting Salary for Data Engineers?
What Salary can a Junior expect and what are the affecting Factors?
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You can definitely earn good money in the field of data and as a Data Engineer — read here more about the salary of a experienced Data Engineer. But even if you have just finished your degree and are looking for your first job, you can earn quite a decent salary.
In this article, I will not only refer to bare figures, but also discuss the individual factors that influence your salary. For just an average number you can click here.
Factor 1: The Salary differences between Bachelor and Master
Professionals from the fields of Informatics, Computer Technology or Statistics can work as Data Engineers. For an optimal start, there are further training courses that prepare students for the fields of Business Intelligence, Databases, ETL or Data Science, among others. In Germany and other similar EU countries with a Master you can expect a salary of between €48,000 and €55,820 in the first year. With a Bachelor Degree your salary will be between €43,200 and €50,240. If you prefer to take on a trainee position first, the total amount is a little bit lower [1]. So in average, you will start with about 51,000€, which is about USD 51,929$ [2]. From experience and sources, it can be said that it is similar in the US, only that there generally more money can be earned — how much you can see in the article I linked in the introduction above.
Factor 2: The Size of the Company
Large companies that can afford larger Data and Business Intelligence departments so they can also pay you above average. So if you look at the ranges from above, you can assume that larger companies tend to pay you at the top of the scale, while smaller and mid-sized companies tend to pay you at the bottom. There are of course exceptions, so you can of course hope for very specialized and tech-savvy startups to pay more. The best salaries will probably be paid by the Big Tech — for example Amazon, Google or Microsoft [3].
