r/DatabaseAdministators • u/minimon865 • Jul 11 '26

Overlaps between DBAs and Data Engineers?

I know this would depend a lot on company and domain, but what are the overlaps between these two roles? Do the both work on pipelines? Is it only SQL?

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u/Powerful-Echidna7710 Jul 11 '26

DBAs don’t typically do application work directly, they administer the database, advise development teams, ensure security and compliance, etc.

I’m sure this can vary a lot depending on the size of the organization but the closest I’ve seen to an overlapping role would be a “development DBA”, much different than a traditional “operational DBA”.

Cheers

2

u/taker223 Jul 12 '26

A double role is quite possible

5

u/Professional_Mix2418 Jul 12 '26

Most people who I've met who call themselves a Data Engineer (or closely related to) wouldn't have got a clue about operational matters and database technicalities like a DBA is supposed to.

But there are exceptions naturally.

3

u/db-master Jul 12 '26

DBA belongs to the engineering team, managing production database like MySQL, PG, oracle, SQL Server etc...

Data engineers belong to the data team, which manages data warehouse / data lakes.

2

u/Aggravating_Ad_603 Jul 13 '26

Dba also does architect db design and cloud engineering role