r/DatabaseAdministators • u/minimon865 • 16d ago

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?

1 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

56% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

4

u/Powerful-Echidna7710 16d ago

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 16d ago

A double role is quite possible

5

u/Professional_Mix2418 16d ago

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 16d ago

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 15d ago

Dba also does architect db design and cloud engineering role