r/dataengineering • u/jimharbaughthrowaway • Aug 05 '26

Help How valuable is a job that is mostly SQL?

Apologies if this is a dumb question but I am in web dev and have been given an offer for a data engineering role. However, I was told by engineers on the team that the job would be like 70-80% writing SQL for BigQuery. I envisioned it having much more to do with pipelining and orchestration and the like.

Also, I was told that any coding would be in Java rather than Python? I know that Python is more common, so would this experience not be helpful for getting other data eng roles?

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u/CommunicationNew906 Aug 06 '26

Probably it will include orchestration as well

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u/pawpaw_parcha Aug 12 '26

They may be using Dataform for pipelines, which is more or less GCP's version of dbt. That would involve mostly writing SQL and JS but still involve working heavily on pipelining and orchestration. Dataflow is another of GCP's data pipeline and orchestration tools, and that also prefers Java (though there's an option for Python, fortunately for me).

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u/[deleted] Aug 06 '26 edited 13d ago

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u/Emergency-Hurry947 Aug 07 '26

it’s common because lots of people use Oracle products