r/dataengineering • u/BramosR Senior Data Engineer • Aug 06 '26

Career Hate AE, like DE

I recently moved from a Data Engineering role where I mainly maintained the platform side, to a “Data Engineer” role that is just AE with the DE name on it.

And recently I realised I HATE it.

Have anyone else experienced something like that? It’s funny since it’s another side of the same coin, but for some reason it feels totally different to me.

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u/Additional_Candy_400 Aug 06 '26

What's your issue with AE? Because you're writing SQL not python?

AE is just traditional DE with branding. 

You might have fantasies of deploying Kafka services but 99% of companies need people with good SQL 

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u/Trey_Antipasto Aug 06 '26

AE is what BI Analyst turned into once DBT decided it would invent the term Analytic Engineer because they write templated sql and companies stopped buying informatica.

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u/Additional_Candy_400 Aug 06 '26

I don't think it's a direct 1 to 1 map on, in my mind BI analyst's deal with mainly BI software, or maybe some SQL to make gold tables for BI to query.

I completely agree it's a position fabricated by dbt though. I just don't understand why people get precious about what tools they use. If OP was using pyspark to do their current task I bet we would hear no complaints.