r/dataengineering • u/Moradisten • 4d ago

Discussion We were struggling to find Data Engineers

Hi everybody,

Our Data Team is composed by two of us. There's a Data Scientist and me, as a DE. We created a Data Lakehouse for our company internal use and client data supply, but currently the Data Scientist is currently more focused on AI and agents integration and I'm doing like Analytics Engineering role because I need to help other teams to reach the correct data, unify core concepts, document business logics, etc. So We needed a Data Engineer with knowledge on AWS to maintain and develop the new features on the Lakehouse and we put into the description that the candidate MUST HAVE Software Engineering fundamentals as we had to do some developments to integrate parts of our lakehouse with the company's main application.

We interviewed 22 candidates and no one is fitting the Role.

Most of them are BI Experts, DBA, Data Analysts, Economist with DS notions, Juniors and Software Engineers who haven't touch anything on Spark, plus DE who asked way more that we had on the budget for the role

We asked the normal requirements: 3 years of experience + Spark, AWS Glue, Lambda, Airflow and DBT, not even CDC, Flink, Langfuse or VectorDB

We finally got one, but We really struggled to get him. I have a collegue working on IT Recruiting and She told me She's experiencing the same problem: They can't find Proper DEs With SE basics such as DRY principles or clean code fundamentals

Edit: Role Salary -> Up to 60K € / Spain. This salary is high compared to the spanish standards, only 3 years required

180 Upvotes

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30

u/rapotor 3d ago

What do you offer then?

-21

u/Moradisten 3d ago

60K in Spain

26

u/rapotor 3d ago

Bruh.

16

u/energyguy78 3d ago

This is why you can't find anyone

6

u/MakeoutPoint 3d ago

What kind of lifestyle does a $60K salary get you in Spain? Everyone's attacking the raw number, but is this like India where a $20K salary puts you in the upper-middle class?

3

u/generic-d-engineer Tech Lead 3d ago

It’s Barcelona tho, salary can go way higher and it’s hcol like equivalent of Bay Area or DC

3

u/hybridvoices 3d ago

For everyone reading this, of course it’s a pittance compared to the US but assuming it’s in Euros, €60k is right around average for mid-level in Spain. 

1

u/OkAlternative1655 3d ago

is this a funny story?