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How I’m Upskilling as a Data Engineer in 2025
In 2022, learning Spark and SQL made me feel like a data wizard. In 2025, they feel like table stakes. So what now?
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It hit me during a late-night debugging session on a Databricks pipeline. I was knee-deep in delta logs, but the real question wasn’t about a corrupted schema — it was about my own growth:
“Am I keeping up with where data engineering is headed?”
The landscape has changed. Fast. AI agents write code, LLMs automate documentation, and platform engineering is eating traditional roles. If you’re wondering what to learn next, you’re not alone.
Let’s walk through the realities of upskilling in 2025, especially with Generative AI reshaping our tools, workflows, and expectations.
🚀 The 2025 Shift: From Pipeline Builder to Platform Thinker
Just building ingestion pipelines isn’t enough anymore. In 2025, the best data engineers are doing one or more of the following:
- Orchestrating AI-powered workflows
- Working with Unstructured Data
- Core Python development
- Integrating LLMs with data platforms (like Databricks + LangChain)
