Data Engineering Roadmap (Beginner to Advanced)
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Phase 1: Fundamentals (0-3 Months)
1. Learn Programming (Python & SQL)
Python Basics:
- Data Types, Loops, Conditionals
- Functions, Exception Handling
- Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)
Python for Data Processing:
- Pandas & NumPy (Data Wrangling & Processing)
- Working with CSV, JSON, APIs
- Regular Expressions & String Manipulation
SQL (Structured Query Language):
- CRUD Operations (`SELECT`, `INSERT`, `UPDATE`, `DELETE`)
- Filtering & Sorting (`WHERE`, `ORDER BY`, `GROUP BY`)
- Joins (`INNER JOIN`, `LEFT JOIN`, `RIGHT JOIN`)
- Window Functions, CTEs, Subqueries
- Indexing & Optimization Techniques
🛠 Practice: Solve SQL challenges on platforms like LeetCode, StrataScratch, SQLZoo
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2. Learn Data Storage & Databases (Relational & NoSQL)
Relational Databases (RDBMS):
- PostgreSQL, MySQL, MS SQL Server
- ACID Properties & Transactions
- Database Indexing & Query Optimization
NoSQL Databases:
- MongoDB (Document Store)
- Redis (Key-Value Store)
- Apache Cassandra (Wide-Column Store)
🛠 Hands-on:
- Set up PostgreSQL & MongoDB locally
- Design a simple database schema
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Phase 2: Intermediate (3-6 Months)
3. Data Warehousing & Modeling
Data Modeling Concepts:
- Normalization vs Denormalization
- Star Schema vs Snowflake Schema
- Slowly Changing Dimensions (SCD)
Data Warehousing Tools:
- AWS Redshift
- Google BigQuery
- Snowflake
🛠 Hands-on:
- Design a star schema for an e-commerce dataset
- Load & query data in BigQuery
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## **4. Learn ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) & Data Pipelines**
### ETL vs ELT Concepts
### ETL Tools:
- Apache Airflow (Workflow Orchestration)
- dbt (Data Transformation)
- Apache Nifi, Talend
### Batch Processing vs Stream Processing
### Data Ingestion Techniques:
- Extracting from APIs, Databases, Cloud Storage
- Handling CSV, JSON, Parquet files
🛠 **Hands-on:**
- Build an Airflow DAG to extract data from an API and store it in a database
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## **5. Big Data & Distributed Systems**
### Batch Processing:
- Apache Spark (PySpark)
- Spark DataFrame API, RDDs
- Spark SQL & Optimization
### Real-time Data Processing:
- Apache Kafka (Message Streaming)
- Apache Flink / Spark Streaming
- AWS Kinesis, Google Pub/Sub
🛠 **Hands-on:**
- Stream real-time tweets using Kafka and process them with Spark
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# **Phase 3: Advanced (6-12 Months)**
## **6. Cloud Technologies & Data Engineering on Cloud**
### Cloud Providers:
- AWS (S3, Lambda, Glue, Redshift)
- GCP (BigQuery, Dataflow, Pub/Sub)
- Azure (Data Factory, Synapse)
### Data Lake vs Data Warehouse
### Data Governance & Security
### Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, AWS CloudFormation)
🛠 **Hands-on:**
- Set up an AWS Glue job to process data from S3 and load it into Redshift
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## **7. DevOps & CI/CD for Data Pipelines**
### Containerization & Orchestration:
- Docker, Kubernetes
### CI/CD Tools:
- GitHub Actions, Jenkins
### Monitoring & Logging:
- Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack
### Unit Testing & Data Quality Checks:
- Great Expectations, dbt Tests
🛠 **Hands-on:**
- Create a CI/CD pipeline for deploying an Airflow DAG
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## **8. Work on Real-World Data Engineering Projects**
### Project Ideas
#### Beginner:
- Build an ETL pipeline using Airflow and PostgreSQL
- Design a database schema for a movie recommendation system
#### Intermediate:
- Process streaming Twitter data with Kafka & Spark
- Implement a data warehouse using BigQuery
#### Advanced:
- Build a full-scale real-time analytics pipeline
- Design a cloud-based data lakehouse using AWS
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## 🎯 **Final Goal: Get a Data Engineering Job**
- Polish your resume with real-world projects
- Contribute to open-source data engineering projects
- Apply for internships & entry-level data engineering roles
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