The databases an organization runs on — fast, reliable, and safe — are your responsibility, from design to performance to recovery. Keeper of where the data lives and how it moves.
Schemas, performance, backups, recovery, uptime — you design and safeguard the databases an organization runs on, working with developers and operations, often with on-call duty. A slow query or a lost table affects everyone, so the craft is building for reliability and scale before either becomes a crisis.
The harder part is the responsibility for data that can't be lost — and the quiet pressure of being the last line before disaster. On-call and incident response are common, the technology spans many systems, and a single bad change can cascade. Cloud, on-prem, and hybrid environments each bring their own gotchas.
It tends to fit someone methodical, careful, and calm under high stakes. If you want highly visible or fast-changing work, the role can feel behind-the-scenes. But if building systems that reliably hold an organization's data appeals, the work tends to satisfy in a quiet, essential way.
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Where this role sits in the broader career landscape — and where it can take you.
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Roles like this one sit within a broader occupational category. The numbers below reflect that full landscape — helpful for context, but your specific experience will depend on level, specialty, and where you work.
Roles with similar work and overlapping career paths
View all Engineering roles →The databases an organization runs on — fast, reliable, and safe — are your responsibility, from design to performance to recovery. Keeper of where the data lives and how it moves.
Median pay for a Database Engineer is about $120K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $57K to $210K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Core skills for this role include Critical Thinking, Complex Problem Solving, Complex Problem Solving, Reading Comprehension, and Critical Thinking.
Most people in this role hold a bachelor's degree.
Employment in this field is projected to grow about 4% through 2034, with roughly 137,950 people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include Database Analyst, Database Design Analyst, and Technical Business Analyst.
Still figuring out what you want to become
when you grow up?