How do you hire a data engineer?

You can hire data engineers in different ways. Freelance hiring through the top sites is often a good choice because you can hire an engineer for a specific project or timeframe without the hassles of traditional hiring.

How much does it cost to employ data engineers?

The cost of hiring a data engineer can change depending on the level of the candidate's experience and the project requirements. Thankfully, freelancers often post their rates so you can understand your costs. According to Glassdoor, the average base pay for a data engineer in the United States is around $108,000 per year. However, this can range from around $70,000 to $160,000 per year, depending on the location and experience level of the data engineer.

Are data engineers in high demand?

Yes, data engineers are highly sought after thanks to the nature of their skills and the evolution of modern business. Companies in all sorts of industries are using more technology, including cloud computing and remote work. That generates more data a data engineer will be able to organize and make use of.

Why should you hire a data engineer?

You should hire a data engineer to save time, money and resources by streamlining how your company's data is handled and shared. By leveraging the latest data technologies and insights, your business can gain a competitive advantage over others in your industry.

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Here are the top 15 sites to hire freelance Data Engineers

Growing your business is a great thing, but it comes with new challenges that need to be met. As your company collects and stores more data, it may become necessary to hire data engineers. How do you find the right talent? Make the process fast and easy with these sites that connect you to qualified professionals.

*Based on facts publicly available as of 01.01.2023

1. Toptal

Toptal is one of the fastest-growing talent marketplaces and has served major Fortune 500 clients. Known for its extensive vetting process, Toptal has an acceptance rate of only 3 percent. Developers seeking to gain entry into the Toptal community are put through technical tests before working with clients.

2. Upwork

Upwork is one of the largest freelance marketplaces, with millions of registered freelancers. Upwork connects clients with remote freelancers, from content writers to JSON experts. With the help of sorting algorithms, Upwork facilitates the match between the job poster and freelancers that see your job post, to ensure potential matches see your post. Upwork Pro offers freelancers a chance to participate in exclusive opportunities not available to every job seeker. Finding an Upwork Pro freelancer may provide you with a better skillset than only a general freelancer on Upwork.

3. Freelancer

Freelancer is an online marketplace for freelancers with millions of registered users. To hire a freelancer, post a job, set a price, and wait for freelancers to bid on your project. Freelancer doesn't specialize in tech, and has a wide range of services that may help your team.

4. Guru

Guru is a freelance marketplace with millions of registered users. Their marketplace is suited for projects of all sizes, offering a variety of services, including designers and developers. It's a great site to find multiple options for you to compare.

5. PeoplePerHour

PeoplePerHour is a freelance marketplace. Just like most marketplaces, you can post your project at an hourly or fixed-rate. Interestingly, freelancers post jobs, called hourlies, to attract work they want to do on an hourly basis. PeoplePerHour offers a variety of skilled positions, including designers, developers, and marketers.

6. Fiverr

Another site to hire data engineers is Fiverr. It's a very popular freelance marketplace, so you will have access to a wide variety of candidates. Once you choose the professional you want to work with, you get final approval of the work that is done. Payment isn't made until the work is accepted by your company.

7. Arc.dev

The team at Arc aims to take much of the search process off of your plate as you look for your new staff member. The company says only 2.3% of applicants actually make it into their system. They take these applicants and deliver the right ones to your hiring team for a seamless process.

8. Scalable Path

Scalable Path is one of the premium talent matching services. They can match your project to a single developer, or a team of developers. Scalable Path vets their developers, and screens candidates for English language, technical proficiency, and more.

9. Gun.io

Vetted professionals are available through Gun.io, so it is a solid choice to look to hire data engineers. You can tell the company what type of candidate you are looking for and let them do the work of matching someone to your needs. It's also easy to hire the right person as a freelancer or as an employee.

10. Outvise

With Outvise, it is simple to see the certifications of the data engineers you could hire. You will get a fine-tuned list of candidates once you post your project or job listing. Then you can negotiate with your top choices for the best price to meet your needs and budget.

11. ElevateX

A strict vetting process is used to qualify the freelancers found on ElevateX. When you sign up as a client, the appropriate freelance data engineers will be sent to you for you to decide the best fit. The process is fast; you can have your matches in as soon as 48 hours.

12. Expertlead

Hire data engineers with the skills you need with Expertlead. All candidates are sourced and assessed to find their specialties. Then the best are sent to you based on your project and needs. Each freelancer is peer-reviewed, so leading experts in the data engineering field can vouch that the person you hire knows what they are doing.

13. Outsourcely

On Outsourcely, you can quickly post the job you have and get interested freelancers who want to work with you. You can also browse candidates by their skills. The site is built to make sorting through options more organized and to support live chats between your hiring team and the tech expert.

14. SimplyHired

To cast a broader net for data engineers, try SimplyHired. Your post is shared to multiple job boards so even more candidates see it and have a chance to respond. Create screening questions that help ensure the right person is chosen for the job.

15. Turing

Turing says it only accepts about 1% of the applicants who sign up to be freelancers for them. That means you can access a highly qualified pool of people when you are looking to hire data engineers. Artificial intelligence helps with the vetting process to make it easier for you to hire.

Guide to hiring great freelance Data Engineers

According to LinkedIn, data engineering jobs are on the rise at around 50% YoY and for good reason. As companies rely on data more than ever before, they need data engineers to manage and process it effectively. This trend is expected to continue as more devices and applications become connected and generate more data.

Despite the growth of the field, businesses face significant challenges when it comes to recruiting top-notch data engineers. There is a shortage of data engineers with the right combination of technical and soft skills. With the role in high demand, businesses often compete with other companies to hire the best candidates.

Using some of the top sites to hire can eliminate these problems for you. For instance, when you work with Toptal, everyone has been vetted before you ever log on. There is no work for you to do to find the next member of your team.

Working with freelancers and remote workers offers a lot of perks. A freelance data engineer can be more cost-effective than hiring a full-time employee, especially for short-term projects. It's also easy to find and hire a data engineer who has a very special skill set.

Why Hire Dedicated Data Engineers?

What does a data engineer do, and why is it even necessary to hire data engineers? It really depends on where your business is when it comes to growth. Once you have several data scientists and analysts generating information, it's time to bring in a data engineer to support them. Data engineers can take care of many things, including:

Designing and implementing a robust data architecture that can support your business's data needs, including building data pipelines, data warehouses, and data lakes that can store and process data effectively
Integrating data from various sources, including databases, APIs and third-party services, into a single system
Building efficient ETL (extract, transform, and load) processes that can transform data from raw format to a format that is easy to work with
Ensuring that the data your business works with is of high quality by implementing data validation and cleansing processes
Designing a scalable data infrastructure that can grow with your business's needs
Implementing analytics and reporting tools that allow businesses to make data-driven decisions

Each of these processes will enable your business to operate more efficiently and put you in a better position for growth in the future.

What Skills Should You Look For in a Data Engineer?

To hire data engineers that will help you succeed, you need to know what skills to look for. These professionals need both technical qualifications and soft skills to succeed.

Here are the top technical attributes:

Data modeling to support complex data processing and analytics
Managing databases, including database design, installation, configuration, and maintenance
ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes that can transform and load data from multiple sources
Familiarity with big data technologies, such as Hadoop, Spark and Kafka, to manage large volumes of data
Experience in cloud-based data technologies, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform
Programming languages: Data engineers should have expertise in one or more programming languages such as Python, Java, R, and SQL
In addition to these programming languages, data engineers may also have experience with other languages and tools such as Scala, NoSQL databases and Apache Spark.

Soft skills are critical as well and should include:

Excellent communication skills to collaborate with other teams and stakeholders
Strong problem-solving skills to identify and solve complex data-related problems
Analytical thinking skills to analyze data and identify trends and insights

Your ideal candidate should be able to use all of these attributes together to support the goals of your company.

Why You Need To Find and Hire Freelance Data Engineers

When you take the time to find data engineers for your team, you're investing in a better way of doing things at your company. They can help you put your data to better use so your company makes smarter decisions.

To get the right talent, embrace high-quality freelance sites that screen data scientists and deliver the best to you. From Toptal's curated matches to Gun.io's flexible practices, you can find a site that fits your budget and timeframe while delivering a data engineer who will do a great job.

If you've been hesitating, use this guide to get started finding the data engineer who will be right for your business.

FAQs

How do you hire a data engineer?: You can hire data engineers in different ways. Freelance hiring through the top sites is often a good choice because you can hire an engineer for a specific project or timeframe without the hassles of traditional hiring.
How much does it cost to employ data engineers?: The cost of hiring a data engineer can change depending on the level of the candidate's experience and the project requirements. Thankfully, freelancers often post their rates so you can understand your costs. According to Glassdoor, the average base pay for a data engineer in the United States is around $108,000 per year. However, this can range from around $70,000 to $160,000 per year, depending on the location and experience level of the data engineer.
Are data engineers in high demand?: Yes, data engineers are highly sought after thanks to the nature of their skills and the evolution of modern business. Companies in all sorts of industries are using more technology, including cloud computing and remote work. That generates more data a data engineer will be able to organize and make use of.
Why should you hire a data engineer?: You should hire a data engineer to save time, money and resources by streamlining how your company's data is handled and shared. By leveraging the latest data technologies and insights, your business can gain a competitive advantage over others in your industry.

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