Data engineering versus data science

Data engineering is what makes data science possible. Again, depending on the maturity of an organization, data scientists may be expected to clean and move the data required for analysis. This is not the best use of a data scientist's time. Data scientists and data engineers use similar tools (Python, for instance), but they specialize in different areas. Data engineers need to understand data formats, models, and structures to efficiently transport data, whereas data scientists utilize them for building statistical models and mathematical computation.

Data scientists will connect to the data warehouses built by data engineers. From there, they can extract the data required for machine learning models and analysis. Data scientists may have their models incorporated into a data engineering pipeline. A close relationship should exist between data engineers and data scientists. Understanding what data scientists need in the data will only serve to help the data engineers deliver a better product.

In the next section, you will learn more about the most common tools used by data engineers.