Top 6 Skills Every Hadoop Engineer Should Have
When you have large amounts of data that needs to be processed and managed, you need an effective solution designed to work specifically with big data. You need to both understand what information you are gathering and how you can monetize that data to support your business model. Enter Hadoop.
Hadoop was released by the Apache Foundation. It is an open-source, Java-based software framework that can be used to process large amounts of data on complex systems at high speeds. As a result, Hadoop is suitable for dealing with data processing in a big data environment.
Today, Hadoop is one of the most extensive solutions to handle big data. In fact, it is so effective that it is used by many significant organizations, including Yahoo! and Facebook.
Benefits a Hadoop Engineer Can Offer
Hadoop has many advantages for businesses that want to organize and manage their data fast and effectively. Some of the benefits of hiring a Hadoop engineer include:
1. Varied data sources
Hadoop is designed to accept a variety of data. Therefore, developers can make data come from a range of sources that can be structured or unstructured. It can also accept data in a text file, XML file, CSV files and more.
2. Enhanced speed
Hadoop specialists use a distributed file system to manage its storage. In this system, a big file is broken into smaller file blocks and then distributed among the Nodes available in a Hadoop cluster. This great number of file blocks are processed parallely, making Hadoop faster. When you’re working with a vast amount of unstructured data, speed is an essential factor. Hadoop developers allow you to easily access TB’s of data in just minutes.
3. Highly scalable
Hiring a Hadoop developer means you get access to an extremely scalable storage platform. Hadoop can store and share large data sets over hundreds of servers that operate in parallel. Unlike traditional database systems that can’t scale to process big amounts of data, Hadoop allows businesses to run applications on thousands of nodes, which include thousands of terabytes of data.
4. High throughput
Throughput refers to jobs done per unit time. Hadoop developers can store data in a distributed way, which enables using distributed processing fast and efficiently. Jobs get divided into smaller jobs that work on chunks of data in parallel. In turn, this offers high throughput
5. Flexible
Developers in Hadoop allows businesses to easily access new data sources and tap into different types of data to generate value. From this, businesses can use Hadoop to derive relevant business insights from data sources such as email conversations and social media. Ultimately, Hadoop can be used for a wide range of purposes, including log processing, data warehousing, market campaign analysis and more.
6. Cost-effectiveness
Hiring a Hadoop specialist that uses clusters has proven to be a highly affordable solution for expanding datasets. It is specifically created to scale-out architecture that can cost-effectively store all your data for use later. In turn, this saves a lot of costs and increases the storage capability remarkably.
A good Hadoop developer has a particular set of skills at their disposal. Let’s explore six of the most important skills these developers require:
Skills an Expert Hadoop Engineer Should Have
Hadoop developers are usually tasked with the programming, design, and development of Hadoop applications in the Big Data domain. To successfully complete their responsibilities, they require a range of specialized skills. Some of these include:
1. In-depth knowledge of the Hadoop system and its components
A Hadoop developer must be skilled to manage the complete Hadoop development lifecycle. This includes platform selection, designing technical architecture, needs analysis, application design, thorough testing and deployment. To prove these skills, a Hadoop expert may have to show completion of the Hadoop certification.
2. Knowledge of database practices and theories
Because Hadoop is used to working with large sets of data, a Hadoop IT specialist developer must be skilled in database tools, their best practices and theories. Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) is the storage system available in Hadoop. It allows developers to store and process large amounts of data at a very low cost. Developers, therefore, must know and understand the HDFS system.
3. Data mining skills
One of the major responsibilities of any Hadoop engineer is to work with data mining. Data mining includes extracting, storing, and processing vast amounts of data. For working with big data technologies, engineers must be familiar with data mining tools such as KNIME, Apache Mahout, Rapid Miner and more.
4. Advanced understanding of programming languages
A skilled Hadoop developer must have good knowledge of coding. They must understand data structures, how algorithms work, and at least one popular programming language. There are many programming languages like Java, Python and Scala that cater to the needs of Hadoop developers. Most of these programming languages have different syntaxes but their logic remains the same.
5. Ability to work with data visualization tools
Hadoop professionals must have the ability to interpret big data by visualizing it. This may require some mathematical and science skills to easily understand complex data with creativity.
6. Ability to analyze
Big data involves a lot of numeric digits. Therefore, statistical and quantitative analysis is one of the most important parts of big data analysis. Hadoop developers must have skills in statistics and mathematics that help them in understanding core concepts such as probability distribution, random variables, etc.
To check other skills and experience of a Hadoop engineer, it can be useful to look at an example of a Hadoop developer’s resume:
Summary
Big data is fast taking over the business world and as a result, the demand for Hadoop experts is increasing accordingly. Businesses that want to benefit from everything that Hadoop offers, must hire a knowledgeable and experienced Hadoop developer. The right developer has a range of skills that set them apart from other engineers. Some of these skills include having an in-depth knowledge of the Hadoop system, knowledge of databases and data mining practices, as well as a range of programming skills.