Data Engineer resume skills. The words recruiters search for.
The 18 skills, tools and credentials that come up in data engineer job posts, sorted by type, and how to put them in bullets a recruiter believes.
By Nazir Elmurodov, Founder, LaunchCV · Updated
/ The list
Keywords by type. Use only the ones that are true for you.
Hard skills · 7
- SQL (used in Omar's sample resume)
- Python (used in Omar's sample resume)
- ETL (used in Omar's sample resume)
- Data pipelines (used in Omar's sample resume)
- Data modeling (used in Omar's sample resume)
- Data warehousing (used in Omar's sample resume)
- Data quality (used in Omar's sample resume)
Tools & software · 10
- Airflow (used in Omar's sample resume)
- dbt (used in Omar's sample resume)
- Snowflake (used in Omar's sample resume)
- Kafka (used in Omar's sample resume)
- Spark (used in Omar's sample resume)
- AWS (used in Omar's sample resume)
- Amazon S3 (used in Omar's sample resume)
- AWS Glue (used in Omar's sample resume)
- Amazon Redshift (used in Omar's sample resume)
- Git (used in Omar's sample resume)
Licenses & certifications · 1
- AWS Certified Data Engineer (used in Omar's sample resume)
18 of 18 appear in Omar's sample resume. See where
/ How to use them
Put keywords in bullets, not just in a skills list.
A skills list tells the software you have a skill. A bullet shows a recruiter what you did with it.
Airflow, Snowflake
Weak: Skills: Airflow, Snowflake
Strong: Build and maintain 60 Airflow DAGs that load sales, inventory and loyalty data into Snowflake every night
dbt, Snowflake
Weak: Skills: dbt, Snowflake
Strong: Rebuilt the nightly batch as incremental dbt models, cutting run time from 6 hours to 90 minutes and Snowflake credit use by 30%
Kafka
Weak: Skills: Kafka
Strong: Stream point-of-sale events from 85 stores through Kafka so inventory dashboards update within 5 minutes
SQL, Python, ETL, AWS, Amazon S3, AWS Glue, Amazon Redshift
Weak: Skills: SQL, Python, ETL, AWS, Amazon S3, AWS Glue, Amazon Redshift
Strong: Wrote Python and SQL ETL jobs on AWS — Amazon S3, AWS Glue and Amazon Redshift — for shipment and billing data
Strong bullets come from Omar's sample resume and our data engineer bullet examples. Names and figures are illustrative.
/ Use them honestly
Keywords get you found. Proof gets you hired.
Mirror the job post's wording for skills you really have. If a data engineer post asks for SQL and you've used it, say SQL, in the post's spelling, and show where.
Mirror the job post's wording
If a data engineer post says "Python", write "Python", not a near-synonym — as long as it's accurate. Recruiters search for the post's exact term.
Only claim what you can back up
Expect to be asked about every term you list. If you couldn't spend two minutes on SQL — what you did and what changed — leave it out.
Show it in a bullet
A skills list says you know Airflow. A bullet like the one under Data Engineer in the example above shows what you did with it.
No stuffing, no hidden text
Repeating a word or hiding keywords in white text doesn't make you a better match. A person reads the resume in the end.
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/ Questions
Data Engineer keywords, answered.
Something else? support@launch-cv.com
How many keywords should a data engineer resume have?
There's no magic number. Omar's sample resume uses all 18 terms on this page, because each one fit that job. Cover what your post asks for that you can back up, each where it fits; repeating a keyword doesn't help.
Should I copy keywords exactly from the job post?
Use the post's wording for skills you really have. If a data engineer post says "SQL", write "SQL" rather than a synonym, so a recruiter searching for that term finds you. Don't add skills you don't have just because the post lists them.
Where should keywords go on my resume?
In your summary, a short skills section and, above all, the bullets under each job, where you show what you did with the skill. In Omar's sample, SQL, Python and ETL are in the summary and Airflow shows up in a bullet under Data Engineer. Plain text in the body of the page is easiest for applicant tracking systems to read.
Which tools should I list on a data engineer resume?
The ones you've used and the post mentions. Common ones in data engineer posts include Airflow, dbt, Snowflake, Kafka and Spark. Name the tool in the bullet where you used it, not only in the skills list.
How should I list AWS Certified Data Engineer on my resume?
Spell it the way the job post does, and include both the abbreviation and the full name if you have room. Put licenses and certifications in their own section or next to your education, and only list ones that are current.
Keywords for related roles
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