Data Engineer vs Backend vs Full Stack ?
Posted by WittySophisticate@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 7 comments
Hello Experienced Devs,
I have a Master's in a data leaning stream (graduated 5 years ago) . At the time in college..I enjoyed Front End Dev...and everyone was telling Software development would have more prospects and better pay, so I went down that path instead of being a data engineer.. like most folks in my class did.
Fast Forward Today, things have gone 180.. I am now upskilling towards backend (Spring Boot) since frontend roles have dropped drastically thanks to AI and SDE is not seen as what it once was, and we all know why. I am enjoying learning backend but it has a lot to cover in terms of depth and tooling . I love real time systems the whole picture and how everything connects during System Design..However my pace of learning is slow. I have lot to cover, I sometimes feel I should drop Full Stack Dev and pivot to Data Engineering. although I will have to start from zero including re-learning python.
But a part of me still feels , Full Stack and Backend Roles are hard to automate 100% and be handled by agents. I am mean you need a human in charge to handle critical stuff like Payments, authentication, security. Yes an agent can help you build those, but they can't be trusted to act autonomously.. Yes the head counts of teams have dropped but that is for all roles in the tech industry right now.
Senior devs, please share your thoughts on this , and are my reasons valid to stay in Development valid
Flat_Shower@reddit
You already have the data background from your master's; you're not starting from zero. Python is learnable in weeks if you already know how to code.
The real question is what kind of problems you want. DE at the senior level is data quality, freshness SLAs, schema enforcement, and silent failure detection. Not moving files from A to B. If that sounds more interesting than request/response systems, pivot.
QuitTypical3210@reddit
You might as well just work on the AI part of anything. Internal AI tools, AI models, whatever. None of what ur have listed is safe
throwaway_0x90@reddit
Do you think backend engs are in any way immune to AI?
You should go with Data Engineering.
skidmark_zuckerberg@reddit
Yeah I never got why people seem to think BE is immune. If anything it’s more structured than FE and more data driven. AI can eat that up.
yabadabs13@reddit
Crud on backend is done for
waitses@reddit
With AI you can slop out any of them.
RandomPantsAppear@reddit
With your background, I think data + backend is a pretty killer combo. One of the most insulated areas of software development from complete AI take over, is health care. It uses AI, but the normal problems with AI (security, increased bugs, etc) are mortal wounds in the context of a health care tech company…you can’t vibe code HIPAA.
They’re also extremely well funded because YC had a hardon for years for healthcare startups, and with AI they just pivoted it to healthcare AI startups.
All of these companies need to process enormous amounts of data that is not available to or understood by your typical LLM.
I would go into backend hard, and look to the health-tech space for job security.