Entry-level data engineer jobs

Most data engineering hiring starts at three to five years of experience, so the entry points are worth knowing by name. Atlassian posts a dedicated ‘Data Engineer, 2027 Graduate U.S.’ req (Seattle, graduating by August 2027, $124,200–$162,150 in its top pay zone) plus a 12-week 2027 summer DE internship at $47–$64 an hour; Meta posts a 2+ year Data Engineer, Product Analytics tier at $114,000–$173,000 and a Summer 2027 Data Engineer Intern req in Menlo Park, Seattle and New York; Amazon has a Data Engineer I rung (bachelor’s plus 1+ years) and a 2027 DE internship with Winter, Summer and Fall starts that feeds every US DE team. Apple’s Applied Data Solutions internship and DoorDash’s generalist entry-level SWE req are adjacent routes, and the other seven companies hire experienced data engineers only.

3 of 12 ranked programs match · Last verified October 10, 2026 · See the full Data Engineer List →

Meta data engineers design logging, data models and ETL pipelines that feed analytics for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads and Reality Labs, working with software engineers, data scientists and PMs. Product Analytics reqs dominate, with 2026 growth in AI-facing reqs (Ranking/AI, Meta Superintelligence Labs). It is the largest dedicated, leveled DE ladder on this list, with an intern path and a posted 2+ year tier.

Base salary

$147k–$208k

Locations

Menlo Park · Seattle · NYC · SF · Chicago · DC

Work setup

Hybrid, about 3 days a week in office company-wide (Instagram requires 5 days from February 2, 2026); two senior and staff data engineer reqs list ‘Remote, US’

Experience

Mid-level req: bachelor’s or equivalent, 4+ years in data-focused roles (analyst, data scientist, data engineer), 4+ years of SQL, ETL, data modeling and one language (Python, C++, C#, Scala). Senior reqs need 7+ years and staff reqs 10–12+ years of data-warehouse and custom-ETL experience. Entry level exists: a 2+ year Data Engineer, Product Analytics req ($114K–$173K) and the intern program. Recent reqs prefer demonstrated AI-tool use in data workflows.

Worth knowing: After announcing about 8,000 layoffs (10%) and about 6,000 unfilled reqs on May 19, 2026, Meta still posted new data engineer reqs through September 2026 — including two for Meta Superintelligence Labs (posted Sep 9 and Sep 14, 2026).

10 US full-time ‘Data Engineer’ reqs open in Meta’s Data Engineering sub-team as of Oct 10, 2026 — three Product Analytics reqs at 2+, 4+ and 7+ years, Teen & Family Experience, Analytics (Ranking, AI), two for Meta Superintelligence Labs and three Technical Leadership reqs at 10–12+ years — plus a Summer 2027 Data Engineer Intern; offices include Menlo Park, Sunnyvale, Burlingame, San Francisco, Fremont, Bellevue, Redmond, Seattle, New York, Chicago and Washington DC, with Remote US on two reqs

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Salary band, hiring status & score breakdown — see the full Meta Data Engineer page →Meta interview guide →

Amazon data engineers build and run ETL pipelines, warehouses and data lakes — largely Redshift, EMR, S3, Glue and Kinesis on AWS — that feed finance, operations, advertising and AWS business analytics. Most reqs are embedded in a line of business such as WW Ops Finance, AWS Marketplace or Ring, so the day-to-day varies by team. With 65 open reqs it has the most data engineering openings on this list, a clearly leveled DE ladder, and a dedicated DE internship.

Base salary

$132k–$179k

Locations

Seattle · Bellevue · Austin · LA area · NYC · Northern Virginia · Dallas

Work setup

In office 5 days a week — every DE req location is tagged on-site, and Amazon’s corporate five-day policy has applied since January 2025

Experience

DE II and plain ‘Data Engineer’ reqs usually ask for 3+ years of data engineering (some AWS Analytics Engineering and BI reqs ask for 5+), plus data modeling, warehousing and ETL, SQL and a scripting language such as Python; Senior and DE III reqs ask for 5–7+ years. A DE I req (Zappos Analytics) asks for a bachelor’s plus 1+ years, and the 2027 internship is the entry path. Posted stacks lean on Redshift, EMR, S3, Glue, Kinesis and Lambda.

Worth knowing: Amazon cut roughly 30,000 corporate jobs between October 2025 and January 2026, yet its careers feed still shows 65 US Data Engineering reqs, many posted in the past two weeks — and all of them are on-site.

65 US reqs in the Data Engineering job family on amazon.jobs as of Oct 10, 2026 — about 20 titled DE II, four DE III, four Senior, four managers, a Principal, a DE I, an intern req and 30 plain ‘Data Engineer’ reqs, posted through Oct 9 — across AWS (15), Finance and WW Ops Finance (14), Alexa, Devices and Ring (8), transportation and logistics (5), Ads, Prime Video and Studios, Amazon Leo, Whole Foods and Zappos; Seattle and Bellevue hold 35 of the 65, with Austin, Southern California, New York, Northern Virginia and Dallas next (a floor, because the search feed is relevance-limited)

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Salary band, hiring status & score breakdown — see the full Amazon Data Engineer page →Amazon interview guide →

Atlassian data engineers own end-to-end ELT/ETL pipelines, data models, quality frameworks and on-call for product, growth and go-to-market data, partnering with data science and product engineering. Postings stress Spark, Airflow and Databricks, metrics definition, logging instrumentation and data governance. The org is distributed-first, has a rare dedicated graduate DE program, and is adding AI-oriented data work such as an ‘AI context layer’ for agents.

Base salary

$139k–$219k

Locations

Six US hubs + Americas remote (Seattle for grads)

Work setup

Distributed-first — Atlassians choose to work in an office, from home or a mix; the senior DE req lists Remote Americas, while the graduate and intern roles require the Seattle hub

Experience

Senior Data Engineer: BE or CS or equivalent plus 6+ years as a data engineer; Spark pipelines with Airflow or similar, Databricks and APIs, Redshift/DynamoDB/Mongo/Postgres and data lakes, Python or Scala, strong SQL, CI/CD. Graduate DE: BS or MS in CS graduating by August 2027, Python, SQL, data structures and demonstrated DE interest. Neither early-career role is open to F-1/J-1 students or sponsorship.

Worth knowing: Atlassian cut about 1,600 jobs (about 10%) on March 11, 2026, with 900+ in software R&D — and is still posting a dedicated 2027 Graduate Data Engineer role, a DE intern role and new senior DE roles on the acquired DX team.

About seven US-eligible data-engineering reqs open as of Oct 10, 2026: Senior Data Engineer (Americas remote, Austin, Mountain View, NYC, Seattle, DC, SF), Senior Data Engineer for DX (Salt Lake City or remote), Data Engineer 2027 Graduate (Seattle), Data Engineer Intern 2027 (Seattle), a Principal Analytics Engineering analyst, a Senior Principal SWE for the Trusted Data Platform and a Senior EM for the same; larger DE reqs (Principal Data Engineer, Senior DE Manager) are posted in India

Prep with Aced View open roles

Salary band, hiring status & score breakdown — see the full Atlassian Data Engineer page →Atlassian interview guide →

Common questions

Of the twelve programs here, three: Atlassian (a dedicated 2027 Graduate Data Engineer req and a 2027 DE internship, both in Seattle), Meta (a 2+ year Data Engineer, Product Analytics req and a Summer 2027 DE intern req) and Amazon (Data Engineer I at 1+ years and a 2027 DE internship). Google, Netflix, Airbnb, Databricks, Uber, Stripe, Apple and Microsoft have no entry-level data engineer req open; Apple’s Applied Data Solutions internship and DoorDash’s entry-level SWE I req are generalist routes.

Posted junior figures: Atlassian’s 2027 Graduate Data Engineer posts $124,200–$162,150 in its Zone A and $103,086–$134,585 in Zone C, with the intern at $47–$64 an hour; Meta’s 2+ year Data Engineer, Product Analytics tier posts $114,000–$173,000 plus bonus and equity; Amazon’s Data Engineer I req sits below its $132,100–$178,800 DE II band, and its 2027 DE internship is paid hourly. Google’s and DoorDash’s posted mid-level bands ($130,000–$187,000 and $130,600–$192,000) are the next rung up.

Through an internship, a graduate program or an adjacent role. Atlassian’s graduate program and the Meta and Amazon DE internships are the only direct routes on this list; Apple’s Applied Data Solutions internship and generalist new-grad software roles (DoorDash’s SWE I, Stripe’s and Databricks’ new-grad SWE reqs) lead to data teams through team matching; and Meta’s own 4+ year req counts analyst and data scientist years as data-focused experience, which is how many data engineers at Meta, Amazon and Airbnb moved over.

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