What career path should I take to become a Hadoop Developer?

The path to becoming a Hadoop Developer is fraught with challenges & responsibilities.This article explains the Career Path to become a Hadoop Developer.

What career path should I take to become a Hadoop Developer?
 |  BY ProjectPro

Having worked your way up in the IT totem pole in the same job role, you have decided this is the best to find new horizons, new environment and a new gig in the big data domain. Starting a new career is exciting but it is not easy as lot of analysis goes into choosing a new career path. Let’s help you out with some detailed analysis on the career path taken by hadoop developers so you can easily decide on the career path you should follow to become a Hadoop developer.


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Hadoop Career Path Explained

Hadoop Careerpath Explained

 “Hadoop Developer Careers-Analysis”-

“48.48% of Hadoop Developers are graduates or post graduates from a non-computer background like Statistics, Physics, Electronics, Material Processing, Mathematics, Business Analytics, etc.”

“Hadoop Developer Careers-Inference”-

A career in Hadoop can be pursued by individuals from any educational background as almost all industry sectors are hiring big data hadoop professionals.

“Hadoop Developer Careers –Analysis”-

60% of the professionals have only 0-3years of experience as Hadoopers.

“Hadoop Developer Careers-Inference”-

Companies do not have a bias against people with years of experience when hiring for hadoop job roles. This is mainly due to the shortage of Hadoop talent and increased demand in the market. Newbies or professionals with even 1 or 2 years of experience can become Hadoop Developers. Employers judge candidates based on the knowledge of Hadoop and willingness to work/learn.

“Hadoop developer careers-Analysis”-

67% of Hadoop Developers are from Java programming background.

“Hadoop developer careers -Inference”-

Hadoop is written in Java but that does not imply people need to have in-depth knowledge of advanced Java. Our career counsellors get this question very often – “How much Java is required to learn Hadoop?” Only Java basics are essential to learn Hadoop and anybody with core Java knowledge can master Hadoop skills.

Industry statistics reports reveal that professionals change careers at least 3 to 4 times in their life and on an average hold 7 jobs i.e. approximately 50% of the people hold more than 7 jobs. Whether you are a cubicle loyalist with a wandering eye or a programming geek or an independent contractor, the question on how best to steer your career is always a matter of concern. If you are a techie planning to switch careers then, based on the demand in the market - Hadoop is a must have skill on your resume to future-proof your career.

Becoming a Hadoop Developer – Career Outlook

Dice survey revealed that 9 out of 10 high paid IT jobs require big data skills.

A McKinsey Research Report on Big Data highlights that by end of 2018 the demand for analytics professionals in US is expected to be 60% higher than the anticipated supply.

According to the Economist, the big data market is expected to surpass $100 billion with increasing number of companies struggling to analyse the data from various online data sources.

A recent article on Economic Times highlighted –“If you are a programmer who knows what Hadoop is, you are a hot commodity on the job circuit.” Professionals looking to cash in on a healthy hiring market should consider building a career in Hadoop as IT companies would need 2.5 million more big data professionals by end of 2015 as acknowledged by market analysts and industry research reports. Job opportunities for Hadoop developers are expected to grow much faster when compared to the average for all other occupations.

According to job listing statistics from Dice, Big Data is expanding its reach into business in a big way with increased job opportunities. Here is an insight on the available big data jobs as listed on Dice -

  • Boston represents 7.1% of all the available big data jobs.
  • Los Angeles represents 4% of all the available big data jobs.
  • Seattle represents  6% of all the available big data jobs
  • New York represents 13.1% of all the available big data jobs.
  • Washington DC represents 11.9% of all the available big data jobs.
  • Philadelphia represents 2.9% of all the available big data jobs.
  • Dallas represents 3.2% of all the available big data jobs.
  • Atlanta represents 3.3% of all the available big data jobs.
  • Chicago represents 3.4% of all the available big data jobs.
  • San Francisco Bay Area (Silicon Valley) accounts for a total of 23.6% big data related jobs.

Big Data and Hadoop Jobs in 2016

The  high paying job in big data can be grabbed through comprehensive learning of Hadoop that helps professionals and beginners add big data skills to their career profile. The Big Data Hadoop market is in its blossoming phase and it is difficult to find proper guidance.

At ProjectPro, our Career Counsellors often get this question  –“What career path should I take to become a Hadoop Developer?”

If you are among those individuals who understand that the tiny elephant Hadoop, is growing and will become big in future but don’t know how to start a career in Hadoop, then we are here to help. There is no well-laid out path that you can follow to enter the field of Hadoop but ProjectPro experts have simplified this.

To answer the question, ProjectPro experts did some research on 100 Hadoop profiles across the world.

ProjectPro experts analysed profiles of 76 Hadoop Developers, 10 Hadoop Administrators and 14 Hadoop Architects.

Big Data Job Roles

The insights of this analysis will help individuals who are planning for a career switch to Big Data and Hadoop. They will have a better understanding about the learning curve for mastering Hadoop skills.

Learning Path to Pursue a Career in Big Data Hadoop-

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Educational Requirements for a Hadoop Developer

Hadoop is a technology that needs to be mastered on its own. Having a computer science background is quite a secondary factor when it comes to choosing a career in hadoop. Professionals from various educational backgrounds such as Physics, Mathematics, Statistics, and Electronics can excel at a career in Hadoop.

Educational Background to become a Big Data Developer

  • 23.23% of Hadoop developers are graduates or post graduates from various disciplines like Physics, Mathematics, Material Processing, Business Analytics, etc.
  • 15.15% of Hadoop developers are graduates or post graduates from Electrical and Electronic Engineering background.
  • 10.10% of Hadoop developers are graduates or post graduates from Information Technology background.
  • 51.52% of Hadoop developers are graduates or post graduates from Computer Science background.

 

Hadoop Developer Career Path Explained

Of the 51.52% of Hadoop developers who are from Computer Science background–

  • 49.08% Hadoop developers have a Master’s degree in Computers whilst 50.98% Hadoop developers have Bachelor’s degree in Computers.

The practical value of a Bachelors or Master’s degree is controversial for a Hadoop developer because few of the big data companies hiring for Hadoop developers insist on a degree just to cut down on their pile of resumes. Companies believe that university curriculums are too focused on theoretical aspects but being a Hadoop developer requires real world problem solving capabilities. For some of the specialized big data roles like that of a data scientist, companies prefer candidates who have completed PhD in a statistical or numerical discipline. So, if you are from a Statistics, Physics or business analytics background - you can definitely create a meaningful benchmark as a Hadoop Developer in the workplace by mastering Hadoop skills with real time hands-on projects.

How do you work around the years of experience needed to become a Hadoop Developer?

  • 17% of professionals have 4-5 years of experience in the big data hadoop industry.
  • 13% of professionals have 3-4 years of experience in the big data hadoop industry.
  • 31% of professionals have 2-3 years of experience in the big data hadoop industry.
  • 13% of professionals have 1-2 years of experience in the big data hadoop industry.
  • 16% of professionals have 0-1 years of experience in the big data hadoop industry.

Years of Experience Required to become a Hadoop Developer

What do recruiters look for when hiring Hadoop developers?

The battle is real when it comes to choosing between skills and experience. Someone who has enough experience and the right kind of Hadoop skill is the perfect person for the job.

Recruiting managers in the big data world have limited resources to base their judgement on. Hence there is a huge debate on what is the right amount of experience needed for a Big Data job.  Some of the big data employers favour experienced, older and more mature people who have previously worked on one or two big data projects whilst some of the big data Hadoop jobs are targeted towards insanely dedicated people who can stay up all night coding big data applications. Thus, Hadoop career opportunities are meant for experienced professionals and also for young rock star IT professionals.

The job role of a Hadoop developer is playing with large datasets to program big data applications and anybody capable of doing it is the right fit for employers regardless of the experience. Preferably, an individual with an average of 0-3 years of experience in the IT industry can head on to pursue a lucrative career in Hadoop.

Do certifications from popular Hadoop distribution providers provide an edge?

  • 21.93% (Approximately 25 people) of Hadoop developers and administrators have taken certifications from various Hadoop course providers.
  • 41.23% (Approximately 47 people) of Hadoopers have not taken certifications from any of the popular Hadoop distribution providers like Cloudera, Hortonworks, MapR, IBM or EMC.

A common dilemma for to be Hadoopers is –“How much importance is given to a certification in Hadoop?” With technologies like Hadoop being new to be testable, employers look for certifications as an option to test the ability of the developer.  Employers value certification just to determine if an individual really is well-versed with Hadoop concepts that he claims to know. There are several Hadoop certification programs provided by Cloudera, Hortonworks, MapR, and IBM that aim at testing your competence in Hadoop.

Big Data and Hadoop Certifications

There are several Hadoop course providers like ProjectPro who aim at teaching Hadoop by focussing on practical solutions and not theoretical conundrums. They also provide accredited hadoop certification on successful completion of the hadoop projects. Candidates can master Hadoop skills by working on hands-on projects which can be appealing to companies who are looking to scrutinize candidates on their ability to deliver real-world big data solutions. When the needs of the employer and certification are aligned with each other, it is a WIN-WIN for both the employer and the Hadoop developers.

What are the essential skills to become a Hadoop developer or administrator?

The most in-demand job opportunities for professionals in the big data market are Hadoop developers, Hadoop admins,experts in Python and NoSQL. For professionals planning to enter into the big world of big data they need to know few  other skills along with Hadoop to meet the challenges confronted by organizations to solve big data problems-

Java for Hadoop

1) Speed Up your Success in Hadoop by Learning Java

  • 67% of Hadoop Developers are from a Java programming background.
  • 33% of Hadoop Developers are from other programming background like PHP, .NET, etc.

Apache Hadoop is an open source framework completely built on Java programming language and it is extremely important for Hadoopers to be well-versed with core Java to master hadoop skills.

Hadoop Developer Skills

2) 37% of Hadoop developers know Unix/Linux. Hadoop runs on Linux, thus knowing some basic Linux commands will take you long way in pursuing successful career in Hadoop.

3) 68% of Hadoop Developers have experience in working with SQL. Professionals with knowledge of SQL can easily mine the data using Hive component of Hadoop because HiveQL is a query language similar to SQL.

4) With increasing demand for data scientist in the big data market, Hadoop developers are still on the verge of adding Python and R programming skills to their skill set. There are at least 16% hadoopers with Python and 6% hadoopers with R programming expertise.

5) 28% of Hadoopers possess NoSQL database skills. Organizations use Hadoop for storing and processing large unstructured datasets. The kind of big data stored in Hadoop does not have a pre-defined schema or rather has a dynamic schema. It is good for hadoop developers to master their NoSQL database skills in MongoDB, Cassandra, Couchbase or HBase to process data cost effectively.

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What are the companies hiring for Hadoop?

Glassdoor.com showed 12,012  job listings for the search term “Hadoop” as on November 11,2016

Hadoop Jobs

 

As per the Glassdoor.com job listings – Hadoop is among the top 10 IT job trends in the market.

Professionals should master their hadoop skills quickly as big IT giants like Amazon, Hortonworks, Yahoo, eBay, Facebook and Walmart are hiring competent hadoop professionals.

  • 8 out of 100 Hadoop developers/admins are hired by TCS.
  • 6 out of 100 Hadoop developers/admins are hired by Cognizant.

The below graph gives a brief overview on the companies that Hadoop developers/admins work at of the analysed 100 profiles -

Companies Hiring Big Data Developers

Check Out the List of Companies Hiring Hadoop Developers

What is the average annual salary offered to Hadoop professionals?

According to Indeed.com, the average Hadoop developer salary as of November 10, 2016 is $102,000. Considering the demand- supply ratio of professionals in the big data market, the salaries for Hadoop developers are quite high making it the most sought after career path in the industry. Take a look at these Big Data Hadoop Job Salary trends –

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What are the blogs, books and courses you should take to become a Hadoop developer or administrator?

As the saying goes- “Experience is the best Teacher” and the best way to develop your knowledge on Hadoop is through hands-on experience. ProjectPro offers courses specialising in Hadoop, NoSQL, Data Science with R, Python - for training and development of professionals by learning through hands-on projects. Professionals can enrol for these courses to get comprehensive learning that will equips them with all the subject knowledge that is required to face the recruiters.

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Reference Hadoop books that are popular among current Hadoop developers -

  1. Hadoop: The Definitive Guide by Tom White
  2. Hadoop in Practice by Alex Holmes
  3. Real World Hadoop Solutions Cookbook by Jonathan Owens, Brian Femiano & Jon Lentz
  4. Hadoop in Action by Chuck Lam
  5. Instant Map Reduce Patterns by Srinath Perera

Continue to read about Hadoop- Keep reading about Hadoop through various blogs and communities that help you stay updated.

Most popular blogs among Hadoop Developers-

5 Reasons to Learn Hadoop

Best Hadoop Certification

​Top 6 Hadoop Vendors providing Big Data Solutions in Open Data Platform

How Big Data Analysis helped increase Walmart’s Sales turnover?

Hadoop Interview Questions

Watch out some special videos from the Hadoop Course-

Hadoop Education in Motion

Final Career Advice for prospective Hadoopers by ProjectPro Experts

If you have passion for data and analytics then big data and Hadoop are well-compensated fast growing career opportunities with a promising future. ProjectPro experts suggest people in love with data should immediately deep dive into Hadoop. Take up Hadoop as a lucrative career option if your answer is YES to all the below statements-

  • You are passionate about big data and analytics industry.
  • You have undergone Hadoop courses that test your practical knowledge. You have submitted all your assignments and excelled at them.
  • Having learnt Hadoop, you have the enthusiasm and patience to undergo 3 to 4 years of arduous learning about a knowledge demanding domain like analytics.

 

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