If you were to define or explain

Data Engineer

to your organisation’s leaders (some with a tech background, some not) - how would you do that?

This is what ChatGPT had to say about it:

A data engineer is a professional who is responsible for designing, building, maintaining, and troubleshooting the infrastructure that is used to store, process, and analyze data. This infrastructure is critical to the success of many organizations, as it enables them to make data-driven decisions and gain valuable insights from the data they collect. Data engineers often work closely with data scientists and business leaders to ensure that the data infrastructure is aligned with the organization's goals and needs. They may also be involved in implementing new technologies and tools to improve the efficiency and scalability of the organization's data systems. Overall, a data engineer plays a key role in helping organizations unlock the value of their data.

Woah, that’s nice!

My analogy for data-engineering explained to non-tech people relates to restaurants. If a BI's job is making the end result (the dish) out of pre-prepared ingredients to give it to the client (end user), the data engineer is in charge of • Buying the ingredients (from different sources) • Scheduling deliveries • Ensuring the ingredients are fresh • Preparing the vegetables to make it easy for BI to make the final dish This is useful because it allows your analysts to spend 100% of their time just making their final dish, instead of rummaging through the fridge