The 2026 State of Data Engineering Survey (Interactive)

• • I’ve been collecting survey responses from this community for the past few weeks. 1,101 of you responded. Thank you! Rather than bury the results in a 30-page PDF behind a email form, I built something different: an interactive explorer where you can query the data yourself. 👉 The Survey is here (https://joereis.github.io/practical_data_data_eng_survey). You can:

• Filter by role, org size, industry, or region

• Cross-tab any two variables

• Run SQL queries directly against the datasetDownload the raw CSV

A few findings that stood out to me:

• AI is table stakes. 82% of you use AI tools daily or more. Only 3.7% find them unhelpful. But organizational adoption lags way behind. 64% are still experimenting or using AI for tactical tasks only.

• Modeling is painful. 59% cite “pressure to move fast” as their top pain point. 51% say lack of ownership. Only 11% say modeling is going well.

• The bottlenecks aren’t technical. Legacy systems top the list (25%), but lack of leadership direction (21%) and poor requirements (19%) are close behind. People problems rival tech debt.

• Team outlook is cautiously optimistic. 42% expect growth, only 7% expect shrinkage.

The full report is in the explorer. But honestly, the interactive tools are more interesting. Go find something I missed. Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.