Cohort 4Register
Fresher Jobs

Data Engineer Jobs for Freshers: Where the Postings Are and How to Get Shortlisted

Job boards carry the listings. This page is about getting shortlisted for them: where Indian tech postings are by city and company, what data engineer postings ask for, the resume and projects that pass the screen, and how to apply. Every count comes from PrepNPlaced's India Tech Hiring Report.

By Durgesh Yadav — Senior Data Engineer @ 7-Eleven · Updated 15 Oct 2026. Preparation guidance, not a hiring guarantee.

How does a fresher get a data engineer job in India?

Fresher openings exist but are a small slice: only 4.5% of the 17,748 postings in PrepNPlaced's India Tech Hiring Report were entry or junior level. To get shortlisted, match the skills the postings name (SQL, Python, one cloud, Spark), show two pipeline projects on GitHub, apply soon after a posting goes up, and apply to data analyst and ETL roles alongside.

Find Jobs ranked by your resume Practise SQL and PySpark free

Guide

What To Learn And How To Practice

Where are data engineer jobs for freshers, and which cities have the most?

Bengaluru has by far the most Indian tech postings in PrepNPlaced's India Tech Hiring Report, followed by Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai. The report's 17,748 postings came from LinkedIn company feeds (15,165), Naukri company listings (2,570) and 13 promoted listings, so start your alerts on those two boards. After the seven cities below the counts drop sharply: Kolkata had 131 and Delhi 110. These counts cover all roles and levels, not only data engineering or fresher openings, because the report does not split cities by role. Use them to decide where to look, then search the data engineer titles in each city.

Postings by city in the India Tech Hiring Report, 23 Aug to 27 Sep 2026 (all roles, all levels)
CityPostings, all rolesLocations the count combines
Bengaluru6,590Bengaluru, Bengaluru East, Bangalore Urban, Greater Bengaluru Area
Hyderabad2,624Hyderabad, Greater Hyderabad Area
Pune2,212Pune Division, Pune/Pimpri-Chinchwad, Pune, Pune City
Chennai1,585Chennai
Mumbai1,232Mumbai, Mumbai Metropolitan Region, Navi Mumbai
Gurugram1,189Gurugram, Gurgaon
Noida644Noida

Which companies post the most, and what does that mean for a fresher?

The companies that post the most are a mix of IT services firms and global companies with Indian centres, so their careers pages are worth watching. In the report the top posters were Wipro (1,131), EXL (632), Birlasoft (501), NTT DATA North America (466), UPS (420), Cognizant (399), BNP Paribas (327), Qualcomm (304), Cisco (275) and Google (270), counted across all roles and levels by the company name shown on the posting. A high count is not the same as fresher openings: 9,232 of the 17,748 postings (52.0%) asked for senior candidates. Read the experience line of every posting before you spend time on it.

Titles to search: data engineer, junior data engineer, associate data engineer, data engineer trainee, ETL developer
IT services firms often hire freshers through their own campus and off-campus drives, so check their careers pages, not only job boards
Prioritise postings whose experience line says freshers can apply

What do data engineer postings ask a fresher to know?

Data engineer postings ask for SQL and Python first, then a cloud and Spark, and a fresher who can be tested on those four is ready for the first screen. The shares below come from all 1,470 data-engineer postings in the report, not only fresher ones, but the first technical screen tests the same skills at every level.

Skills named in 1,470 data-engineer postings, India Tech Hiring Report, 23 Aug to 27 Sep 2026
SkillNamed in data-engineer postingsWhat a fresher should be able to show
SQL48.6% of 1,470Joins, GROUP BY, CTEs and window functions on a timed test
Python42.7% of 1,470A script that reads an API or a file, cleans the data and writes it out
Azure35.7% of 1,470Storage, Data Factory or Databricks on Azure, used in one project
AWS29.0% of 1,470S3 and Glue or EMR, used in one project
Databricks19.1% of 1,470A notebook that reads, transforms and writes a Delta table
Spark17.2% of 1,470DataFrame joins, aggregations and window functions in PySpark
Snowflake16.5% of 1,470Loading a table and writing analytical SQL on it
Airflow8.8% of 1,470A DAG that schedules your pipeline with retries

What should a fresher's data engineer resume and projects show?

A fresher's resume gets shortlisted when a recruiter can match it to the posting at a glance and the projects look like real pipelines. Put the exact title in the headline, group skills the way postings name them, and give each project two bullets: what you built with which tools, and what it checks or produces. Link GitHub, with a README in every repository. PrepNPlaced's Resume Score checks a resume against a job description before you send it.

Headline: 'Data Engineer (Fresher) | SQL, Python, PySpark, Airflow, AWS', naming only tools you can be tested on
Project bullet: 'Built a daily PySpark and Airflow pipeline that loads public API data into a star schema in PostgreSQL, with row-count and null checks that fail the run'
One page, one column, saved as a PDF with your name and the target title in the file name

A fresher PySpark task worth having in a project (rolling revenue per city)

daily = spark.read.parquet('clean/orders/').groupBy('order_date', 'city').agg(F.sum('amount').alias('revenue')); w = Window.partitionBy('city').orderBy('order_date').rowsBetween(-6, 0); daily = daily.withColumn('revenue_7d', F.sum('revenue').over(w)). Expect the follow-up: seven rows equal seven days only when no date is missing.

How do you apply so a recruiter actually reads your application?

Apply early, in the posting's own words, and through a person where you can. PrepNPlaced's Find Jobs searches live job sources and ranks each opening against your resume, My Applications keeps track of what you sent, and Find Referrals helps you reach someone at the company.

  1. Set alerts for data engineer, junior data engineer, associate data engineer and ETL developer in your target cities on LinkedIn and Naukri.
  2. Check the alerts every day and apply to postings while they are new.
  3. Edit the headline and skills line of your resume to use the posting's own words before each application.
  4. Ask an alumnus or former classmate at the company for a referral, with a two-line message, the job link and your GitHub.
  5. Apply to data analyst and ETL roles in the same weeks, because they sit next to the same pipelines.
  6. Practise one SQL and one PySpark question a day, since SQL and Python are the skills the postings name most.
  7. Track every application with its date and status, and follow up once after a week.

From the free book

Data Engineering: From Zero to Production & Interview ReadyChapter 13 · The Portfolio Project

The project that fills a fresher's resume, built in five stages from an empty folder, then broken on purpose so you can explain every fix.

Read the 244-page book, free

Related Guides

Keep Preparing

Move between roadmaps, interview questions, and tools without losing your preparation thread.

Data Engineer Resume

Format, examples and a free template for a data engineering resume.

Read guide

Data Engineering Projects

Four builds with a repository an interviewer can open.

Read guide

Find Jobs

Search live job sources and rank each opening against your resume.

Read guide

Data Engineer Interview Questions

The rounds a fresher faces after the shortlist, round by round.

Read guide

SQL Interview Questions

The first technical screen for data roles, question by question.

Read guide

Resume Format for Freshers

Structure, a template and a full example for a first resume.

Read guide

India Tech Hiring Report 2026

The 17,748 postings behind the city, company and skill counts on this page.

Read guide

Data Engineering Cohort (live, weekend)

64 live weekend classes and 192 live hours, from SQL to Spark, Snowflake, Kafka and AWS.

Read guide

Data Careers Hub

Return to the parent resource hub for the full preparation path.

Open hub

FAQ

Common Questions

Are there data engineer jobs for freshers in Bangalore?

Yes. Bengaluru is where most Indian tech postings are: 6,590 of the 17,748 in PrepNPlaced's India Tech Hiring Report, far more than any other city. The report counts cities across all roles and levels, so search 'data engineer' and 'junior data engineer' in Bengaluru and read the experience line before applying.

Is Hyderabad or Chennai better for a fresher data engineer?

Both have a large base of tech employers. In the report, Hyderabad had 2,624 postings and Chennai 1,585, counted across all roles and levels. Apply in the city where you can attend interviews in person or are willing to relocate, and set alerts for both if you can move.

What is the salary of a fresher data engineer in India?

This page quotes no pay figures. PrepNPlaced's India Tech Hiring Report found that fewer than 300 of its postings disclosed an INR salary, too few to publish honestly. Offers depend on the company, the city and how you do in the rounds, so compare the offers you actually receive.

Do companies hire freshers directly as data engineers?

Some do, under titles such as associate data engineer, junior data engineer or data engineer trainee, but the numbers are small: 792 of the 17,748 postings in the report (4.5%) were entry or junior level, across all roles. That is why an analyst, ETL or support role is a sensible way in.

Can a fresher get a remote data engineer job?

It is rare. Only 129 of the 17,748 postings in the India Tech Hiring Report (0.7%) were flagged remote, across all roles and levels. Plan to work from an office at first, and treat a remote fresher offer that asks you to pay for training or equipment as a warning sign.

Next Step

Turn The Guide Into Practice

Use PrepNPlaced tools to turn this learning path into resume proof, targeted practice, and interview-ready explanations.

Find Jobs ranked by your resume