Rising Job Trends in MongoDB and Cassandra

NoSQL databases have been a hot topic in the past few years due to the massive increase in data. The rise of Big-Data has evolved the need to handle it in a more efficient and effective manner. There are a number of contenders in the NoSQL category such as: MongoDB, Cassandra, HBase, Redis, Riak, Couchdb etc. These are just the main ones but the list is really huge.

The two of the most popular ones are MongoDB and Cassandra. Although both of them are NoSQL databases but still they are widely different. And when it comes to performance, there is no single winner among all the NoSQL databases. Depending on the use cases and deployment conditions, it is possible for one NoSQL database to outperform another.

Here is the LinkedIn Skills Index by 451 Group showing how the market is gravitating to NoSQL databases.

                                 (source: NoSQL LinkedIn Skills Index 451 Researches)

While Oracle, SQL Server, and MySQL reign the charts, MongoDB stands on no. 5 and Cassandra on no. 9 are giving them a run for their money.

Since the reality is that developers and the enterprises are already standardizing on these two strong options the job opportunities are also increasing rapidly. Let’s take look at both of the databases.

• MongoDB is of the developers and for the developers storing its data in JSON/BSON format. It is a schema-less database that goes over terabytes of data. It provides support for master-slave replication for making multiple copies of data over various servers making integration of data in applications easier and faster. It even provides full index support and auto Sharding for easy scalability.
• Good for:

Ø Managing semi-structured data

Ø Real time analytics, caching, high scalability and high-speed logging

Ø Replacing RDBMS for web applications

Ø Media, SAAS, Gaming etc.

Ø Popular at Foursquare, MetLife, eBay, Craigslist etc.

• Not good for:

Ø  Multiple transactional system

ØApplications requiring traditional techniques such as foreign key constraint 

• Apache Cassandra is a safely run at scale database based on the ideas of Google’s BigTable and DynamoDB. It is a distributed database management system offering continuous availability, high scalability, performance, strong security and operational simplicity with lower overall cost. It provides decentralized architecture due to which any node can perform any operation hence delivering single point of failure.
• Good for:

Ø Simple setup and maintenance code

Ø Fast and random read/write

Ø Flexible parsing and wide column requirement

Ø Popular at Twitter, Facebook, Rackspace etc.

• Not good for:

Ø Relational data requiring secondary indexes

Ø Transactional operations and maintaining financial records

Both of the databases differ from each other but are still widely used in the industries for managing the massive data growth. Hence there is no shortage of job opportunities in the business sector.  Some of the job aspects where these skills are put to use at:

• DBA: Database administrator with an average salary of $81,000 according to Indeed.com.
• Data Architect: This position nets an average salary of $107,000.
• Data Scientist: A position grossing to an average salary of $104,000.
• Systems Engineer:  A fairly broad category that typically branches off to several other positions such as software development, data warehousing, and even DBA with an average salary of $89,000.

For IT sector using NoSQL databases, MongoDB skills are on top of the list. The following number of jobs were available for each of these databases by the end of 2014:

• MongoDB: 640
• Cassandra: 435
• HBase: 325
• Redis: 209

In the latest statistics of tracking NoSQL database in LinkedIn member profiles of the year 2015, shows total dominance of MongoDB followed by Cassandra on the lead.

Similarly the chart below shows the skills graph gravitating towards MongoDB and Cassandra by the end of 2015.

                            (source: NoSQL LinkedIn Skills Index 451 Researches)

Here is another example from indeed.com illustrating the rise of MongoDB as the hottest choice of job listings among other NoSQL databases and to be noticed Cassandra is also no far behind it in comparison with other NoSQL databases.

(source: Indeed.com)

Defining a clear winner among these databases is just not possible but from the current statistics MongoDB and Cassandra are both reigning the business sector. With more and more organizations shifting towards NoSQL databases the job opportunities for the same are also rising exponentially, leaving a tough competition among the IT professionals. And as quoted by Geoffrey Moore says it all- “Without big data analytics, companies are blind and deaf, wandering out onto the web like deer on a freeway.”