PROFESSIONAL

FOUNDATIONS OFCERTIFICATE
CYBERSECURITY
AND
IN RISKENGINEERING
DATA MANAGEMENT
Get cutting-edge skills to advance your data engineering career.

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Overview
As technology proliferates, data is evolving into a true strategic asset, and the demand for data engineers and
their specialized expertise is growing in tandem. In fact, data engineer was the fastest growing tech occupation in
2020, according to the Dice Tech Job Report. Why? Because before data scientists can glean useful information
from the mountains of data today’s organizations possess, the data must be architected, warehoused, and acces-
sible, and data engineers are responsible for building this infrastructure.

The MIT xPRO Professional Certificate in Data Engineering is an immersive 6–month program that’s designed to
provide job-ready, in-demand data engineering skills and a competitive edge in the marketplace. Through an
exploration of core concepts, tools, techniques and best practices, participants will learn data engineering essen-
tials, from building an effective data architecture and data warehouses to designing data models, streamlining
data processing, automating data pipelines, data wrangling, and big data engineering. They can also take advan-
tage of personalized feedback, live weekly office hours with course leaders, and the opportunity to develop a
GitHub portfolio for potential employers.

MIT xPRO’s online learning programs showcase industry-aligned content from world-renowned experts to make
learning accessible anytime, anywhere and solve this challenge for developing technical professionals.

Price Duration $121,938

The average annual pay for a data
USD 6,950 6 months, online engineer in the United States.
15–20 hours per week
(Source: ZipRecruiter 2021)

“Data engineers build the ‘nervous system’ of the company. Without it, the company cannot react to
changes in the external business environment or within the organization. They build the software and
hardware systems that power the company’s vision and are masters not just of software, but of hard-
ware, networks, and analytic apps that are changing everyday data.”

– John R. Williams, MIT Professor of Information Engineering

Program Highlights

Earn a certificate from MIT xPRO that recognizes your skills and success

Insights and coding demos from renowned MIT faculty

Market-ready data engineering skills in a high-growth market

Build a GitHub portfolio of your projects to share with

potential employers

Services offered by Emeritus

Live weekly office Personalized feedback,

hours with course support, career guidance,
leaders followed and network development
by a Q&A
Tools and Resources in the Program
The Professional Certificate in Data Engineering program employs the latest industry tools and resources, including:
Who Is This Program For?

Career launchers: Recent STEM graduates/post-graduates/interns looking to start a

career in this high-growth field by gaining exposure to data engineering.

Career builders: Early career software engineers/technology professionals seeking to train in

the latest data engineering tools and techniques and advance their careers.

Career switchers: Mid-career professionals aiming to switch to data engineering from IT,
analytics, finance, project management, supply chain, or another technical field.

Program prerequisites: there are no prerequisites for this program, but prior coding experience (in any language) and
a minimum of a bachelor's degree is recommended.

Prepare for these potential job titles:

Data Engineer Data Science Engineer Data Integration Engineer
Big Data Engineer Data Platform Engineer Data Infrastructure Engineer
Data Software Engineer Python Data Engineer Data Systems Engineer
Data Analytics Engineer Cloud Data Engineer Business Intelligence Engineer
Data Warehouse Engineer

“Data engineering really is a core component of today’s data infrastructure. And because organizations
can’t function without data, it’s also a career with a great deal of opportunity and incredibly interesting
work as well.”
– Abel Sanchez, Research Scientist and Executive Director
of MIT’s Geospatial Data Center
Key Takeaways

This program is designed to prepare you with the skills you will need to start or continue
your career in data engineering. High-level learning outcomes for this program include:

Learn to code in Python

Use SQL to create databases

Wrangle and analyze millions of pieces of data using databases in Python

Understand how networks work, including IPs, security, and servers

Manage big data using data warehousing and workflow management platforms

Use cutting-edge data engineering platforms and tools to manage data

Explore artificial intelligence and machine learning concepts, including reinforcement learning and deep
neural networks
Program Schedule
This program is organized into three main sections:

Section 1
As you begin your learning journey in data engineering, you will begin with learning (or refreshing your knowledge of)
the Python programming language as well as how to work with relational databases using SQL and how to work with
Python to create databases and server pipelines.

Module 0: Module 4:
Orientation Databases: Basic SQL Statements
The first week is an orientation module. You will have You will learn how to design a database using SQL and the
access to the learning platform from the program start MySQL platform conceptually and logically. This module also
date. You will also install the software and tools you will includes an introduction to physical database design.
use in the course on your own computer. There is no
teaching, all the content is pre-recorded.

Module 1: Module 5:
Introduction to Python Databases: Basic SQL Statements
You will learn the basic Python syntax including funda- In this module, you will learn more about physical database
mental data types and constructs. You will practice design using SQL queries, logical operators, and regular
using Python in multiple assignments. expressions.

Module 2: Module 6:
Python: NumPy Databases: Advanced SQL Statements
You will be introduced to the Numpy library and its You will have an opportunity to perform data cleaning and
functions for array manipulation and probability, visualize data in SQL. You will be introduced to the
distributions, and interpreting histograms. You will also client-server interface and how to connect to a driver using
learn how to use the Matplotlib library to create data MySQL and Python.
visualizations.

Module 3: Module 7–8:

Python: pandas Portfolio Projects
This module will introduce you to the pandas library and Build and submit your first portfolio projects to demonstrate
its basic data types: series and dataframes. Foundations your knowledge of the topics learnt in Module 1.
of data cleaning and preparation and of dataframe
manipulation are also explored.
Section 2
In this section of the course, you will deepen your knowledge about SQL, pandas and how to integrate those tools
with the help of Python. Examine the security of data, create related APIs, and gain a deeper understanding of data
wrangling.

Module 9: Module 13–15:

Python Primer and Development Environment Databases
This module begins with a review of Python. You will These modules will teach you more about querying data and
then learn how to work in GitHub and how to integrate about the Data Manipulation Language (DML). You will also
and deploy applications using Docker. learn about architectures and their scalability and how to use
Python and pandas together with databases and SQL.

Module 10–12: Module 16:

Software Skills Data Wrangling
In these modules, you will learn how to use Docker to In this module you will work on a portfolio project by
connect to a network and how to make sure those transforming data to a different format using data wrangling
containers are part of the same network. Introduction as you prepare it for data analytics.
to distributed coding, HTTP, Ports and API and Cloud
architectures.

Section 3
In this section of the course, you will explore big data and data warehousing. You will discover the connections between
artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and data engineering.

Module 17–18: Module 21–22:

Data Warehouses Streaming Data and Parallel Computing
In these modules, you will learn about Extract Transform In these modules you will learn about Python parallel
Load (ETL) – a process to extract, transform, and load computing, file creating and analysis using DASK, and web
data from multiple sources to a data warehouse or other sockets. You will use the Message Queuing Telemetry
unified data repository. You will then use the platform Transport (MQTT), a lightweight, publish-network protocol, to
Apache Airflow to programmatically author, schedule, communicate and transports messages between devices.
and monitor workflows.

Module 19–20: Module 23–24:

Big Data Introduction to AI and ML
These final modules introduce basic ML and AI topics
These modules will teach you more about Hadoop, an
including gradient descend, Naïve Bayes, and Guassian Naïve
open-source software platform for distributed storage
Bayes. You will also learn about K-means and reinforcement
and distributed processing of very large data sets on
learning, neural networks, and Deep Learning.
computer clusters build from commodity hardware. You
will also be introduced to Spark: a scalable open-source
data processing engine to increase performance around
speed using APIs in multiple languages and platforms.

Note: break weeks are included to cover project assignment work and prepare for the upcoming module.
Assignments and Portfolio Projects
Each module includes engaging assignments and culminates in at least one GitHub portfolio project that you’ll
complete based on what you have learned in that portion of the program.

Assignments

Peer discussions Interactive activities Practice exercises Knowledge checks

Coding Exercises

Coding exercises are integrated into various modules through simple activities using Jupyter Notebook. They
allow you to practice building composite skills to prepare you for the assignments and portfolio projects.

Portfolio Projects

Building a Predictive Machine Learning Model involving Feature Selection for Linear Regression

Building a Reinforcement Learning Model for Robot Navigation (from scratch in Python)

Running TensorFlow for a Deep Neural Network Model (Deep Dream in Colab)

Building a Producer/Subscriber Broker for Visualizing Streaming MQTT Sensor Data (integrating Things-
Board and FireBase)

Stream load over 100 million lines of data using DASK. Creating and write 20 files in parallel using DASK.

Protect your Web Server using JSON Web Tokens

You will receive personalized feedback from your course leaders to include in your GitHub repositories, securing a
market-ready portfolio that’s ready to share with potential employers.
Career Preparation and Guidance
Stepping into a career in data engineering requires a variety of both hard and soft skils. This course offers you
guidance on navigating a career path into tech, including crafting your elevator pitch and communication tips. These
services are provided by Emeritus, our learning collaborator for this program. The program support team includes
course leaders to help you reach your learning goals. Eligible participants may receive introductions to our hiring
partners; however, job placement is not guaranteed.

Elements of the career preparation aspects of this course include:

Crafting your elevator pitch Navigating your job search

Optimizing your LinkedIn profile Learning interview tips and preparation

Writing resumes/cover letters Negotiating salary

Career exercises focused on launching a career as a data engineer:

Building your personal brand and promoting your skills

Communicating technical concepts to non-technical colleagues

Understanding the roles and workflow of Agile development

Reflecting on your skills to learn how to troubleshoot and learn more quickly

Job search and interviewing for data engineering positions

“Companies today are being forced to respond faster and with more precision than ever. Data engi-
neers are responsible for innovating and building pipelines that can turn raw data into business
advantage. Companies like AirBnB, Uber, and Robinhood are masters of leveraging real-time data,
and many others are trying to understand how to do this. Data engineers are the problem solvers of
the cyber-info world.” – John R. Williams
 Program Faculty

John Williams holds a BA in Physics from Oxford University, an

MS in Physics from UCLA, and a PhD. in Numerical Methods
from the University of Wales, Swansea. His research focuses on
the application of large-scale computation to problems in
cyber-physical security and energy studies. He is director of
MIT’s Geospatial Data Center and, from 2006-2012, was Director
of the MIT Auto-ID Laboratory, which invented the Internet of
Things.

He is author or co-author of over 250 journal and conference

papers, as well as the book, RFID Technology and Applications.

JOHN R. WILLIAMS He contributed to the 2013 report for the UK Office for Science
Foresight Project – The Future of Manufacturing.
Professor of Information Engineering in The MIT
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Alongside Bill Gates and Larry Ellison, he was named as one of
the 50 most powerful people in computer networks. He
consults for companies including Accenture, Schlumberger, SAP
Research, Microsoft Research, Kajima Corp, US Lincoln Labora-
tory, Sandia National Laboratories, US Intelligence Advanced
Research Projects Activity, Motorola, Phillip-Morris Inc., Ford
Motor Company, Exxon-Mobil, Shell, Total, and ARAMCO.

His international collaborations include HKUST and PolyU (Hong

Kong), the University of Cambridge and Imperial College of
Science and Technology (UK), Malaysia University of Science
and Technology (MUST), KACST (Saudi Arabia), and Masdar
Institute of Science and Technology (Abu Dhabi).

He organized the first Cyber-Physical Security Conference in

the UK (2011) and, along with Dr. Sanchez, he runs the MIT
Applied Cybersecurity Professional Education summer course.
At MIT, he teaches courses in Architecting Software Systems
(MIT 1.125) and Engineering Computation and Data Science (MIT
1.00/1.001).
 Program Faculty

Dr. Abel Sanchez holds a PhD. from the Massachusetts Institute

of Technology (MIT). He is the Executive Director of MIT’s
Geospatial Data Center, architect of the “Internet of Things”
global network, and architect of data analytics platforms for
SAP, Ford, Johnson & Johnson, Accenture, Shell, Exxon Mobil,
and Altria. In cybersecurity, Dr. Sanchez architected impact
analysis of large-scale cyber attacks, designing Cyber Ranges
for the Department of Defense (DOD).

In password security, Dr. Sanchez led the design of a password

firewall (negative authentication) for the Intelligence Advanced

ABEL SANCHEZ Research Projects Activity (IARPA) agency. In machine learning,

addressing fraud detection, Dr. Sanchez designed a situational
Research Scientist and Executive Director of MIT’s awareness framework that exploits different perspectives of
Geospatial Data Center the same data and assigns risk scores to entities for Accenture.

He led the design of a global data infrastructure simulator,

modeling follow-the-sun engineering, to evaluate the impact of
competing architectures on the performance, availability, and
reliability of the system for the Ford Motor Company. He has
been involved in developing e-learning software for Microsoft
via their I-Campus Program and with establishing the Accenture
Technology Academy, an online resource for over 200,000
employees.

He has 10 years of experience with learning management

systems and has made deployments in America, Asia, and
Europe. He teaches MIT courses on cybersecurity, engineering
computation, and data science, and he has produced over 150
educational videos.
Certificate
Upon successful completion of this program, MIT xPRO
grants a certificate of completion to participants. This
program is graded as a pass or fail; participants must

E
receive 75% to pass and obtain the certificate of

P L
completion.

AM
This is to certify that

After successful completion of the program, your Your Name

S
has successfully completed

verified digital certificate will be emailed to you, at no Professional Certificate in

Data Engineering
additional cost, with the name you used when Date

registering for the program. All certificate images are Sanjay Sarma John R. Williams Abel Sánchez
Vice President for Open Learning Professor of Information Engineering in Research Scientist and

for illustrative purposes only and may be subject to

Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT Department of Civil and Executive Director of MIT’s
Environmental Engineering Geospatial Data Center

change at the discretion of MIT.

About MIT xPRO

MIT xPRO’s online learning programs leverage vetted content from world-renowned experts to make learning
accessible anytime, anywhere. Designed using cutting-edge research in the neuroscience of learning, MIT xPRO
programs are application focused, helping professionals build their skills on the job.
To explore the full catalog of MIT xPRO courses and programs, visit: xpro.mit.edu.

About Emeritus
MIT xPRO is collaborating with online education provider Emeritus to deliver this online course through a dynamic,
interactive, digital learning platform. This course leverages MIT xPRO's thought leadership in engineering and
management practice developed over years of research, teaching, and practice.
Easily schedule a call with a program advisor
from Emeritus to learn more about this
MIT xPRO program. Connect with a
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