Main image of article DevOps Engineer, Data Scientist Top List of 'Python-Heavy' Jobs

Python is one of the world’s most popular programming languages, used by millions of technologists for a variety of tasks. But which technology jobs are particularly “Python heavy”? 

For an answer, we can turn to Emsi Burning Glass, which collects and analyzes millions of job postings from across the country. Based on the past six months of job-posting data, here are the tech jobs with the most requests for Python skills:

It’s interesting how DevOps tops this list. DevOps engineers are tasked with utilizing a cluster of specialized tools and practices to speed up a company’s development of applications and services. If this job requires heavy Python skills, it’s indicative of Python’s reach within many organizations’ tech stacks. (No matter what your role, keep in mind that a growing number of  project engineers, web developers, and other technologists are all turning to DevOps skills in order to deliver products and services on-time and within budget—it’s a useful thing to learn.)

It’s also key to note how the second and third positions on this list are occupied by data scientist and data engineer. Over the past few years, the use of Python has expanded within the data-science field, overtaking over languages such as R. When it comes to a complicated, nuanced field like data science, Python offers a key advantage—because it’s ubiquitous, technologists new to the field often know it already, and can quickly begin using it to mine datasets for crucial insights. 

The rest of the technology jobs on this list are incredibly diverse, demonstrating yet again Python’s enormous reach. SlashData recently estimated Python’s worldwide developer community at roughly 11.3 million. It’s also growing fast, powered by increasing usage in “hot” areas such as data science and machine learning. No matter what kind of technology interests you from a professional perspective, learning Python can potentially help you master it. If you’re totally new to the language, start by visiting Python.org for downloads, documentation, and more.