Data engineers are responsible for designing, building, and maintaining the infrastructure and systems that enable the collection, storage, and analysis of large volumes of data. They develop data pipelines that automate the extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) processes, ensuring data is readily available for analytics and reporting. This involves working with various databases, data warehouses, and big data technologies like Hadoop and Spark. Data engineers also focus on optimizing data flow and efficiency, ensuring data quality, and implementing data governance policies. Their work supports data scientists and analysts by providing clean, reliable data and scalable systems, ultimately enabling organizations to make data-driven decisions and gain insights from their data assets.