I have been a data engineer for over a decade, and when I read articles like this I always wonder how do you differentiate between a big data environment and a traditional one? I mean aside from cloud adoption in the past decade I dont see my self needing any different "skill sets" than I did 10 years ago!
I would say it depends. Roles are so generalized now it is hard to determine what you did ten years ago versus what you do now. If you are at a forward moving company then it is likely you have been exposed to the current technology. However, there is a substantial number of companies that are still running legacy systems because it works. They have no desire to upgrade or change how they do business. If you talk to any contractor or someone currently seeking a job they will tell you that the landscape of technology is a constant. You cannot stay marketable in this space by standing in place with the skills you had ten years ago and stating this is enough. The aside you mention with the 'cloud adoption' is not an aside at all. The adoption of the cloud is not, just the cloud it is all the services and components for how things are done. If you are still walking around in an elevated server room managing servers by manually you need to come outside and see what the rest of technology world is doing. It's never to late to learn so don't limit yourself. Technology is like a bus, the next change will be arriving in 15 minutes.
I disagree. The main changes I feel are the ones caused by the business requirements. Where I see the most changes in the past couple of years are the requirements from our marketing team, their data is a freaking mess!
I would say that change in general is always triggered by the 'business' so this is a common is knowledge. If a business decides to change how they do business, then the requirements change as well as what is needed. This would include what skills are needed to do the work.