Summary Building streaming applications has gotten substantially easier over the past several years. Despite this, it is still operationally challenging to deploy and maintain your own stream processing infrastructure. Decodable was built with a mission of eliminating all of the painful aspects of developing and deploying stream processing systems for engineering teams. In this episode Eric Sammer discusses why more companies are including real-time capabilities in their products and the ways th...
Oct 15, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Ep 396•Transcript available on Metacast Summary The insurance industry is notoriously opaque and hard to navigate. Max Cho found that fact frustrating enough that he decided to build a business of making policy selection more navigable. In this episode he shares his journey of data collection and analysis and the challenges of automating an intentionally manual industry. Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data management Introducing RudderStack Profiles. RudderStack Profiles takes th...
Oct 09, 2023•52 min•Ep 395•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Artificial intelligence applications require substantial high quality data, which is provided through ETL pipelines. Now that AI has reached the level of sophistication seen in the various generative models it is being used to build new ETL workflows. In this episode Jay Mishra shares his experiences and insights building ETL pipelines with the help of generative AI. Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data management Introducing RudderS...
Oct 01, 2023•52 min•Ep 394•Transcript available on Metacast Summary The rapid growth of machine learning, especially large language models, have led to a commensurate growth in the need to store and compare vectors. In this episode Louis Brandy discusses the applications for vector search capabilities both in and outside of AI, as well as the challenges of maintaining real-time indexes of vector data. Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data management Introducing RudderStack Profiles. RudderStack Profil...
Sep 25, 2023•59 min•Ep 393•Transcript available on Metacast Summary A significant amount of time in data engineering is dedicated to building connections and semantic meaning around pieces of information. Linked data technologies provide a means of tightly coupling metadata with raw information. In this episode Brian Platz explains how JSON-LD can be used as a shared representation of linked data for building semantic data products. Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data management This episode is brou...
Sep 17, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep 392•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Data systems are inherently complex and often require integration of multiple technologies. Orchestrators are centralized utilities that control the execution and sequencing of interdependent operations. This offers a single location for managing visibility and error handling so that data platform engineers can manage complexity. In this episode Nick Schrock, creator of Dagster, shares his perspective on the state of data orchestration technology and its application to help inform its im...
Sep 10, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep 391•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Cloud data warehouses and the introduction of the ELT paradigm has led to the creation of multiple options for flexible data integration, with a roughly equal distribution of commercial and open source options. The challenge is that most of those options are complex to operate and exist in their own silo. The dlt project was created to eliminate overhead and bring data integration into your full control as a library component of your overall data system. In this episode Adrian Brudaru ex...
Sep 04, 2023•42 min•Ep 390•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Data persistence is one of the most challenging aspects of computer systems. In the era of the cloud most developers rely on hosted services to manage their databases, but what if you are a cloud service? In this episode Vignesh Ravichandran explains how his team at Cloudflare provides PostgreSQL as a service to their developers for low latency and high uptime services at global scale. This is an interesting and insightful look at pragmatic engineering for reliability and scale. Announce...
Aug 28, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep 389•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Generative AI has unlocked a massive opportunity for content creation. There is also an unfulfilled need for experts to be able to share their knowledge and build communities. Illumidesk was built to take advantage of this intersection. In this episode Greg Werner explains how they are using generative AI as an assistive tool for creating educational material, as well as building a data driven experience for learners. Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the s...
Aug 20, 2023•55 min•Ep 388•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Data pipelines are the core of every data product, ML model, and business intelligence dashboard. If you're not careful you will end up spending all of your time on maintenance and fire-fighting. The folks at Rivery distilled the seven principles of modern data pipelines that will help you stay out of trouble and be productive with your data. In this episode Ariel Pohoryles explains what they are and how they work together to increase your chances of success. Announcements Hello and ...
Aug 14, 2023•47 min•Ep 387•Transcript available on Metacast Summary As businesses increasingly invest in technology and talent focused on data engineering and analytics, they want to know whether they are benefiting. So how do you calculate the return on investment for data? In this episode Barr Moses and Anna Filippova explore that question and provide useful exercises to start answering that in your company. Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data management Introducing RudderStack Profiles. RudderSta...
Aug 06, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep 386•Transcript available on Metacast Summary All software systems are in a constant state of evolution. This makes it impossible to select a truly future-proof technology stack for your data platform, making an eventual migration inevitable. In this episode Gleb Mezhanskiy and Rob Goretsky share their experiences leading various data platform migrations, and the hard-won lessons that they learned so that you don't have to. Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data management Int...
Jul 31, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Ep 385•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Real-time data processing has steadily been gaining adoption due to advances in the accessibility of the technologies involved. Despite that, it is still a complex set of capabilities. To bring streaming data in reach of application engineers Matteo Pelati helped to create Dozer. In this episode he explains how investing in high performance and operationally simplified streaming with a familiar API can yield significant benefits for software and data teams together. Announcements Hello a...
Jul 24, 2023•41 min•Ep 384•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Data has been one of the most substantial drivers of business and economic value for the past few decades. Bob Muglia has had a front-row seat to many of the major shifts driven by technology over his career. In his recent book "Datapreneurs" he reflects on the people and businesses that he has known and worked with and how they relied on data to deliver valuable services and drive meaningful change. Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show abou...
Jul 17, 2023•55 min•Ep 383•Transcript available on Metacast Summary For business analytics the way that you model the data in your warehouse has a lasting impact on what types of questions can be answered quickly and easily. The major strategies in use today were created decades ago when the software and hardware for warehouse databases were far more constrained. In this episode Maxime Beauchemin of Airflow and Superset fame shares his vision for the entity-centric data model and how you can incorporate it into your own warehouse design. Announcements He...
Jul 09, 2023•1 hr 13 min•Ep 382•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Feature engineering is a crucial aspect of the machine learning workflow. To make that possible, there are a number of technical and procedural capabilities that must be in place first. In this episode Razi Raziuddin shares how data engineering teams can support the machine learning workflow through the development and support of systems that empower data scientists and ML engineers to build and maintain their own features. Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast,...
Jul 03, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep 381•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Data transformation is a key activity for all of the organizational roles that interact with data. Because of its importance and outsized impact on what is possible for downstream data consumers it is critical that everyone is able to collaborate seamlessly. SQLMesh was designed as a unifying tool that is simple to work with but powerful enough for large-scale transformations and complex projects. In this episode Toby Mao explains how it works, the importance of automatic column-level li...
Jun 25, 2023•50 min•Ep 380•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Architectural decisions are all based on certain constraints and a desire to optimize for different outcomes. In data systems one of the core architectural exercises is data modeling, which can have significant impacts on what is and is not possible for downstream use cases. By incorporating column-level lineage in the data modeling process it encourages a more robust and well-informed design. In this episode Satish Jayanthi explores the benefits of incorporating column-aware tooling in ...
Jun 18, 2023•46 min•Ep 379•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Data engineering is all about building workflows, pipelines, systems, and interfaces to provide stable and reliable data. Your data can be stable and wrong, but then it isn't reliable. Confidence in your data is achieved through constant validation and testing. Datafold has invested a lot of time into integrating with the workflow of dbt projects to add early verification that the changes you are making are correct. In this episode Gleb Mezhanskiy shares some valuable advice and insi...
Jun 11, 2023•48 min•Ep 378•Transcript available on Metacast Summary A significant portion of the time spent by data engineering teams is on managing the workflows and operations of their pipelines. DataOps has arisen as a parallel set of practices to that of DevOps teams as a means of reducing wasted effort. Agile Data Engine is a platform designed to handle the infrastructure side of the DataOps equation, as well as providing the insights that you need to manage the human side of the workflow. In this episode Tevje Olin explains how the platform is impl...
Jun 04, 2023•54 min•Ep 377•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Building a data team is hard in any circumstance, but at a startup it can be even more challenging. The requirements are fluid, you probably don't have a lot of existing data talent to manage the hiring and onboarding, and there is a need to move fast. Ghalib Suleiman has been on both sides of this equation and joins the show to share his hard-won wisdom about how to start and grow a data team in the early days of company growth. Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineerin...
May 29, 2023•43 min•Ep 376•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Batch vs. streaming is a long running debate in the world of data integration and transformation. Proponents of the streaming paradigm argue that stream processing engines can easily handle batched workloads, but the reverse isn't true. The batch world has been the default for years because of the complexities of running a reliable streaming system at scale. In order to remove that barrier, the team at Estuary have built the Gazette and Flow systems from the ground up to resolve the ...
May 21, 2023•56 min•Ep 375•Transcript available on Metacast Summary All of the advancements in our technology is based around the principles of abstraction. These are valuable until they break down, which is an inevitable occurrence. In this episode the host Tobias Macey shares his reflections on recent experiences where the abstractions leaked and some observances on how to deal with that situation in a data platform architecture. Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data management RudderStack helps you...
May 15, 2023•27 min•Ep 374•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Every business has customers, and a critical element of success is understanding who they are and how they are using the companies products or services. The challenge is that most companies have a multitude of systems that contain fragments of the customer's interactions and stitching that together is complex and time consuming. Segment created the Unify product to reduce the burden of building a comprehensive view of customers and synchronizing it to all of the systems that need it....
May 07, 2023•55 min•Ep 373•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Real-time capabilities have quickly become an expectation for consumers. The complexity of providing those capabilities is still high, however, making it more difficult for small teams to compete. Meroxa was created to enable teams of all sizes to deliver real-time data applications. In this episode DeVaris Brown discusses the types of applications that are possible when teams don't have to manage the complex infrastructure necessary to support continuous data flows. Announcements He...
Apr 24, 2023•45 min•Ep 372•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Business intellingence has been chasing the promise of self-serve data for decades. As the capabilities of these systems has improved and become more accessible, the target of what self-serve means changes. With the availability of AI powered by large language models combined with the evolution of semantic layers, the team at Zenlytic have taken aim at this problem again. In this episode Paul Blankley and Ryan Janssen explore the power of natural language driven data exploration combined...
Apr 16, 2023•49 min•Ep 371•Transcript available on Metacast Summary The customer data platform is a category of services that was developed early in the evolution of the current era of cloud services for data processing. When it was difficult to wire together the event collection, data modeling, reporting, and activation it made sense to buy monolithic products that handled every stage of the customer data lifecycle. Now that the data warehouse has taken center stage a new approach of composable customer data platforms is emerging. In this episode Darren...
Apr 10, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Ep 370•Transcript available on Metacast Summary The data ecosystem has been building momentum for several years now. As a venture capital investor Matt Turck has been trying to keep track of the main trends and has compiled his findings into the MAD (ML, AI, and Data) landscape reports each year. In this episode he shares his experiences building those reports and the perspective he has gained from the exercise. Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data management Businesses that adapt...
Apr 03, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep 369•Transcript available on Metacast Summary The promise of streaming data is that it allows you to react to new information as it happens, rather than introducing latency by batching records together. The peril is that building a robust and scalable streaming architecture is always more complicated and error-prone than you think it's going to be. After experiencing this unfortunate reality for themselves, Abhishek Chauhan and Ashish Kumar founded Grainite so that you don't have to suffer the same pain. In this episode they...
Mar 25, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Ep 368•Transcript available on Metacast Summary As with all aspects of technology, security is a critical element of data applications, and the different controls can be at cross purposes with productivity. In this episode Yoav Cohen from Satori shares his experiences as a practitioner in the space of data security and how to align with the needs of engineers and business users. He also explains why data security is distinct from application security and some methods for reducing the challenge of working across different data systems....
Mar 19, 2023•52 min•Ep 367•Transcript available on Metacast 
