The Data Stack Show

‌

Episodes

‌

The Data Stack Show

Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

Episodes

101: The Future of Machine Learning with Willen Pienaar of Tecton and Tristan Zajonc of Continual

Highlights from this week’s conversation include: When is it right to use ML? (5:22) ML business models (10:21) Significant changes in delivering ML (19:07) Why ML is different (25:19) SQL becoming more important (34:39) Graduating from SQL-based to real-time (37:22) Space for a new role (45:11) State-of-the-art models (49:03) The most exciting thing in the ML space (53:59) Open source in ML (56:39) The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week...

Aug 24, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast

The PRQL: Can Machine Learning Be Commoditized?

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming live stream episode featuring Willem Pienaar of Tecton and Tristan Zajonc of Continual.

Aug 19, 2022•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast

100: Data Quality Is Relative to Purpose with James Campbell of Superconductive

Highlights from this week’s conversation include: James’ role at Great Expectations (2:33) What Great Expectations does (5:49) How Great Expectations approaches data quality (7:01) Why a data engineer should use Great Expectations (16:41) Defining “data quality” (19:16) Translating expectations from one domain to the other (27:00) Community around Great Expectations (30:59) The user experience (33:41) Something exciting on the horizon (40:27) Interacting with marketers in a non-technical way (43...

Aug 17, 2022•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast

The PRQL: What’s the Hardest Part About Data Quality?

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with James Campbell at Superconductive.

Aug 12, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast

99: State of the Data Lakehouse with Vinoth Chandar of Apache Hudi

Highlights from this week’s conversation include: Vinoth’s background and career journey (3:08) Defining “data lakehouse” (5:10) Databricks versus lake houses (13:37) The services a lakehouse needs (17:37) How to communicate technical details (26:55) Onehouse’s product vision (31:41) Lakehouse performance versus BigQuery solutions (36:44) How to deliver customer experience equally (40:17) How to start building a lakehouse (44:00) Big tech’s effect on smaller lakehouses (55:33) Skipping the data ...

Aug 10, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Transcript available on Metacast

The PRQL: Does Lakehouse Architecture Really Mean the End of the Data Warehouse and Data Lake As We Know It?

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Vinoth Chandar of Apache Hudi.

Aug 05, 2022•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast

98: Category Theory and the Mathematical Foundation of the Technologies We Use with Eric Daimler of Conexus

Highlights from this week’s conversation include: Eric’s background and career journey (3:30) Presenting to people without knowledge of AI (11:04) Why math was chosen over AI (19:03) From compilers to databases (25:42) The contribution of category theory (30:09) The Connexus customer experience (37:45) The primary user of Connexus (46:33) Interacting with 300,000 databases (51:07) When Connexus begins to add value (54:02) The best way to learn this mathematical approach (55:46) The Data Stack Sh...

Aug 03, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast

The PRQL: Farm to Table Abstract Mathematics

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Eric Damlier of Conexus AI.

Jul 29, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast

97: How To Build an Organization-Empowering Data Team with Emilie Schario of Amplify Partners

Highlights from this week’s conversation include: Emilie’s background and career journey (3:00) Hypergrowth at GitLab (5:23) Being close to the money in data (9:50) Big things taken from GitLab to Netlify (13:00) Defining “data organization” (17:53) The first roles you should hire for (22:06) Defining “analytics engineer” (23:44) One role to bridge different needs (27:26) Why data analysts are needed (30:51) How to avoid a kitchen sink of data (40:20) Data engineer archetype (45:48) Data roles c...

Jul 27, 2022•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast

The PRQL: If You Were Building a Data Team What Would Your First Hire Be?

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Emilie Schario from Amplify Partners.

Jul 22, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast

96: How To Collect and Leverage Data From the Physical World with Prateek Joshi of Plutoshift

Highlights from this week’s conversation include: Prateek’s background and career journey (2:10) The lack of advanced data tools for the physical world (4:55) Dealing with data from the physical world (10:53) Stocks in the physical world (14:20) What it takes to execute this kind of project (19:05) Challenges around this infrastructure (25:56) ML tools that are useful in this environment (31:55) Physical instrumentation and environmental interaction (36:43) Current adoption of physical instrumen...

Jul 20, 2022•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast

The PRQL: Collecting Data in the Physical World

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Prateek Joshi.

Jul 15, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast

95: How the Metrics Layer Bridges the Gap Between Data & Business with Nick Handel of Transform

Highlights from this week’s conversation include: Nick’s background and career journey (2:40) What Transform does (5:53) Metrics layer vs. metrics store (8:04) Signals vs. metrics (13:24) The user of a metric layer (14:34) Using Transform within an organization (17:05) How to fuse two sources into a metric (23:54) Currently supported databases (28:46) Community engagement (31:33) Optimizing for queries, metrics, and use cases (35:33) Technology and the human factor (40:49) Managing metrics amids...

Jul 13, 2022•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast

The PRQL: Data Marts Aren’t Just for the Enterprise

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Nick Hansel from Transform.

Jul 08, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast

94: Notebooks Aren’t Just for Data Scientists With Barry McCardel of Hex Technologies

Highlights from this week’s conversation include: Bary’s background and Hex (3:05) Reconciling two sides of data (9:16) Collaboration at Hex (15:10) What it takes to build something like Hex (20:02) Defining “commitment engineering” (26:01) How to begin working with Hex (30:56) Hex customers and uniqueness (40:31) The future in a world of data acquisition (45:30) Crossover between analytics and ML (51:33) Advice for data engineers (57:19) The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by Rudder...

Jul 06, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast

The PRQL: Have You Ever Been a Part of a Company That Has Done Analytics Really Well?

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Barry McCardel of Hex Technologies.

Jul 01, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast

93: There Is No Data Observability Without Lineage with Kevin Hu of Metaplane

Highlights from this week’s conversation include: Kevin’s background and career journey (1:54) Metaplane and the problem that is solves (6:47) The silence of data problems (9:53) Data physics work that requires more (13:35) Trusting data when bugs are present (19:12) Building a navigable experience (22:36) Developing anomaly detection (30:06) What Metaplane provides today (35:05) Metaplane’s plans for the future (37:45) Comparing Bigquery, Snowflake, and Redshift (40:56) Why data goes bad (48:15...

Jun 29, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast

The PRQL: What Are the Similarities Between VCs and Tilapia?

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Kevin Hu of Metaplane.

Jun 24, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast

92: Building a Decentralized Storage System for Media File Collaboration with Tejas Chopra

Highlights from this week’s conversation include: Tejas’ background and career journey (2:49, 43:04) Digital collaboration with Netflix Drive (7:57) A formal version control component (23:44) Centralized store vs. local affairs (31:05) The different skill sets a data engineer needs (37:38) How to get into data engineering (40:57) New technologies coming into day-to-day work (44:39) The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to dat...

Jun 22, 2022•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast

The PRQL: What is Netflix Cloud?

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Tejas Chopra of Netflix.

Jun 17, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast

91: The Future of Streaming Data with Stripe, Deephaven, Materialize, and Benthos

Highlights from this week’s conversation include: How we should think about batch versus streaming (6:02) Defining “streaming ETL” (9:34) A brief history of streaming processing platforms (22:07) The birth and evolution of Benthos (28:41) What led Jeff to build a new tool (34:29) Why you shouldn’t share all the data (37:23) Making streaming technologies approachable to engineers (42:09) Breaking out of traditional terminology (52:58) The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack...

Jun 15, 2022•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast

The PRQL: Can Streaming Simplify Your Data Flows?

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming livestream panel talking about all things streaming. Don't miss next week's episode with experts from Stripe, Deephaven, Materialize and Benthos

Jun 10, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast

90: The Modern Data Stack Has a Join Problem with Ahmed Elsamadisi of Narrator AI

Highlights from this week’s conversation include: Ahmed’s background and career journey (2:27) Why the modern data stack “sucks” (4:53) The limitations of progress (9:13) Showing data with only 11 columns (11:55) Managing one table that rules them all (19:02) Viewing the world as timestamped activities (32:40) When this model becomes harder to use (35:15) The two parts you need in a company (44:41) Those who use Narrator (48:32) The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the...

Jun 08, 2022•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast

The PRQL: Can One Table Rule Them All?

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming episode with Ahmed Elsamadisi of Narrator AI.

Jun 03, 2022•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast

89: Solving Microservice Orchestration Issues at Netflix with Viren Baraiya of Orkes

Highlights from this week’s conversation include: Viren’s background and career journey (2:23) Engineering challenges in Netflix transitions (6:05) How Conductor changed the process (9:30) Building a lot more microservices (16:04) Open sourcing Conductor (17:38) Defining “orchestration” (22:05) Using an orchestrator written in Java (31:04) Building a cloud service around microservices (34:59) Differentiating product experiences (37:17) Orchestration platforms in new environments (42:15) Advice f...

Jun 01, 2022•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast

The PRQL: What are the Different Flavors of Orchestration?

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Viren Baraiya of Orkes.

May 27, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast

88: What Is Data Observability? With Tristan Spaulding of Acceldata

Highlights from this week’s conversation include: Tristan’s background and career journey (2:43) Updating old technology (11:40) Defining “data observability” (18:44) The primary user of a data observability tool (29:56) Handling an incident (33:01) Why multipliers for data observability (37:06) Early symptoms of a data drift (43:12) Tuning in the context of data engineering (50:11) What keeps Tristan working with data (55:12) The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the C...

May 25, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast

The PRQL: Does Data Exist if We Do Not Observe It?

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Tristan Spaulding of Acceldata.

May 20, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast

87: Why Is Now the Golden Age of Data Analytics? With Cindi Howson of ThoughtSpot

Highlights from this week’s conversation include: Cindi’s career journey (2:36) Major shifts in analytics (6:34) Where we are in formation of the modern analytics cloud (9:07) The process of moving into the cloud (11:01) How to accelerate the digital transformation (17:29) Common patterns amongst company cultures (19:42) Data regulations affecting change (22:34) ThoughtSpot customer base (24:06) The need to know SQL (27:42) Power users leveraging the AI Insights (31:24) Who should audit technolo...

May 18, 2022•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast

The PRQL: Can You Trust AI Enabled Analytics?

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Cindi Howson of ThoughtSpot and Host of The Data Chief Podcast.

May 13, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast