Data Engineering Podcast

• Dagster's New Era: Modularizing Data Transformation in the Age of AI

  SummaryIn this episode of the Data Engineering Podcast we welcome back Nick Schrock, CTO and founder of Dagster Labs, to discuss the evolving landscape of data engineering in the age of AI. As AI begins to impact data platforms and the role of data engineers, Nick shares his insights on how it will ultimately enhance productivity and expand software engineering's scope. He delves into the current state of AI adoption, the importance of maintaining core data engineering principles, and the need for human oversight when leveraging AI tools effectively. Nick also introduces Dagster's new components feature, designed to modularize and standardize data transformation processes, making it easier for teams to collaborate and integrate AI into their workflows. Join in to explore the future of data engineering, the potential for AI to abstract away complexity, and the importance of open standards in preventing walled gardens in the tech industry.AnnouncementsHello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data managementThis episode is brought to you by Coresignal, your go-to source for high-quality public web data to power best-in-class AI products. Instead of spending time collecting, cleaning, and enriching data in-house, use ready-made multi-source B2B data that can be smoothly integrated into your systems via APIs or as datasets. With over 3 billion data records from 15+ online sources, Coresignal delivers high-quality data on companies, employees, and jobs. It is powering decision-making for more than 700 companies across AI, investment, HR tech, sales tech, and market intelligence industries. A founding member of the Ethical Web Data Collection Initiative, Coresignal stands out not only for its data quality but also for its commitment to responsible data collection practices. Recognized as the top data provider by Datarade for two consecutive years, Coresignal is the go-to partner for those who need fresh, accurate, and ethically sourced B2B data at scale. Discover how Coresignal's data can enhance your AI platforms. Visit dataengineeringpodcast.com/coresignal to start your free 14-day trial. Data migrations are brutal. They drag on for months—sometimes years—burning through resources and crushing team morale. Datafold's AI-powered Migration Agent changes all that. Their unique combination of AI code translation and automated data validation has helped companies complete migrations up to 10 times faster than manual approaches. And they're so confident in their solution, they'll actually guarantee your timeline in writing. Ready to turn your year-long migration into weeks? Visit dataengineeringpodcast.com/datafold today for the details. This is a pharmaceutical Ad for Soda Data Quality. Do you suffer from chronic dashboard distrust? Are broken pipelines and silent schema changes wreaking havoc on your analytics? You may be experiencing symptoms of Undiagnosed Data Quality Syndrome — also known as UDQS. Ask your data team about Soda. With Soda Metrics Observability, you can track the health of your KPIs and metrics across the business — automatically detecting anomalies before your CEO does. It’s 70% more accurate than industry benchmarks, and the fastest in the category, analyzing 1.1 billion rows in just 64 seconds. And with Collaborative Data Contracts, engineers and business can finally agree on what “done” looks like — so you can stop fighting over column names, and start trusting your data again.Whether you’re a data engineer, analytics lead, or just someone who cries when a dashboard flatlines, Soda may be right for you. Side effects of implementing Soda may include: Increased trust in your metrics, reduced late-night Slack emergencies, spontaneous high-fives across departments, fewer meetings and less back-and-forth with business stakeholders, and in rare cases, a newfound love of data. Sign up today to get a chance to win a $1000+ custom mechanical keyboard. Visit dataengineeringpodcast.com/soda to sign up and follow Soda’s launch week. It starts June 9th.Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Nick Schrock about lowering the barrier to entry for data platform consumersInterviewIntroductionHow did you get involved in the area of data management?Can you start by giving your summary of the impact that the tidal wave of AI has had on data platforms and data teams?For anyone who hasn't heard of Dagster, can you give a quick summary of the project?What are the notable changes in the Dagster project in the past year?What are the ecosystem pressures that have shaped the ways that you think about the features and trajectory of Dagster as a project/product/community?In your recent release you introduced "components", which is a substantial change in how you enable teams to collaborate on data problems. What was the motivating factor in that work and how does it change the ways that organizations engage with their data?tension between being flexible and extensible vs. opinionated and constrainedincreased dependency on orchestration with LLM use casesreducing the barrier to contribution for data platform/pipelinesbringing application engineers into the mixchallenges of meeting users/teams where they are (languages, platform investments, etc.)What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen teams applying the Components pattern?What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on the latest iterations of Dagster?When is Dagster the wrong choice?What do you have planned for the future of Dagster?Contact InfoLinkedInParting QuestionFrom your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?LinksDagster+ EpisodeDagster Components Slide DeckThe Rise Of Medium CodeLakehouse ArchitectureIcebergDagster ComponentsPydantic ModelsKubernetesDagster PipesRuby on RailsdbtSlingFivetranTemporalMCP == Model Context ProtocolThe intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

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  1:01:37
• AI and the Lakehouse: How Starburst is Pioneering New Workflows

  SummaryIn this episode of the Data Engineering Podcast Alex Albu, tech lead for AI initiatives at Starburst, talks about integrating AI workloads with the lakehouse architecture. From his software engineering roots to leading data engineering efforts, Alex shares insights on enhancing Starburst's platform to support AI applications, including an AI agent for data exploration and using AI for metadata enrichment and workload optimization. He discusses the challenges of integrating AI with data systems, innovations like SQL functions for AI tasks and vector databases, and the limitations of traditional architectures in handling AI workloads. Alex also shares his vision for the future of Starburst, including support for new data formats and AI-driven data exploration tools.AnnouncementsHello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data managementData migrations are brutal. They drag on for months—sometimes years—burning through resources and crushing team morale. Datafold's AI-powered Migration Agent changes all that. Their unique combination of AI code translation and automated data validation has helped companies complete migrations up to 10 times faster than manual approaches. And they're so confident in their solution, they'll actually guarantee your timeline in writing. Ready to turn your year-long migration into weeks? Visit dataengineeringpodcast.com/datafold today for the details.This is a pharmaceutical Ad for Soda Data Quality. Do you suffer from chronic dashboard distrust? Are broken pipelines and silent schema changes wreaking havoc on your analytics? You may be experiencing symptoms of Undiagnosed Data Quality Syndrome — also known as UDQS. Ask your data team about Soda. With Soda Metrics Observability, you can track the health of your KPIs and metrics across the business — automatically detecting anomalies before your CEO does. It’s 70% more accurate than industry benchmarks, and the fastest in the category, analyzing 1.1 billion rows in just 64 seconds. And with Collaborative Data Contracts, engineers and business can finally agree on what “done” looks like — so you can stop fighting over column names, and start trusting your data again.Whether you’re a data engineer, analytics lead, or just someone who cries when a dashboard flatlines, Soda may be right for you. Side effects of implementing Soda may include: Increased trust in your metrics, reduced late-night Slack emergencies, spontaneous high-fives across departments, fewer meetings and less back-and-forth with business stakeholders, and in rare cases, a newfound love of data. Sign up today to get a chance to win a $1000+ custom mechanical keyboard. Visit dataengineeringpodcast.com/soda to sign up and follow Soda’s launch week. It starts June 9th. This episode is brought to you by Coresignal, your go-to source for high-quality public web data to power best-in-class AI products. Instead of spending time collecting, cleaning, and enriching data in-house, use ready-made multi-source B2B data that can be smoothly integrated into your systems via APIs or as datasets. With over 3 billion data records from 15+ online sources, Coresignal delivers high-quality data on companies, employees, and jobs. It is powering decision-making for more than 700 companies across AI, investment, HR tech, sales tech, and market intelligence industries. A founding member of the Ethical Web Data Collection Initiative, Coresignal stands out not only for its data quality but also for its commitment to responsible data collection practices. Recognized as the top data provider by Datarade for two consecutive years, Coresignal is the go-to partner for those who need fresh, accurate, and ethically sourced B2B data at scale. Discover how Coresignal's data can enhance your AI platforms. Visit dataengineeringpodcast.com/coresignal to start your free 14-day trial.Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Alex Albu about how Starburst is extending the lakehouse to support AI workloadsInterviewIntroductionHow did you get involved in the area of data management?Can you start by outlining the interaction points of AI with the types of data workflows that you are supporting with Starburst?What are some of the limitations of warehouse and lakehouse systems when it comes to supporting AI systems?What are the points of friction for engineers who are trying to employ LLMs in the work of maintaining a lakehouse environment?Methods such as tool use (exemplified by MCP) are a means of bolting on AI models to systems like Trino. What are some of the ways that is insufficient or cumbersome?Can you describe the technical implementation of the AI-oriented features that you have incorporated into the Starburst platform?What are the foundational architectural modifications that you had to make to enable those capabilities?For the vector storage and indexing, what modifications did you have to make to iceberg?What was your reasoning for not using a format like Lance?For teams who are using Starburst and your new AI features, what are some examples of the workflows that they can expect?What new capabilities are enabled by virtue of embedding AI features into the interface to the lakehouse?What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen Starburst AI features used?What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on AI features for Starburst?When is Starburst/lakehouse the wrong choice for a given AI use case?What do you have planned for the future of AI on Starburst?Contact InfoLinkedInParting QuestionFrom your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?Closing AnnouncementsThank you for listening! Don't forget to check out our other shows. Podcast.__init__ covers the Python language, its community, and the innovative ways it is being used. The AI Engineering Podcast is your guide to the fast-moving world of building AI systems.Visit the site to subscribe to the show, sign up for the mailing list, and read the show notes.If you've learned something or tried out a project from the show then tell us about it! Email [email protected] with your story.LinksStarburstPodcast EpisodeAWS AthenaMCP == Model Context ProtocolLLM Tool UseVector EmbeddingsRAG == Retrieval Augmented GenerationAI Engineering Podcast EpisodeStarburst Data ProductsLanceLanceDBParquetORCpgvectorStarburst IcehouseThe intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

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  44:09
• Amazon S3: The Backbone of Modern Data Systems

  SummaryIn this episode of the Data Engineering Podcast Mai-Lan Tomsen Bukovec, Vice President of Technology at AWS, talks about the evolution of Amazon S3 and its profound impact on data architecture. From her work on compute systems to leading the development and operations of S3, Mylan shares insights on how S3 has become a foundational element in modern data systems, enabling scalable and cost-effective data lakes since its launch alongside Hadoop in 2006. She discusses the architectural patterns enabled by S3, the importance of metadata in data management, and how S3's evolution has been driven by customer needs, leading to innovations like strong consistency and S3 tables.AnnouncementsHello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data managementData migrations are brutal. They drag on for months—sometimes years—burning through resources and crushing team morale. Datafold's AI-powered Migration Agent changes all that. Their unique combination of AI code translation and automated data validation has helped companies complete migrations up to 10 times faster than manual approaches. And they're so confident in their solution, they'll actually guarantee your timeline in writing. Ready to turn your year-long migration into weeks? Visit dataengineeringpodcast.com/datafold today for the details.This is a pharmaceutical Ad for Soda Data Quality. Do you suffer from chronic dashboard distrust? Are broken pipelines and silent schema changes wreaking havoc on your analytics? You may be experiencing symptoms of Undiagnosed Data Quality Syndrome — also known as UDQS. Ask your data team about Soda. With Soda Metrics Observability, you can track the health of your KPIs and metrics across the business — automatically detecting anomalies before your CEO does. It’s 70% more accurate than industry benchmarks, and the fastest in the category, analyzing 1.1 billion rows in just 64 seconds. And with Collaborative Data Contracts, engineers and business can finally agree on what “done” looks like — so you can stop fighting over column names, and start trusting your data again.Whether you’re a data engineer, analytics lead, or just someone who cries when a dashboard flatlines, Soda may be right for you. Side effects of implementing Soda may include: Increased trust in your metrics, reduced late-night Slack emergencies, spontaneous high-fives across departments, fewer meetings and less back-and-forth with business stakeholders, and in rare cases, a newfound love of data. Sign up today to get a chance to win a $1000+ custom mechanical keyboard. Visit dataengineeringpodcast.com/soda to sign up and follow Soda’s launch week. It starts June 9th.Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Mai-Lan Tomsen Bukovec about the evolutions of S3 and how it has transformed data architectureInterviewIntroductionHow did you get involved in the area of data management?Most everyone listening knows what S3 is, but can you start by giving a quick summary of what roles it plays in the data ecosystem?What are the major generational epochs in S3, with a particular focus on analytical/ML data systems?The first major driver of analytical usage for S3 was the Hadoop ecosystem. What are the other elements of the data ecosystem that helped shape the product direction of S3?Data storage and retrieval have been core primitives in computing since its inception. What are the characteristics of S3 and all of its copycats that led to such a difference in architectural patterns vs. other shared data technologies? (e.g. NFS, Gluster, Ceph, Samba, etc.)How does the unified pool of storage that is exemplified by S3 help to blur the boundaries between application data, analytical data, and ML/AI data?What are some of the default patterns for storage and retrieval across those three buckets that can lead to anti-patterns which add friction when trying to unify those use cases?The age of AI is leading to a massive potential for unlocking unstructured data, for which S3 has been a massive dumping ground over the years. How is that changing the ways that your customers think about the value of the assets that they have been hoarding for so long?What new architectural patterns is that generating?What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen S3 used for analytical/ML/Ai applications?What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on S3?When is S3 the wrong choice?What do you have planned for the future of S3?Contact InfoLinkedInParting QuestionFrom your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?Closing AnnouncementsThank you for listening! Don't forget to check out our other shows. Podcast.__init__ covers the Python language, its community, and the innovative ways it is being used. The AI Engineering Podcast is your guide to the fast-moving world of building AI systems.Visit the site to subscribe to the show, sign up for the mailing list, and read the show notes.If you've learned something or tried out a project from the show then tell us about it! Email [email protected] with your story.LinksAWS S3KinesisKafkaSQSEMRDrupalWordpressNetflix Blog on S3 as a Source of TruthHadoopMapReduceNasa JPLFINRA == Financial Industry Regulatory AuthorityS3 Object VersioningS3 Cross RegionS3 TablesIcebergParquetAWS KMSIceberg RESTDuckDBNFS == Network File SystemSambaGlusterFSCephMinIOS3 MetadataPhotoshop Generative FillAdobe FireflyTurbotax AI AssistantAWS Access AnalyzerData ProductsS3 Access PointAWS Nova ModelsLexisNexis ProtegeS3 Intelligent TieringS3 Principal Engineering TenetsThe intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

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  1:01:01
• Scaling Data Operations With Platform Engineering

  SummaryIn this episode of the Data Engineering Podcast Chakravarthy Kotaru talks about scaling data operations through standardized platform offerings. From his roots as an Oracle developer to leading the data platform at a major online travel company, Chakravarthy shares insights on managing diverse database technologies and providing databases as a service to streamline operations. He explains how his team has transitioned from DevOps to a platform engineering approach, centralizing expertise and automating repetitive tasks with AWS Service Catalog. Join them as they discuss the challenges of migrating legacy systems, integrating AI and ML for automation, and the importance of organizational buy-in in driving data platform success.AnnouncementsHello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data managementData migrations are brutal. They drag on for months—sometimes years—burning through resources and crushing team morale. Datafold's AI-powered Migration Agent changes all that. Their unique combination of AI code translation and automated data validation has helped companies complete migrations up to 10 times faster than manual approaches. And they're so confident in their solution, they'll actually guarantee your timeline in writing. Ready to turn your year-long migration into weeks? Visit dataengineeringpodcast.com/datafold today for the details.This is a pharmaceutical Ad for Soda Data Quality. Do you suffer from chronic dashboard distrust? Are broken pipelines and silent schema changes wreaking havoc on your analytics? You may be experiencing symptoms of Undiagnosed Data Quality Syndrome — also known as UDQS. Ask your data team about Soda. With Soda Metrics Observability, you can track the health of your KPIs and metrics across the business — automatically detecting anomalies before your CEO does. It’s 70% more accurate than industry benchmarks, and the fastest in the category, analyzing 1.1 billion rows in just 64 seconds. And with Collaborative Data Contracts, engineers and business can finally agree on what “done” looks like — so you can stop fighting over column names, and start trusting your data again.Whether you’re a data engineer, analytics lead, or just someone who cries when a dashboard flatlines, Soda may be right for you. Side effects of implementing Soda may include: Increased trust in your metrics, reduced late-night Slack emergencies, spontaneous high-fives across departments, fewer meetings and less back-and-forth with business stakeholders, and in rare cases, a newfound love of data. Sign up today to get a chance to win a $1000+ custom mechanical keyboard. Visit dataengineeringpodcast.com/soda to sign up and follow Soda’s launch week. It starts June 9th.Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Chakri Kotaru about scaling successful data operations through standardized platform offeringsInterviewIntroductionHow did you get involved in the area of data management?Can you start by outlining the different ways that you have seen teams you work with fail due to lack of structure and opinionated design?Why NoSQL?Pairing different styles of NoSQL for different problemsUseful patterns for each NoSQL style (document, column family, graph, etc.)Challenges in platform automation and scaling edge casesWhat challenges do you anticipate as a result of the new pressures as a result of AI applications?What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen platform engineering practices applied to data systems?What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on data platform engineering?When is NoSQL the wrong choice?What do you have planned for the future of platform principles for enabling data teams/data applications?Contact InfoLinkedInParting QuestionFrom your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?Closing AnnouncementsThank you for listening! Don't forget to check out our other shows. Podcast.__init__ covers the Python language, its community, and the innovative ways it is being used. The AI Engineering Podcast is your guide to the fast-moving world of building AI systems.Visit the site to subscribe to the show, sign up for the mailing list, and read the show notes.If you've learned something or tried out a project from the show then tell us about it! Email [email protected] with your story.LinksRiakDynamoDBSQL ServerCassandraScyllaDBCAP TheoremTerraformAWS Service CatalogBlog PostThe intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

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  42:20
• From Data Discovery to AI: The Evolution of Semantic Layers

  SummaryIn this episode of the Data Engineering Podcast, host Tobias Macy welcomes back Shinji Kim to discuss the evolving role of semantic layers in the era of AI. As they explore the challenges of managing vast data ecosystems and providing context to data users, they delve into the significance of semantic layers for AI applications. They dive into the nuances of semantic modeling, the impact of AI on data accessibility, and the importance of business logic in semantic models. Shinji shares her insights on how SelectStar is helping teams navigate these complexities, and together they cover the future of semantic modeling as a native construct in data systems. Join them for an in-depth conversation on the evolving landscape of data engineering and its intersection with AI.AnnouncementsHello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data managementData migrations are brutal. They drag on for months—sometimes years—burning through resources and crushing team morale. Datafold's AI-powered Migration Agent changes all that. Their unique combination of AI code translation and automated data validation has helped companies complete migrations up to 10 times faster than manual approaches. And they're so confident in their solution, they'll actually guarantee your timeline in writing. Ready to turn your year-long migration into weeks? Visit dataengineeringpodcast.com/datafold today for the details.Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Shinji Kim about the role of semantic layers in the era of AIInterviewIntroductionHow did you get involved in the area of data management?Semantic modeling gained a lot of attention ~4-5 years ago in the context of the "modern data stack". What is your motivation for revisiting that topic today?There are several overlapping concepts – "semantic layer," "metrics layer," "headless BI." How do you define these terms, and what are the key distinctions and overlaps?Do you see these concepts converging, or do they serve distinct long-term purposes?Data warehousing and business intelligence have been around for decades now. What new value does semantic modeling beyond practices like star schemas, OLAP cubes, etc.?What benefits does a semantic model provide when integrating your data platform into AI use cases?How is it different between using AI as an interface to your analytical use cases vs. powering customer facing AI applications with your data?Putting in the effort to create and maintain a set of semantic models is non-zero. What role can LLMs play in helping to propose and construct those models?For teams who have already invested in building this capability, what additional context and metadata is necessary to provide guidance to LLMs when working with their models?What's the most effective way to create a semantic layer without turning it into a massive project? There are several technologies available for building and serving these models. What are the selection criteria that you recommend for teams who are starting down this path?What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen semantic models used?What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working with semantic modeling?When is semantic modeling the wrong choice?What do you predict for the future of semantic modeling?Contact InfoLinkedInParting QuestionFrom your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?Closing AnnouncementsThank you for listening! Don't forget to check out our other shows. Podcast.__init__ covers the Python language, its community, and the innovative ways it is being used. The AI Engineering Podcast is your guide to the fast-moving world of building AI systems.Visit the site to subscribe to the show, sign up for the mailing list, and read the show notes.If you've learned something or tried out a project from the show then tell us about it! Email [email protected] with your story.LinksSelectStarSun MicrosystemsMarkov Chain Monte CarloSemantic ModelingSemantic LayerMetrics LayerHeadless BICubePodcast EpisodeAtScaleStar SchemaData VaultOLAP CubeRAG == Retrieval Augmented GenerationAI Engineering Podcast EpisodeKNN == K-Nearest NeighbersHNSW == Hierarchical Navigable Small Worlddbt Metrics LayerSoda DataLookMLHexPowerBITableauSemantic View (Snowflake)Databricks GenieSnowflake Cortex AnalystMalloyThe intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

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  49:30

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