Scaling data teams from zero is hard: there are no easy shortcuts, and it is hard to find clear examples to learn from. That’s why we are very excited to co-present the work we did at On Deck over the last year: starting in Summer 2021 we built a data team from scratch, relying heavily on dbt as the core data modelling environment. Come hear us talk about how we set up the team, prioritised the many different requirements from an ever expanding team of stakeholders and, after just a few months, succeeding in moving On Deck away from a no-code data architecture (with more than 400 SaaS tools) and towards a centralised data model in dbt. We think the lessons (and especially the pitfalls) are worth telling!

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

dbt Labs founder/CEO Tristan Handy is joined by Chief Product Officer Margaret Francis to share what’s on the way for dbt in Europe.

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

Occasionally there are trends in the modern data era that are so big that the data community fervently latches on. Debates erupt on substack, Twitter, and on podcasts urging anyone who will listen to pay attention. Virtual data fights break out, discussing the merits and shortcomings of different approaches. And if you’re not committed to keeping up with the discourse, the current moves too quickly.

In this session, we’re going to unpack some of these debates on stage – giving a recap of the biggest trends that captivated our attention in recent memory.

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

How do you efficiently scale your analytics stack when your data and data team grows 10x in 2 years? How do you even start prioritizing what gets done when there's that much growth? In this talk, Felipe Leite and Stephen Pastan of Miro unpack their shift to a Modern Data Stack and share the vital technical changes they made to build a scalable and tech-forward data stack. Come join them in learning how they got to where they are today and what they’re working on for the future. More details coming soon!

Check the slides here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1lLoRBYAv8wlJQuhSrflX4F6y4lqV3SnDNAU7BYxHYR8/edit#slide=id.p

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

So often, data folks find ourselves solving the technical problems (how do we do X, how do we show Y), but forget that data is all about context. Effective use of our data tools goes beyond just picking the best one that has engineering best practices or the most cost effective tool. It is about understanding the people; the audience, the decision makers, the ones implementing the systems and so on.

Join Lorena Vazquez (Wonder) as she shares tips in creating a more inclusive, compassionate, and empathetic data teams, and how that results in more successful projects.

Check the slides here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1OBT-4LFEcrqCfzGoCfi3R0TTOalPnn8Uh5PJ9AaCcZg/edit?usp=sharing

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

There’s no playbook for modern data leaders. As a community, we’re still figuring out what it means to be a great data leader—how to build a great culture, what tools and frameworks to use, what stack to build, etc. For someone starting new in this role, it can be overwhelming.

In this candid chat moderated by Christine Garcia (Atlan), data leaders will unpack how they think about:

• Investing in building a strong foundation for your data team: What it looks like and how they approached this for their own teams

• Nurturing a growing team: How data leaders can help their team productivity and people grow while continuing to meet the growing demands from the rest of the organization

• Cultivating a data culture unique to your data team: Setting and building the right team values, approaching governance inside the team, creating cadences and rituals, and more

Check the slides here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qPhp-K1OAKBlxuoYdfsD079MImpwQLbgXaS9l1tb2xE/edit?usp=sharing

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

In a popular Coalesce 2020 talk, Dave Fowler challenged the relevancy of dimensional modeling and the star schema popularized by Ralph Kimball over 25 years ago, arguing the dimensional modeling method now does “more harm than good,” in the context of the modern data stack. But should we throw the baby out with the bathwater? In this talk, Josh Devlin and Sydney Burns (Brooklyn Data Co) suggests a different approach to bringing Kimball’s system into the modern era.

Check the slides here:https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1HLP1FfCNZJUIF7JgT1ote5LaG2tDvsNRfrA9vIkf2n4/edit?usp=sharing

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

As data people, we don't always gravitate towards expressing our voices and opinions in words (because we...typically like the numbers to tell the stories). But just as a beautiful data dashboard can communicate meaningful insight and lead to decision making, words and stories have a way to move people in a way data sometimes can't. Join Justin Gage (Amplify Partners) as he breaks down the importance of writing in a data career, and unpacks the mechanisms needed to become a stronger technical writer and storyteller.

Check the slides here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1-O3Woc3TpE8fG-HYWSAUa7sHcQp1NgrWNmE3lBIn60U/edit

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

Understanding the user funnel and measuring conversion is critical to Acorns as a subscription business. The engineering team turned to Rudderstack to track customer interaction in near real-time across web, ios, and android. However, transforming that into actionable insights required carefully curated SQL spanning two datastores. Come learn how the data engineering team used dbt to build a centralized metrics interface and dynamic funnels in a data landscape spanning Rudderstack, Redshift, Databricks, and dbt with Tableau as our visualization tool.

Check the slides here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1MTbqysGH_9oxUPKgQQO2MYM1f1XUhSVw_ERDvaZ8Qsg/edit?usp=sharing

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

Salesforce and other CRMs are the beating heart of sales and go-to-market operations. When CRMs are in conflict with the data warehouse as competing sources of truth or separate silos everyone loses.

Join Erika and Sean as they shares how Hex's Data and RevOps functions have partnered to integrate data into Salesforce to prevent data silos, empower their sales reps, and understand their performance—and how Hex's learning lessons can be applied to your own org.

Check the slides here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1LKo_FdESDpVDYwYWXUirAKu5Jy3hs_nOHVY10lwUdj4/edit?usp=sharing

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

What does it mean to "be technical"? What makes a great analytics engineer? How can individuals "develop technically", how can managers "foster technical growth", and how can companies "hire technical people"? It's crucial to understand the component skills that build into great analytics engineering outcomes.

As it turns out, it's not so different from how fashion designers go from prompt to runway look. Join Ashley Sherwood (HubSpot) as she breaks down the parallels between fashion design and analytics engineering work and how small daily design decisions can compound to a massive impact on data teams' abilities to grow their skills and serve stakeholders.

Check the slides here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1HDzAzHhWy4q_cXASB1F3EfTWivWlijCRu5e-CIbaXqI/edit?usp=sharing

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

Have you ever been excited to start a new role in data, just to realize you’ve inherited a DAG that seems beyond repair? There is hope - Lauren and Christine will take you through advanced tips and tricks for wrangling your next refactor so you don’t get buried alive!

This session requires pre-registration. Sign up here. If session is filled you are welcome to come to the room and join the waitlist onsite. Open seats will be made available 10 minutes after session start.

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

Nasdaq at large has always been a data driven company. Over the years how we access and model data has changed but the desire for data driven outcomes has not. Over the past couple years it has become critical that we accelerate the ability to get access to data to our key business users. Traditionally the Nasdaq North Americans Market team has gained access to data via a number of avenues, most of which required some level of a data engineer to build, schedule, and deliver canned reports. By embracing tools like dbt we are seeking to increase the capabilities of the business units themselves to own the creation and schedule of key metrics and make quicker/better decisions because of it.

Check the slides here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1auwcYY68e6gY__lh7rIgr3yQJreYxJVB/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=110293204340061069659&rtpof=true&sd=true

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

Since the dawn of time (or at least the last few years), the proserv team has been “dbt_project_evaluator”s. They've written articles, given talks, created training courses, and personally delivered just a truly obscene amount of audits. Up until now, evaluating your own dbt project—even with every aforementioned resource—would be incredibly time consuming. To quote dbt Lab’s SQL style guide, “brain time is expensive.” Enter: dbt_project_evaluator. In this talk, Grace Goheen (dbt Labs) which share how this package enables analytics engineers to follow dbt Labs own best practices by automatically curating a list of improvements, in the dbt-language of “models” and “tests” that they already know and love. By decreasing the “discovery” period, analytics engineers can use their brain time to work on actually implementing the recommended changes.

Check the slides here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1U7CaoSceXumbzlPGqqAQukaz1YdOgT46sb-M6x_LNCw/edit?usp=sharing

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

The dbt Cloud IDE has gotten a major upgrade. With a fresh new coat of paint, a re-written codebase, and a suite of oft-requested features, the new IDE should amount to a significant quality of life improvement for your team – allowing you to deliver even more value to the business. Experience it in action, and see how to safely distribute data development work in this hands-on session with the dbt Labs product team.

Check the slides here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11-71MIh9ASGM2n-i0KxXc_yf6w1tq0l1bUobWdnfloY/edit?usp=sharing

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

As analytics engineers, we make impact by building analytics things (models, pipelines, visualizations) that help stakeholders make decisions about what to do next. What if we could also make impact by driving a culture of experimentation—which will help those same stakeholders make decisions too?

Join Adam Stone (Netlify) as he draws on his vast experimentation experience and explains how analytics engineer can use a combination of a program-building mindset, organizational mentoring (and cheerleading), and off-the-shelf tools to partner with product and engineering teams to quickly spin up meaningful experimentation.

Check the slides here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1vWfhfTnC9-NV-qrQLTkGk4qgdi-19JA8E3p6fpniQe0/edit?usp=sharing

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

User stitching can be cumbersome; third-party tracking, expiring cookies, browser privacy features, and users not being logged in. These challenges require companies to rethink how they collect and use data, and how they want to establish a mutually beneficial relationship with their users. In this session, learn how to solve these problems with an architecture that allows you to implement and control first-party tracking with data creation and data modelling, enabling you to easily set up user stitching. Learn how this directly drives the development of smarter data products that leverage user identity resolution, leading to more user engagement and growth.

Check slides here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/17s6qEAXyt1dhHmvxvoibs0X88RxlDjGjnDojYNtGYeQ/edit?usp=sharing

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

I have spoken with many data people about their most hated tool: the “service desk” used to manage the requests of others.

One team has a Slack channel called “data-sucks.” The name tells you much about people’s feelings. Others use Google forms, JIRA Service Desk, or some horrifying combination.

Teams debate the ways that they can prevent, or reduce, these requests in the first place. Should we make requests more difficult? Are we stuck in the service trap? Should we enable self-service analytics?

Initiatives are undertaken, and afterwards is a terrible truth: the questions and our loathing remain. And the others? They still hate making the requests, too.

Why do we all feel this way, and why are we still unable to do anything about it?

Check the slides here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1-JmXX1RZHLf3VKRZJoPHw-QFUodODzOmu13GJSVdkM4/edit?usp=sharing

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

The off-Broadway, on-Bourbon adaption of "Data—The Musical." Featuring an all star cast you probably don't know outside that one humerous Twitter exchange, caroling a cathartic chorus of communal data dolors. The internal tracking tag our events team added to this session was, "Rad experiential social content" and I, the writer of this session summary, thought that said, "Rad experimental social construct" and I for one would like to see which ends up being true. Join me.

Check the slides here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lwb-8f-CZJ8YWXZdyU9zG8HOKi0sPmgs/view?usp=sharing

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

A Senior Business Analyst, an Analytics Engineer, and a Data Quality Engineer walk into the office. All three of them ask for dbt. Why? Join Coco Haury (WEX, Inc.) to hear about the universal appeal of dbt to folks outside traditional data engineer and analyst roles, and how dbt has helped WEX modernize their entire enterprise data platform.

Check the slides here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1XNphR_il_3SGy9dU7G7PxmVoCXCCWBuFMvZYESN6KgE/edit?usp=sharing

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

Data teams aren't only working in Excel and Tableau anymore. We're working in GitHub, VSCode, BigQuery, and our command line. We have the modern data pipeline and we're developing a lot more like engineers...but our development workflows are anything but modern. Why don't we get developer previews? Or the ability to test our changes to anything downstream of dbt? Why do our tools not talk to each other? We believe that analytics engineers deserve better and we want to show you what "better data development" could look like in the modern data pipeline (we promise, it's really nice).

Check the slides here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NtAOknFDmJiIQD6cSTbhmfZ-6ZFhKKH3GKcEZ3AL5eg/edit?usp=sharing

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

Fivetran and dbt Cloud continue to gain traction and popularity among some of the most innovative companies, and for good reason. When combined, Fivetran and dbt Cloud provide an automated, performant, end-to-end ELT pipeline. Join our session where Nikolay Voronchikhin will walk us through Cisco’s journey to building a successful data stack with Fivetran and dbt Cloud. Discover best practices to maximize this powerful combination in your business.

Check the slides here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1-rPuzq0om7ePXXcXFd4lBi72L5svZHNjkx0RWLGgUo8/edit?usp=sharing

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

In this talk, Marielle Dado (Paddle) will introduce the concept of knowledge construction (a theory that featured heavily in their previous life as a learning psychologist/cognitive scientist), why they think analytics engineers should see themselves as "knowledge creators," and how this framing can lead to less ad-hoc querying and more robust data models.

Check the slides here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1aMwNiFd7B5pArOP8Nc_jfHCLtNvKimaUJFUuMMPQC04/edit?usp=sharing

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.

Growing demand for data puts Analytics Engineers under pressure to move quickly, without introducing bugs to their models. If you find yourself pushing dbt’s testing framework to the limit, or waiting for careful code reviews before deploying to production, this talk is for you. Join Egor Gryaznov, CTO of Bigeye and former Staff Data Engineer at Uber, to learn how to take your workflow to the next level with blue-green deployments. This talk will cover: -CI/CD pipeline best practices for Analytics Engineers -Automatically validating pipeline changes with blue-green deployments -Tracking data changes through merge requests for visibility and reliability More details coming soon!

Check the slides here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1zkzKkhjm1WshCMSOksfi24BEGK62wrLOGKKEg0I0Yhg/edit#slide=id.g11c331d5e28_0_6192

Coalesce 2023 is coming! Register for free at https://coalesce.getdbt.com/.