Summary Data Engineering is a broad and constantly evolving topic, which makes it difficult to teach in a concise and effective manner. Despite that, Daniel Molnar and Peter Fabian started the Pipeline Academy to do exactly that. In this episode they reflect on the lessons that they learned while teaching the first cohort of their bootcamp how to be effective data engineers. By focusing on the fundamentals, and making everyone write code, they were able to build confidence and impart the importance of context for their students.

Announcements

Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data management When you’re ready to build your next pipeline, or want to test out the projects you hear about on the show, you’ll need somewhere to deploy it, so check out our friends at Linode. With their managed Kubernetes platform it’s now even easier to deploy and scale your workflows, or try out the latest Helm charts from tools like Pulsar and Pachyderm. With simple pricing, fast networking, object storage, and worldwide data centers, you’ve got everything you need to run a bulletproof data platform. Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/linode today and get a $100 credit to try out a Kubernetes cluster of your own. And don’t forget to thank them for their continued support of this show! Are you bored with writing scripts to move data into SaaS tools like Salesforce, Marketo, or Facebook Ads? Hightouch is the easiest way to sync data into the platforms that your business teams rely on. The data you’re looking for is already in your data warehouse and BI tools. Connect your warehouse to Hightouch, paste a SQL query, and use their visual mapper to specify how data should appear in your SaaS systems. No more scripts, just SQL. Supercharge your business teams with customer data using Hightouch for Reverse ETL today. Get started for free at dataengineeringpodcast.com/hightouch. Atlan is a collaborative workspace for data-driven teams, like Github for engineering or Figma for design teams. By acting as a virtual hub for data assets ranging from tables and dashboards to SQL snippets & code, Atlan enables teams to create a single source of truth for all their data assets, and collaborate across the modern data stack through deep integrations with tools like Snowflake, Slack, Looker and more. Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/atlan today and sign up for a free trial. If you’re a data engineering podcast listener, you get credits worth $3000 on an annual subscription Your host is Tobias Macey and today I’m interviewing Daniel Molnar and Peter Fabian about the lessons that they learned from their first cohort at the Pipeline data engineering academy

Interview

Introduction How did you get involved in the area of data management? Can you start by sharing the curriculum and learning goals for the students? How did you set a common baseline for all of the students to build from throughout the program?

What was your process for determining the structure of the tasks and the tooling used?

What were some of the topics/tools that the students had the most difficulty with?

What topics/tools were the easiest to grasp?

What are some difficulties that you encountered while trying to teach different concepts? How did you deal with the tension of teaching the fundamentals while tying them to toolchains that hiring managers are looking for? What are the successes that you had with this cohort and what changes are you making to your approach/curriculum to build on them? What are some of the failures that you encountered and what lessons have you taken from them? How did the pandemic impact your overall plan and execution of the initial cohort? What were the skills that you focused on for interview preparation? What level of ongoing support/engagement do you have with students once they complete the curriculum? What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected solutions that you saw from your students? What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working with your first cohort? When is a bootcamp the wrong approach for skill development? What do you have planned for the future of the Pipeline Academy?

Contact Info

Daniel

LinkedIn Website @soobrosa on Twitter

Peter

LinkedIn

Parting Question

From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?

Links

Pipeline Academy

Blog

Scikit Pandas Urchin Kafka Three "C"s – Context, Confidence, and Code Prefect

Podcast Episode

Great Expectations

Podcast Episode Podcast.init Episode

Docker Kubernetes Become a Data Engineer On A Shoestring James Mickens

The intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

Support Data Engineering Podcast

Summary Data engineering is a constantly growing and evolving discipline. There are always new tools, systems, and design patterns to learn, which leads to a great deal of confusion for newcomers. Daniel Molnar has dedicated his time to helping data professionals get back to basics through presentations at conferences and meetups, and with his most recent endeavor of building the Pipeline Data Engineering Academy. In this episode he shares advice on how to cut through the noise, which principles are foundational to building a successful career as a data engineer, and his approach to educating the next generation of data practitioners. This was a useful conversation for anyone working with data who has found themselves spending too much time chasing the latest trends and wishes to develop a more focused approach to their work.

Announcements

Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data management What are the pieces of advice that you wish you had received early in your career of data engineering? If you hand a book to a new data engineer, what wisdom would you add to it? I’m working with O’Reilly on a project to collect the 97 things that every data engineer should know, and I need your help. Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/97things to add your voice and share your hard-earned expertise. When you’re ready to build your next pipeline, or want to test out the projects you hear about on the show, you’ll need somewhere to deploy it, so check out our friends at Linode. With their managed Kubernetes platform it’s now even easier to deploy and scale your workflows, or try out the latest Helm charts from tools like Pulsar and Pachyderm. With simple pricing, fast networking, object storage, and worldwide data centers, you’ve got everything you need to run a bulletproof data platform. Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/linode today and get a $60 credit to try out a Kubernetes cluster of your own. And don’t forget to thank them for their continued support of this show! Are you bogged down by having to manually manage data access controls, repeatedly move and copy data, and create audit reports to prove compliance? How much time could you save if those tasks were automated across your cloud platforms? Immuta is an automated data governance solution that enables safe and easy data analytics in the cloud. Our comprehensive data-level security, auditing and de-identification features eliminate the need for time-consuming manual processes and our focus on data and compliance team collaboration empowers you to deliver quick and valuable data analytics on the most sensitive data to unlock the full potential of your cloud data platforms. Learn how we streamline and accelerate manual processes to help you derive real results from your data at dataengineeringpodcast.com/immuta. You listen to this show to learn and stay up to date with what’s happening in databases, streaming platforms, big data, and everything else you need to know about modern data platforms. For more opportunities to stay up to date, gain new skills, and learn from your peers there are a growing number of virtual events that you can attend from the comfort and safety of your home. Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/conferences to check out the upcoming events being offered by our partners and get registered today! Your host is Tobias Macey and today I’m interviewing Daniel Molnar about being a data janitor and how to cut through the hype to understand what to learn for the long run

Interview

Introduction How did you get involved in the area of data management? Can you start by describing your thoughts on the current state of the data management industry? What is your strategy for being effective in the face of so much complexity and conflicting needs for data? What are some of the common difficulties that you see data engineers contend with, whether technical or social/organizational? What are the core fundamentals that you thin