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​During this session, we’ll take a practical look at the Analytics Engineer role: what it actually covers, how it fits into modern data teams, and which skills matter most.

​Rather than a step-by-step tutorial, this talk focuses on core concepts, real examples, and recurring patterns that define the work of Analytics Engineers today.

​We’ll cover:

• ​What the Analytics Engineer role really includes and how it complements data engineers, data scientists, and business teams
• ​Technical foundations that keep an AE effective: SQL, data modeling, testing, version control, and development workflows
• ​Soft skills that quietly shape impact: cross-team communication, stakeholder alignment, and systematic thinking

​The talk draws on key insights from Fundamentals of Analytics Engineering, with Juan sharing lessons learned while writing the book and working with data teams. ​By the end, you’ll have a grounded view of why the Analytics Engineer role exists, how it has evolved, and which capabilities are worth prioritizing if you want to advance in this career. ​

​About the speaker: ​Juan Manuel Perafan is an analytics engineer, educator, and community builder based in Utrecht. He’s the co-author of Fundamentals of Analytics Engineering, host of the SQL Lingua Franca podcast, and a dbt Community Award winner. Juan founded the Analytics Engineering Meetup Netherlands and the Dutch dbt Meetup, and has spoken at events like dbt Coalesce, Linux Foundation OS Summit, and Big Data Expo NL.

**Join our slack: https://datatalks.club/slack.html**

Performance is a crucial factor in delivering timely and accurate data to organizations. However, debugging the performance of dbt models can be a challenge, as most resources available focus on legacy databases or tips for specific data engines that do not translate to modern data platforms.

In this talk, Juan Manuel Perafan focuses on optimizing performance for dbt users, without focusing on any specific data warehouse. He explores the commonalities across most data warehouses and provides practical tips and strategies for improving the performance of dbt models. From query optimization to materialization strategies.

Whether you're new to dbt or a seasoned user, this talk provides valuable insights and best practices for improving the performance of your dbt models.

Speaker: Juan Manuel Perafan, Analytics Engineer, Xebia

Register for Coalesce at https://coalesce.getdbt.com

Please note: Registration is mandatory to attend the event. Secure your spot by registering on the GoDataFest website.

The GoDataFest Lite 2023 Summer Edition is around the corner. This full-day event is an opportunity to learn about the latest trends in data, AI/ML, and cloud technology. We're hosting it on-site in Amsterdam on July 5. The event is FREE to attend - all you need to do is register here. Seating is limited!

Engage with product specialists and experienced practitioners of leading tech. Learn from the experiences of industry-leading enterprises.

🗓️ Wednesday, July 5, 2023 📌 Xebia Data Office - Amsterdam, Wibautstraat 202, 1091 GS

Schedule: 9.30 - Open doors

10:00 AM-12:25 AM: Kedro Breakfast Jordi Smit and Caio Benatti Moretti would like to invite you to a Kedro Breakfast session. Here, you'll learn how to manage data pipelines locally and on the cloud, all with the same code. They'll provide guidance on segregating IO artifacts from your code to create a more stable setup, as well as how to review the current status of each pipeline node for efficient debugging and testing.

12.30-13.30: Lunch

13:30-14:10: Scaling Real-Time Streaming Analytics with Apache Flink: Unlocking Business Value and Future-Proofing Enterprises Krzysztof Zarzycki will explore the transformative capabilities of Real-Time Streaming Analytics and the crucial role Apache Flink plays in powering such processes.

14:10-14:55: The multidisciplinary art of creating great KPIs In this workshop, Juan Manuel Perafan will break down all the knowledge required to create robust KPIs. From how it ties to your business goals, perverse incentives, to its technical implementation. Everybody is welcome! No coding required.

15:00-15:40: Data Modelling for Dummies in DBT Lasse Benninga will provide a fundamental understanding of data modeling for analytics, using dbt as an example. By the conclusion, you should have a comprehensive grasp of DBT's function and how analytics engineers worldwide use it to structure their data.

16:00-16:40: Our journey from 0 to MLOps Platform in Snowflake Marcin Zabłocki will show you how we’ve built a usable MLOps platform on Snowflake by combining the powers of Snowpark, MLflow & Kedro to make ML part of the data platform.

16.45-17:20: How to trade repeatability of bad habits for reusability of best practices. A few facts about open-source QuickStart ML Blueprints Piotr Chaberski will dive deep into QuickStart ML Blueprints - an open-source collection of examples for efficient prototyping of production-ready ML solutions that is the concrete embodiment of best development practices ready to apply to new challenges.

17.25-18.05: The Role of Machine Learning System Design in Ensuring MLOps Success During this talk, Roy van Santen will discuss why Machine Learning System Design is important, what it entails, and provide you with a framework on how to approach making a design. Machine Learning System Design takes a holistic view on ML applications.

18.15-19.00: Journey into Gen AI Rens Dimmendaal will address the challenges encountered with ChatGPT and how we tackled them by creating an internal tool, SlackGPT.

19.00 - Pizza & networking

Register now! Seats are limited.

We look forward to seeing you there!

The 2nd edition of the Belgium dbt Meetup will take place in Ghent on June 14th.

dbt Meetups are networking events open to all folks working with data! Talks predominantly focus on community members' experience with dbt, however, you'll catch presentations on broader topics such as analytics engineering, data stacks, data ops, modeling, testing, and team structures.

🏠Venue Host: OTA Insight, Gaston Crommenlaan 6, Gent 🤝Organizers: Lise Kerckhove & Sam Debruyn

To attend, please read the Required Participation Language for In-Person Events with dbt Labs: https://bit.ly/3QIJXFb

📝Agenda:

17h45: welcome with food & drinks 18h30: Data Mesh with dbt (Charles Verleyen & Lukasz Sciga - Astrafy) 19h15: Boosting Collaboration and Productivity with DevContainers and dbt Core (Mateusz Marciniewicz - dataroots) 19h45: break 20h: Documenting KPIs: Beyond dbt Semantic Layer (Juan Manuel Perafan - GoDataDriven/Xebia) 20h45: networking & drinks

To attend, please read the Required Participation Language for In-Person Events with dbt Labs: https://bit.ly/3QIJXFb

Data Mesh with dbt (Charles Verleyen & Lukasz Sciga - Astrafy)

Data Mesh has become a powerful buzzwords and every data practitioner has heard about it. The major problem with buzzwords is that there are a lot of interpretations around them and this can generate quite some frustration. In case of data mesh, it can also slow down the adoption of this amazing new paradigm.

In this session I will demystify the main concepts of data mesh and bring those to life with dbt with concrete data products from Astrafy real data. You can expect to see data mesh in actions in a very pragmatic way as we will cover as well activation of data from those data products by downstream applications (leveraging dbt semantic layer).

Charles is a 34 years old data engineer and has been working for the last 10 years in different industries before founding his company recently with a focus on providing modern data services. He is passionate about open-source technologies and strives to deliver automated data solutions that can scale. Aside from his work, he's a sport lover with special dedication for tennis.

Boosting Collaboration and Productivity with DevContainers and dbt Core (Mateusz Marciniewicz - dataroots)

In this presentation we will discuss the benefits of using devcontainers together with dbt Core for data modeling and transformation. DevContainers provide a consistent, isolated environment for development, ensuring that all developers have the same set of tools and dependencies installed. This makes it easier to collaborate and reduces the risk of conflicts or errors. By adding dbt Core to the devcontainer, developers can take advantage of its powerful features and leverage the capabilities of the VS Code IDE. This can greatly simplify the process of working with data and onboarding process of new employees, allowing developers to focus on creating value rather than managing infrastructure.

Mateusz is Polish-born with a background in Computer Science. He came to Belgium to pursue his studies, and he decided to stay and build his career here. In his free time, he enjoys sports and camping.

Documenting KPIs: Beyond dbt Semantic Layer (Juan Manuel Perafan - GoDataDriven/Xebia)

The dbt Semantic Layer has made a lot of teams reflect on the way they document their KPI's. But why stopping there? In this talk, I will break down all the knowledge required to understand a metric. From how it ties to your business goals, perverse incentives, to its technical implementation.

Juan's mission is to help data professionals to create reliable production-grade data workflows that are easy to maintain, have been properly tested, and are impeccably documented. Half of the time, he teaches analysts how to apply engineering best practices to their workflows. The other half, he helps engineers to get in the shoes of the analysts.

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➡️ Join the dbt Slack community: https://www.getdbt.com/community/ 🤝 For the best Meetup experience, make sure to join the #local-belgium channel in dbt Slack (https://slack.getdbt.com/)!

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dbt is a data transformation framework that lets analysts and engineers collaborate using their shared knowledge of SQL. Through the application of software engineering best practices like modularity, version control, testing, and documentation, dbt’s analytics engineering workflow helps teams work more efficiently to produce data the entire organization can trust.

Learn more: https://www.getdbt.com/