Summary In this episode of the Data Engineering Podcast Ariel Pohoryles, head of product marketing for Boomi's data management offerings, talks about a recent survey of 300 data leaders on how organizations are investing in data to scale AI. He shares a paradox uncovered in the research: while 77% of leaders trust the data feeding their AI systems, only 50% trust their organization's data overall. Ariel explains why truly productionizing AI demands broader, continuously refreshed data with stronger automation and governance, and highlights the challenges posed by unstructured data and vector stores. The conversation covers the need to shift from manual reviews to automated pipelines, the resurgence of metadata and master data management, and the importance of guardrails, traceability, and agent governance. Ariel also predicts a growing convergence between data teams and application integration teams and advises leaders to focus on high-value use cases, aggressive pipeline automation, and cataloging and governing the coming sprawl of AI agents, all while using AI to accelerate data engineering itself.

Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data managementData teams everywhere face the same problem: they're forcing ML models, streaming data, and real-time processing through orchestration tools built for simple ETL. The result? Inflexible infrastructure that can't adapt to different workloads. That's why Cash App and Cisco rely on Prefect. Cash App's fraud detection team got what they needed - flexible compute options, isolated environments for custom packages, and seamless data exchange between workflows. Each model runs on the right infrastructure, whether that's high-memory machines or distributed compute. Orchestration is the foundation that determines whether your data team ships or struggles. ETL, ML model training, AI Engineering, Streaming - Prefect runs it all from ingestion to activation in one platform. Whoop and 1Password also trust Prefect for their data operations. If these industry leaders use Prefect for critical workflows, see what it can do for you at dataengineeringpodcast.com/prefect.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.Composable data infrastructure is great, until you spend all of your time gluing it together. Bruin is an open source framework, driven from the command line, that makes integration a breeze. Write Python and SQL to handle the business logic, and let Bruin handle the heavy lifting of data movement, lineage tracking, data quality monitoring, and governance enforcement. Bruin allows you to build end-to-end data workflows using AI, has connectors for hundreds of platforms, and helps data teams deliver faster. Teams that use Bruin need less engineering effort to process data and benefit from a fully integrated data platform. Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/bruin today to get started. And for dbt Cloud customers, they'll give you $1,000 credit to migrate to Bruin Cloud.Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Ariel Pohoryles about data management investments that organizations are making to enable them to scale AI implementationsInterview IntroductionHow did you get involved in the area of data management?Can you start by describing the motivation and scope of your recent survey on data management investments for AI across your respondents?What are the key takeaways that were most significant to you?The survey reveals a fascinating paradox: 77% of leaders trust the data used by their AI systems, yet only half trust their organization's overall data quality. For our data engineering audience, what does this suggest about how companies are currently sourcing data for AI? Does it imply they are using narrow, manually-curated "golden datasets," and what are the technical challenges and risks of that approach as they try to scale?The report highlights a heavy reliance on manual data quality processes, with one expert noting companies feel it's "not reliable to fully automate validation" for external or customer data. At the same time, maturity in "Automated tools for data integration and cleansing" is low, at only 42%. What specific technical hurdles or organizational inertia are preventing teams from adopting more automation in their data quality and integration pipelines?There was a significant point made that with generative AI, "biases can scale much faster," making automated governance essential. From a data engineering perspective, how does the data management strategy need to evolve to support generative AI versus traditional ML models? What new types of data quality checks, lineage tracking, or monitoring for feedback loops are required when the model itself is generating new content based on its own outputs?The report champions a "centralized data management platform" as the "connective tissue" for reliable AI. How do you see the scale and data maturity impacting the realities of that effort?How do architectural patterns in the shape of cloud warehouses, lakehouses, data mesh, data products, etc. factor into that need for centralized/unified platforms?A surprising finding was that a third of respondents have not fully grasped the risk of significant inaccuracies in their AI models if they fail to prioritize data management. In your experience, what are the biggest blind spots for data and analytics leaders?Looking at the maturity charts, companies rate themselves highly on "Developing a data management strategy" (65%) but lag significantly in areas like "Automated tools for data integration and cleansing" (42%) and "Conducting bias-detection audits" (24%). If you were advising a data engineering team lead based on these findings, what would you tell them to prioritize in the next 6-12 months to bridge the gap between strategy and a truly scalable, trustworthy data foundation for AI?The report states that 83% of companies expect to integrate more data sources for their AI in the next year. For a data engineer on the ground, what is the most important capability they need to build into their platform to handle this influx?What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen teams addressing the new and accelerated data needs for AI applications?What are some of the noteworthy trends or predictions that you have for the near-term future of the impact that AI is having or will have on data teams and systems?Contact Info LinkedInParting Question From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?Closing Announcements Thank 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.Links BoomiData ManagementIntegration & Automation DemoAgentstudioData Connector Agent WebinarSurvey ResultsData GovernanceShadow ITPodcast EpisodeThe intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

Summary In this episode Kate Shaw, Senior Product Manager for Data and SLIM at SnapLogic, talks about the hidden and compounding costs of maintaining legacy systems—and practical strategies for modernization. She unpacks how “legacy” is less about age and more about when a system becomes a risk: blocking innovation, consuming excess IT time, and creating opportunity costs. Kate explores technical debt, vendor lock-in, lost context from employee turnover, and the slippery notion of “if it ain’t broke,” especially when data correctness and lineage are unclear. Shee digs into governance, observability, and data quality as foundations for trustworthy analytics and AI, and why exit strategies for system retirement should be planned from day one. The discussion covers composable architectures to avoid monoliths and big-bang migrations, how to bridge valuable systems into AI initiatives without lock-in, and why clear success criteria matter for AI projects. Kate shares lessons from the field on discovery, documentation gaps, parallel run strategies, and using integration as the connective tissue to unlock data for modern, cloud-native and AI-enabled use cases. She closes with guidance on planning migrations, defining measurable outcomes, ensuring lineage and compliance, and building for swap-ability so teams can evolve systems incrementally instead of living with a “bowl of spaghetti.”

Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data managementData teams everywhere face the same problem: they're forcing ML models, streaming data, and real-time processing through orchestration tools built for simple ETL. The result? Inflexible infrastructure that can't adapt to different workloads. That's why Cash App and Cisco rely on Prefect. Cash App's fraud detection team got what they needed - flexible compute options, isolated environments for custom packages, and seamless data exchange between workflows. Each model runs on the right infrastructure, whether that's high-memory machines or distributed compute. Orchestration is the foundation that determines whether your data team ships or struggles. ETL, ML model training, AI Engineering, Streaming - Prefect runs it all from ingestion to activation in one platform. Whoop and 1Password also trust Prefect for their data operations. If these industry leaders use Prefect for critical workflows, see what it can do for you at dataengineeringpodcast.com/prefect.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.Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Kate Shaw about the true costs of maintaining legacy systemsInterview IntroductionHow did you get involved in the area of data management?What are your crtieria for when a given system or service transitions to being "legacy"?In order for any service to survive long enough to become "legacy" it must be serving its purpose and providing value. What are the common factors that prompt teams to deprecate or migrate systems?What are the sources of monetary cost related to maintaining legacy systems while they remain operational?Beyond monetary cost, economics also have a concept of "opportunity cost". What are some of the ways that manifests in data teams who are maintaining or migrating from legacy systems?How does that loss of productivity impact the broader organization?How does the process of migration contribute to issues around data accuracy, reliability, etc. as well as contributing to potential compromises of security and compliance?Once a system has been replaced, it needs to be retired. What are some of the costs associated with removing a system from service?What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen teams address the costs of legacy systems and their retirement?What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on legacy systems migration?When is deprecation/migration the wrong choice?How have evolutionary architecture patterns helped to mitigate the costs of system retirement?Contact Info LinkedInParting Question From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?Closing Announcements Thank 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.Links SnapLogicSLIM == SnapLogic Intelligent ModernizerOpportunity CostSunk Cost FallacyData GovernanceEvolutionary ArchitectureThe intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

Summary In this episode of the Data Engineering Podcast, host Tobias Macey welcomes back Nick Schrock, CTO and founder of Dagster Labs, to discuss Compass - a Slack-native, agentic analytics system designed to keep data teams connected with business stakeholders. Nick shares his journey from initial skepticism to embracing agentic AI as model and application advancements made it practical for governed workflows, and explores how Compass redefines the relationship between data teams and stakeholders by shifting analysts into steward roles, capturing and governing context, and integrating with Slack where collaboration already happens. The conversation covers organizational observability through Compass's conversational system of record, cost control strategies, and the implications of agentic collaboration on Conway's Law, as well as what's next for Compass and Nick's optimistic views on AI-accelerated software engineering.

Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data managementData teams everywhere face the same problem: they're forcing ML models, streaming data, and real-time processing through orchestration tools built for simple ETL. The result? Inflexible infrastructure that can't adapt to different workloads. That's why Cash App and Cisco rely on Prefect. Cash App's fraud detection team got what they needed - flexible compute options, isolated environments for custom packages, and seamless data exchange between workflows. Each model runs on the right infrastructure, whether that's high-memory machines or distributed compute. Orchestration is the foundation that determines whether your data team ships or struggles. ETL, ML model training, AI Engineering, Streaming - Prefect runs it all from ingestion to activation in one platform. Whoop and 1Password also trust Prefect for their data operations. If these industry leaders use Prefect for critical workflows, see what it can do for you at dataengineeringpodcast.com/prefect.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. Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Nick Schrock about building an AI analyst that keeps data teams in the loopInterview IntroductionHow did you get involved in the area of data management?Can you describe what Compass is and the story behind it?context repository structurehow to keep it relevant/avoid sprawl/duplicationproviding guardrailshow does a tool like Compass help provide feedback/insights back to the data teams?preparing the data warehouse for effective introspection by the AILLM selectioncost managementcaching/materializing ad-hoc queriesWhy Slack and enterprise chat are important to b2b softwareHow AI is changing stakeholder relationshipsHow not to overpromise AI capabilities How does Compass relate to BI?How does Compass relate to Dagster and Data Infrastructure?What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen Compass used?What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on Compass?When is Compass the wrong choice?What do you have planned for the future of Compass?Contact Info LinkedInParting Question From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?Closing Announcements Thank 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.Links DagsterDagster LabsDagster PlusDagster CompassChris Bergh DataOps EpisodeRise of Medium Code blog postContext EngineeringData StewardInformation ArchitectureConway's LawTemporal durable execution frameworkThe intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

Summary In this episode of the Data Engineering Podcast Vijay Subramanian, founder and CEO of Trace, talks about metric trees - a new approach to data modeling that directly captures a company's business model. Vijay shares insights from his decade-long experience building data practices at Rent the Runway and explains how the modern data stack has led to a proliferation of dashboards without a coherent way for business consumers to reason about cause, effect, and action. He explores how metric trees differ from and interoperate with other data modeling approaches, serve as a backend for analytical workflows, and provide concrete examples like modeling Uber's revenue drivers and customer journeys. Vijay also discusses the potential of AI agents operating on metric trees to execute workflows, organizational patterns for defining inputs and outputs with business teams, and a vision for analytics that becomes invisible infrastructure embedded in everyday decisions.

Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data managementData teams everywhere face the same problem: they're forcing ML models, streaming data, and real-time processing through orchestration tools built for simple ETL. The result? Inflexible infrastructure that can't adapt to different workloads. That's why Cash App and Cisco rely on Prefect. Cash App's fraud detection team got what they needed - flexible compute options, isolated environments for custom packages, and seamless data exchange between workflows. Each model runs on the right infrastructure, whether that's high-memory machines or distributed compute. Orchestration is the foundation that determines whether your data team ships or struggles. ETL, ML model training, AI Engineering, Streaming - Prefect runs it all from ingestion to activation in one platform. Whoop and 1Password also trust Prefect for their data operations. If these industry leaders use Prefect for critical workflows, see what it can do for you at dataengineeringpodcast.com/prefect.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.Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Vijay Subramanian about metric trees and how they empower more effective and adaptive analyticsInterview IntroductionHow did you get involved in the area of data management?Can you describe what metric trees are and their purpose?How do metric trees relate to metric/semantic layers?What are the shortcomings of existing data modeling frameworks that prevent effective use of those assets?How do metric trees build on top of existing investments in dimensional data models?What are some strategies for engaging with the business to identify metrics and their relationships?What are your recommendations for storage, representation, and retrieval of metric trees?How do metric trees fit into the overall lifecycle of organizational data workflows?When creating any new data asset it introduces overhead of maintenance, monitoring, and evolution. How do metric trees fit into existing testing and validation frameworks that teams rely on for dimensional modeling?What are some of the key differences in useful evaluation/testing that teams need to develop for metric trees?How do metric trees assist in context engineering for AI-powered self-serve access to organizational data?What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen metric trees used?What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on metric trees and operationalizing them at Trace?When is a metric tree the wrong abstraction?What do you have planned for the future of Trace and applications of metric trees?Contact Info LinkedInParting Question From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?Closing Announcements Thank 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.Links Metric TreeTraceModern Data StackHadoopVerticaLuigidbtRalph KimballBill InmonMetric LayerDimensional Data WarehouseMaster Data ManagementData GovernanceFinancial P&L (Profit and Loss)EBITDA ==Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortizationThe intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

Summary In this episode of the Data Engineering Podcast Serge Gershkovich, head of product at SQL DBM, talks about the socio-technical aspects of data modeling. Serge shares his background in data modeling and highlights its importance as a collaborative process between business stakeholders and data teams. He debunks common misconceptions that data modeling is optional or secondary, emphasizing its crucial role in ensuring alignment between business requirements and data structures. The conversation covers challenges in complex environments, the impact of technical decisions on data strategy, and the evolving role of AI in data management. Serge stresses the need for business stakeholders' involvement in data initiatives and a systematic approach to data modeling, warning against relying solely on technical expertise without considering business alignment.

Announcements Hello 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.Enterprises today face an enormous challenge: they’re investing billions into Snowflake and Databricks, but without strong foundations, those investments risk becoming fragmented, expensive, and hard to govern. And that’s especially evident in large, complex enterprise data environments. That’s why companies like DirecTV and Pfizer rely on SqlDBM. Data modeling may be one of the most traditional practices in IT, but it remains the backbone of enterprise data strategy. In today’s cloud era, that backbone needs a modern approach built natively for the cloud, with direct connections to the very platforms driving your business forward. Without strong modeling, data management becomes chaotic, analytics lose trust, and AI initiatives fail to scale. SqlDBM ensures enterprises don’t just move to the cloud—they maximize their ROI by creating governed, scalable, and business-aligned data environments. If global enterprises are using SqlDBM to tackle the biggest challenges in data management, analytics, and AI, isn’t it worth exploring what it can do for yours? Visit dataengineeringpodcast.com/sqldbm to learn more.Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Serge Gershkovich about how and why data modeling is a sociotechnical endeavorInterview IntroductionHow did you get involved in the area of data management?Can you start by describing the activities that you think of when someone says the term "data modeling"?What are the main groupings of incomplete or inaccurate definitions that you typically encounter in conversation on the topic?How do those conceptions of the problem lead to challenges and bottlenecks in execution?Data modeling is often associated with data warehouse design, but it also extends to source systems and unstructured/semi-structured assets. How does the inclusion of other data localities help in the overall success of a data/domain modeling effort?Another aspect of data modeling that often consumes a substantial amount of debate is which pattern to adhere to (star/snowflake, data vault, one big table, anchor modeling, etc.). What are some of the ways that you have found effective to remove that as a stumbling block when first developing an organizational domain representation?While the overall purpose of data modeling is to provide a digital representation of the business processes, there are inevitable technical decisions to be made. What are the most significant ways that the underlying technical systems can help or hinder the goals of building a digital twin of the business?What impact (positive and negative) are you seeing from the introduction of LLMs into the workflow of data modeling?How does tool use (e.g. MCP connection to warehouse/lakehouse) help when developing the transformation logic for achieving a given domain representation? What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen organizations address the data modeling lifecycle?What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working with organizations implementing a data modeling effort?What are the overall trends in the ecosystem that you are monitoring related to data modeling practices?Contact Info LinkedInParting Question From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?Links sqlDBMSAPJoe ReisERD == Entity Relation DiagramMaster Data ManagementdbtData ContractsData Modeling With Snowflake book by Serge (affiliate link)Type 2 DimensionData VaultStar SchemaAnchor ModelingRalph KimballBill InmonSixth Normal FormMCP == Model Context ProtocolThe intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

Summary In this episode of the Data Engineering Podcast Lucas Thelosen and Drew Gilson from Gravity talk about their development of Orion, an autonomous data analyst that bridges the gap between data availability and business decision-making. Lucas and Drew share their backgrounds in data analytics and how their experiences have shaped their approach to leveraging AI for data analysis, emphasizing the potential of AI to democratize data insights and make sophisticated analysis accessible to companies of all sizes. They discuss the technical aspects of Orion, a multi-agent system designed to automate data analysis and provide actionable insights, highlighting the importance of integrating AI into existing workflows with accuracy and trustworthiness in mind. The conversation also explores how AI can free data analysts from routine tasks, enabling them to focus on strategic decision-making and stakeholder management, as they discuss the future of AI in data analytics and its transformative impact on businesses.

Announcements Hello 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 Lucas Thelosen and Drew Gilson about the engineering and impact of building an autonomous data analystInterview IntroductionHow did you get involved in the area of data management?Can you describe what Orion is and the story behind it?How do you envision the role of an agentic analyst in an organizational context?There have been several attempts at building LLM-powered data analysis, many of which are essentially a text-to-SQL interface. How have the capabilities and architectural patterns grown in the past ~2 years to enable a more capable system?One of the key success factors for a data analyst is their ability to translate business questions into technical representations. How can an autonomous AI-powered system understand the complex nuance of the business to build effective analyses?Many agentic approaches to analytics require a substantial investment in data architecture, documentation, and semantic models to be effective. What are the gradations of effectiveness for autonomous analytics for companies who are at different points on their journey to technical maturity?Beyond raw capability, there is also a significant need to invest in user experience design for an agentic analyst to be useful. What are the key interaction patterns that you have found to be helpful as you have developed your system?How does the introduction of a system like Orion shift the workload for data teams?Can you describe the overall system design and technical architecture of Orion?How has that changed as you gained further experience and understanding of the problem space?What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen Orion used?What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on Orion?When is Orion/agentic analytics the wrong choice?What do you have planned for the future of Orion?Contact Info LucasLinkedInDrewLinkedInParting Question From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?Closing Announcements Thank 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.Links OrionLookerGravityVBA == Visual Basic for ApplicationsText-To-SQLOne-shotLookMLData GrainLLM As A JudgeGoogle Large Time Series ModelThe intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

Summary In this episode of the Data Engineering Podcast Andy Warfield talks about the innovative functionalities of S3 Tables and Vectors and their integration into modern data stacks. Andy shares his journey through the tech industry and his role at Amazon, where he collaborates to enhance storage capabilities, discussing the evolution of S3 from a simple storage solution to a sophisticated system supporting advanced data types like tables and vectors crucial for analytics and AI-driven applications. He explains the motivations behind introducing S3 Tables and Vectors, highlighting their role in simplifying data management and enhancing performance for complex workloads, and shares insights into the technical challenges and design considerations involved in developing these features. The conversation explores potential applications of S3 Tables and Vectors in fields like AI, genomics, and media, and discusses future directions for S3's development to further support data-driven innovation.

Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data managementTired of data migrations that drag on for months or even years? What if I told you there's a way to cut that timeline by up to 6x while guaranteeing accuracy? Datafold's Migration Agent is the only AI-powered solution that doesn't just translate your code; it validates every single data point to ensure perfect parity between your old and new systems. Whether you're moving from Oracle to Snowflake, migrating stored procedures to dbt, or handling complex multi-system migrations, they deliver production-ready code with a guaranteed timeline and fixed price. Stop burning budget on endless consulting hours. Visit dataengineeringpodcast.com/datafold to book a demo and see how they're turning months-long migration nightmares into week-long success stories.Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Andy Warfield about S3 Tables and VectorsInterview IntroductionHow did you get involved in the area of data management?Can you describe what your goals are with the Tables and Vector features of S3?How did the experience of building S3 Tables inform your work on S3 Vectors?There are numerous implementations of vector storage and search. How do you view the role of S3 in the context of that ecosystem?The most directly analogous implementation that I'm aware of is the Lance table format. How would you compare the implementation and capabilities of Lance with what you are building with S3 Vectors?What opportunity do you see for being able to offer a protocol compatible implementation similar to the Iceberg compatibility that you provide with S3 Tables?Can you describe the technical implementation of the Vectors functionality in S3?What are the sources of inspiration that you looked to in designing the service?Can you describe some of the ways that S3 Vectors might be integrated into a typical AI application?What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen S3 Tables/Vectors used?What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on S3 Tables/Vectors?When is S3 the wrong choice for Iceberg or Vector implementations?What do you have planned for the future of S3 Tables and Vectors?Contact Info LinkedInParting Question From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?Closing Announcements Thank 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.Links S3 TablesS3 VectorsS3 ExpressParquetIcebergVector IndexVector DatabasepgvectorEmbedding ModelRetrieval Augmented GenerationTwelveLabsAmazon BedrockIceberg REST CatalogLog-Structured Merge TreeS3 MetadataSentence TransformerSparkTrinoDaftThe intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

Summary In this episode of the Data Engineering Podcast Akshay Agrawal from Marimo discusses the innovative new Python notebook environment, which offers a reactive execution model, full Python integration, and built-in UI elements to enhance the interactive computing experience. He discusses the challenges of traditional Jupyter notebooks, such as hidden states and lack of interactivity, and how Marimo addresses these issues with features like reactive execution and Python-native file formats. Akshay also explores the broader landscape of programmatic notebooks, comparing Marimo to other tools like Jupyter, Streamlit, and Hex, highlighting its unique approach to creating data apps directly from notebooks and eliminating the need for separate app development. The conversation delves into the technical architecture of Marimo, its community-driven development, and future plans, including a commercial offering and enhanced AI integration, emphasizing Marimo's role in bridging the gap between data exploration and production-ready applications.

Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data managementTired of data migrations that drag on for months or even years? What if I told you there's a way to cut that timeline by up to 6x while guaranteeing accuracy? Datafold's Migration Agent is the only AI-powered solution that doesn't just translate your code; it validates every single data point to ensure perfect parity between your old and new systems. Whether you're moving from Oracle to Snowflake, migrating stored procedures to dbt, or handling complex multi-system migrations, they deliver production-ready code with a guaranteed timeline and fixed price. Stop burning budget on endless consulting hours. Visit dataengineeringpodcast.com/datafold to book a demo and see how they're turning months-long migration nightmares into week-long success stories.Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Akshay Agrawal about Marimo, a reusable and reproducible Python notebook environmentInterview IntroductionHow did you get involved in the area of data management?Can you describe what Marimo is and the story behind it?What are the core problems and use cases that you are focused on addressing with Marimo?What are you explicitly not trying to solve for with Marimo?Programmatic notebooks have been around for decades now. Jupyter was largely responsible for making them popular outside of academia. How have the applications of notebooks changed in recent years?What are the limitations that have been most challenging to address in production contexts?Jupyter has long had support for multi-language notebooks/notebook kernels. What is your opinion on the utility of that feature as a core concern of the notebook system?Beyond notebooks, Streamlit and Hex have become quite popular for publishing the results of notebook-style analysis. How would you characterize the feature set of Marimo for those use cases?For a typical data team that is working across data pipelines, business analytics, ML/AI engineering, etc. How do you see Marimo applied within and across those contexts?One of the common difficulties with notebooks is that they are largely a single-player experience. They may connect into a shared compute cluster for scaling up execution (e.g. Ray, Dask, etc.). How does Marimo address the situation where a data platform team wants to offer notebooks as a service to reduce the friction to getting started with analyzing data in a warehouse/lakehouse context?How are you seeing teams integrate Marimo with orchestrators (e.g. Dagster, Airflow, Prefect)?What are some of the most interesting or complex engineering challenges that you have had to address while building and evolving Marimo?\What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen Marimo used?What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on Marimo?When is Marimo the wrong choice?What do you have planned for the future of Marimo?Contact Info LinkedInParting Question From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?Closing Announcements Thank 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.Links MarimoJupyterIPythonStreamlitPodcast.init EpisodeVector EmbeddingsDimensionality ReductionKagglePytestPEP 723 script dependency metadataMatLabVisicalcMathematicaRMarkdownRShinyElixir LivebookDatabricks NotebooksPapermillPluto - Julia NotebookHexDirected Acyclic Graph (DAG)Sumble Kaggle founder Anthony Goldblum's startupRayDaskJupytextnbdevDuckDBPodcast EpisodeIcebergSupersetjupyter-marimo-proxyJupyterHubBinderNixAnyWidgetJupyter WidgetsMatplotlibAltairPlotlyDataFusionPolarsMotherDuckThe intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

Summary In 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.

Announcements Hello 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 consumersInterview IntroductionHow 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 Info LinkedInParting Question From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?Links Dagster+ 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

Summary In 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.

Announcements Hello 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 workloadsInterview IntroductionHow 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 Info LinkedInParting Question From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?Closing Announcements Thank 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.Links StarburstPodcast 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

Summary In 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.

Announcements Hello 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 architectureInterview IntroductionHow 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 Info LinkedInParting Question From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?Closing Announcements Thank 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.Links AWS 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

Summary In 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.

Announcements Hello 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 offeringsInterview IntroductionHow 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 Info LinkedInParting Question From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?Closing Announcements Thank 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.Links RiakDynamoDBSQL ServerCassandraScyllaDBCAP TheoremTerraformAWS Service CatalogBlog PostThe intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

Summary In this episode of the Data Engineering Podcast Sida Shen, product manager at CelerData, talks about StarRocks, a high-performance analytical database. Sida discusses the inception of StarRocks, which was forked from Apache Doris in 2020 and evolved into a high-performance Lakehouse query engine. He explains the architectural design of StarRocks, highlighting its capabilities in handling high concurrency and low latency queries, and its integration with open table formats like Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake, and Apache Hudi. Sida also discusses how StarRocks differentiates itself from other query engines by supporting on-the-fly joins and eliminating the need for denormalization pipelines, and shares insights into its use cases, such as customer-facing analytics and real-time data processing, as well as future directions for the platform.

Announcements Hello 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 Sida Shen about StarRocks, a high performance analytical database supporting shared nothing and shared data patternsInterview IntroductionHow did you get involved in the area of data management?Can you describe what StarRocks is and the story behind it?There are numerous analytical databases on the market. What are the attributes of StarRocks that differentiate it from other options?Can you describe the architecture of StarRocks?What are the "-ilities" that are foundational to the design of the system?How have the design and focus of the project evolved since it was first created?What are the tradeoffs involved in separating the communication layer from the data layers?The tiered architecture enables the shared nothing and shared data behaviors, which allows for the implementation of lakehouse patterns. What are some of the patterns that are possible due to the single interface/dual pattern nature of StarRocks?The shared data implementation has cacheing built in to accelerate interaction with datasets. What are some of the limitations/edge cases that operators and consumers should be aware of?StarRocks supports management of lakehouse tables (Iceberg, Delta, Hudi, etc.), which overlaps with use cases for Trino/Presto/Dremio/etc. What are the cases where StarRocks acts as a replacement for those systems vs. a supplement to them?The other major category of engines that StarRocks overlaps with is OLAP databases (e.g. Clickhouse, Firebolt, etc.). Why might someone use StarRocks in addition to or in place of those techologies?We would be remiss if we ignored the dominating trend of AI and the systems that support it. What is the role of StarRocks in the context of an AI application?What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen StarRocks used?What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on StarRocks?When is StarRocks the wrong choice?What do you have planned for the future of StarRocks?Contact Info LinkedInParting Question From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?Closing Announcements Thank 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.Links StarRocksCelerDataApache DorisSIMD == Single Instruction Multiple DataApache IcebergClickHousePodcast EpisodeDruidFireboltPodcast EpisodeSnowflakeBigQueryTrinoDatabricksDremioData LakehouseDelta LakeApache HiveC++Cost-Based OptimizerIceberg Summit Tencent Games PresentationApache PaimonLancePodcast EpisodeDelta UniformApache ArrowStarRocks Python UDFDebeziumPodcast EpisodeThe intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

Summary In this episode of the Data Engineering Podcast, Anna Geller talks about the integration of code and UI-driven interfaces for data orchestration. Anna defines data orchestration as automating the coordination of workflow nodes that interact with data across various business functions, discussing how it goes beyond ETL and analytics to enable real-time data processing across different internal systems. She explores the challenges of using existing scheduling tools for data-specific workflows, highlighting limitations and anti-patterns, and discusses Kestra's solution, a low-code orchestration platform that combines code-driven flexibility with UI-driven simplicity. Anna delves into Kestra's architectural design, API-first approach, and pluggable infrastructure, and shares insights on balancing UI and code-driven workflows, the challenges of open-core business models, and innovative user applications of Kestra's platform.

Announcements Hello 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.As a listener of the Data Engineering Podcast you clearly care about data and how it affects your organization and the world. For even more perspective on the ways that data impacts everything around us you should listen to Data Citizens® Dialogues, the forward-thinking podcast from the folks at Collibra. You'll get further insights from industry leaders, innovators, and executives in the world's largest companies on the topics that are top of mind for everyone. They address questions around AI governance, data sharing, and working at global scale. In particular I appreciate the ability to hear about the challenges that enterprise scale businesses are tackling in this fast-moving field. While data is shaping our world, Data Citizens Dialogues is shaping the conversation. Subscribe to Data Citizens Dialogues on Apple, Spotify, Youtube, or wherever you get your podcasts.Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Anna Geller about incorporating both code and UI driven interfaces for data orchestrationInterview IntroductionHow did you get involved in the area of data management?Can you start by sharing a definition of what constitutes "data orchestration"?There are many orchestration and scheduling systems that exist in other contexts (e.g. CI/CD systems, Kubernetes, etc.). Those are often adapted to data workflows because they already exist in the organizational context. What are the anti-patterns and limitations that approach introduces in data workflows?What are the problems that exist in the opposite direction of using data orchestrators for CI/CD, etc.?Data orchestrators have been around for decades, with many different generations and opinions about how and by whom they are used. What do you see as the main motivation for UI vs. code-driven workflows?What are the benefits of combining code-driven and UI-driven capabilities in a single orchestrator?What constraints does it necessitate to allow for interoperability between those modalities?Data Orchestrators need to integrate with many external systems. How does Kestra approach building integrations and ensure governance for all their underlying configurations?Managing workflows at scale across teams can be challenging in terms of providing structure and visibility of dependencies across workflows and teams. What features does Kestra offer so that all pipelines and teams stay organised?What are

Summary The challenges of integrating all of the tools in the modern data stack has led to a new generation of tools that focus on a fully integrated workflow. At the same time, there have been many approaches to how much of the workflow is driven by code vs. not. Burak Karakan is of the opinion that a fully integrated workflow that is driven entirely by code offers a beneficial and productive means of generating useful analytical outcomes. In this episode he shares how Bruin builds on those opinions and how you can use it to build your own analytics without having to cobble together a suite of tools with conflicting abstractions.

Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data managementImagine catching data issues before they snowball into bigger problems. That’s what Datafold’s new Monitors do. With automatic monitoring for cross-database data diffs, schema changes, key metrics, and custom data tests, you can catch discrepancies and anomalies in real time, right at the source. Whether it’s maintaining data integrity or preventing costly mistakes, Datafold Monitors give you the visibility and control you need to keep your entire data stack running smoothly. Want to stop issues before they hit production? Learn more at dataengineeringpodcast.com/datafold today!Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Burak Karakan about the benefits of building code-only data systemsInterview IntroductionHow did you get involved in the area of data management?Can you describe what Bruin is and the story behind it?Who is your target audience?There are numerous tools that address the ETL workflow for analytical data. What are the pain points that you are focused on for your target users?How does a code-only approach to data pipelines help in addressing the pain points of analytical workflows?How might it act as a limiting factor for organizational involvement?Can you describe how Bruin is designed?How have the design and scope of Bruin evolved since you first started working on it?You call out the ability to mix SQL and Python for transformation pipelines. What are the components that allow for that functionality?What are some of the ways that the combination of Python and SQL improves ergonomics of transformation workflows?What are the key features of Bruin that help to streamline the efforts of organizations building analytical systems?Can you describe the workflow of someone going from source data to warehouse and dashboard using Bruin and Ingestr?What are the opportunities for contributions to Bruin and Ingestr to expand their capabilities?What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen Bruin and Ingestr used?What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on Bruin?When is Bruin the wrong choice?What do you have planned for the future of Bruin?Contact Info LinkedInParting Question From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?Closing Announcements Thank 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.Links BruinFivetranStitchIngestrBruin CLIMeltanoSQLGlotdbtSQLMeshPodcast EpisodeSDFPodcast EpisodeAirflowDagsterSnowparkAtlanEvidenceThe intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

Summary

Data lakehouse architectures have been gaining significant adoption. To accelerate adoption in the enterprise Microsoft has created the Fabric platform, based on their OneLake architecture. In this episode Dipti Borkar shares her experiences working on the product team at Fabric and explains the various use cases for the Fabric service.

Announcements

Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data management Data lakes are notoriously complex. For data engineers who battle to build and scale high quality data workflows on the data lake, Starburst is an end-to-end data lakehouse platform built on Trino, the query engine Apache Iceberg was designed for, with complete support for all table formats including Apache Iceberg, Hive, and Delta Lake. Trusted by teams of all sizes, including Comcast and Doordash. Want to see Starburst in action? Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/starburst and get $500 in credits to try Starburst Galaxy today, the easiest and fastest way to get started using Trino. Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Dipti Borkar about her work on Microsoft Fabric and performing analytics on data withou

Interview

Introduction How did you get involved in the area of data management? Can you describe what Microsoft Fabric is and the story behind it? Data lakes in various forms have been gaining significant popularity as a unified interface to an organization's analytics. What are the motivating factors that you see for that trend? Microsoft has been investing heavily in open source in recent years, and the Fabric platform relies on several open components. What are the benefits of layering on top of existing technologies rather than building a fully custom solution?

What are the elements of Fabric that were engineered specifically for the service? What are the most interesting/complicated integration challenges?

How has your prior experience with Ahana and Presto informed your current work at Microsoft? AI plays a substantial role in the product. What are the benefits of embedding Copilot into the data engine?

What are the challenges in terms of safety and reliability?

What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen the Fabric platform used? What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on data lakes generally, and Fabric specifically? When is Fabric the wrong choice? What do you have planned for the future of data lake analytics?

Contact Info

LinkedIn

Parting Question

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

Closing Announcements

Thank 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 Machine Learning Podcast helps you go from idea to production with machine learning. 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.

Links

Microsoft Fabric Ahana episode DB2 Distributed Spark Presto Azure Data MAD Landscape

Podcast Episode ML Podcast Episode

Tableau dbt Medallion Architecture Microsoft Onelake ORC Parquet Avro Delta Lake Iceberg

Podcast Episode

Hudi

Podcast Episode

Hadoop PowerBI

Podcast Episode

Velox Gluten Apache XTable GraphQL Formula 1 McLaren

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

This episode is brought to you by Starburst - an end-to-end data lakehouse platform for data engineers who are battling to build and scale high quality data pipelines on the data lake. Powered by T

Summary

Streaming data processing enables new categories of data products and analytics. Unfortunately, reasoning about stream processing engines is complex and lacks sufficient tooling. To address this shortcoming Datorios created an observability platform for Flink that brings visibility to the internals of this popular stream processing system. In this episode Ronen Korman and Stav Elkayam discuss how the increased understanding provided by purpose built observability improves the usefulness of Flink.

Announcements

Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data management This episode is supported by Code Comments, an original podcast from Red Hat. As someone who listens to the Data Engineering Podcast, you know that the road from tool selection to production readiness is anything but smooth or straight. In Code Comments, host Jamie Parker, Red Hatter and experienced engineer, shares the journey of technologists from across the industry and their hard-won lessons in implementing new technologies. I listened to the recent episode "Transforming Your Database" and appreciated the valuable advice on how to approach the selection and integration of new databases in applications and the impact on team dynamics. There are 3 seasons of great episodes and new ones landing everywhere you listen to podcasts. Search for "Code Commentst" in your podcast player or go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/codecomments today to subscribe. My thanks to the team at Code Comments for their support. Data lakes are notoriously complex. For data engineers who battle to build and scale high quality data workflows on the data lake, Starburst is an end-to-end data lakehouse platform built on Trino, the query engine Apache Iceberg was designed for, with complete support for all table formats including Apache Iceberg, Hive, and Delta Lake. Trusted by teams of all sizes, including Comcast and Doordash. Want to see Starburst in action? Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/starburst and get $500 in credits to try Starburst Galaxy today, the easiest and fastest way to get started using Trino. Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Ronen Korman and Stav Elkayam about pulling back the curtain on your real-time data streams by bringing intuitive observability to Flink streams

Interview

Introduction How did you get involved in the area of data management? Can you describe what Datorios is and the story behind it? Data observability has been gaining adoption for a number of years now, with a large focus on data warehouses. What are some of the unique challenges posed by Flink?

How much of the complexity is due to the nature of streaming data vs. the architectural realities of Flink?

How has the lack of visibility into the flow of data in Flink impacted the ways that teams think about where/when/how to apply it? How have the requirements of generative AI shifted the demand for streaming data systems?

What role does Flink play in the architecture of generative AI systems?

Can you describe how Datorios is implemented?

How has the design and goals of Datorios changed since you first started working on it?

How much of the Datorios architecture and functionality is specific to Flink and how are you thinking about its potential application to other streaming platforms? Can you describe how Datorios is used in a day-to-day workflow for someone building streaming applications on Flink? What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen Datorios used? What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on Datorios? When is Datorios the wrong choice? What do you have planned for the future of Datorios?

Contact Info

Ronen

LinkedIn

Stav

LinkedIn

Parting Question

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

Closing Announcements

Thank you for listening! Don't forget to

Summary Artificial intelligence has dominated the headlines for several months due to the successes of large language models. This has prompted numerous debates about the possibility of, and timeline for, artificial general intelligence (AGI). Peter Voss has dedicated decades of his life to the pursuit of truly intelligent software through the approach of cognitive AI. In this episode he explains his approach to building AI in a more human-like fashion and the emphasis on learning rather than statistical prediction. Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data managementDagster offers a new approach to building and running data platforms and data pipelines. It is an open-source, cloud-native orchestrator for the whole development lifecycle, with integrated lineage and observability, a declarative programming model, and best-in-class testability. Your team can get up and running in minutes thanks to Dagster Cloud, an enterprise-class hosted solution that offers serverless and hybrid deployments, enhanced security, and on-demand ephemeral test deployments. Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/dagster today to get started. Your first 30 days are free!Data lakes are notoriously complex. For data engineers who battle to build and scale high quality data workflows on the data lake, Starburst powers petabyte-scale SQL analytics fast, at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods, so that you can meet all your data needs ranging from AI to data applications to complete analytics. Trusted by teams of all sizes, including Comcast and Doordash, Starburst is a data lake analytics platform that delivers the adaptability and flexibility a lakehouse ecosystem promises. And Starburst does all of this on an open architecture with first-class support for Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake and Hudi, so you always maintain ownership of your data. Want to see Starburst in action? Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/starburst and get $500 in credits to try Starburst Galaxy today, the easiest and fastest way to get started using Trino.Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Peter Voss about what is involved in making your AI applications more "human"Interview IntroductionHow did you get involved in machine learning?Can you start by unpacking the idea of "human-like" AI? How does that contrast with the conception of "AGI"?The applications and limitations of GPT/LLM models have been dominating the popular conversation around AI. How do you see that impacting the overrall ecosystem of ML/AI applications and investment?The fundamental/foundational challenge of every AI use case is sourcing appropriate data. What are the strategies that you have found useful to acquire, evaluate, and prepare data at an appropriate scale to build high quality models? What are the opportunities and limitations of causal modeling techniques for generalized AI models?As AI systems gain more sophistication there is a challenge with establishing and maintaining trust. What are the risks involved in deploying more human-level AI systems and monitoring their reliability?What are the practical/architectural methods necessary to build more cognitive AI systems? How would you characterize the ecosystem of tools/frameworks available for creating, evolving, and maintaining these applications?What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen cognitive AI applied?What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on desiging/developing cognitive AI systems?When is cognitive AI the wrong choice?What do you have planned for the future of cognitive AI applications at Aigo?Contact Info LinkedInWebsiteParting Question From your perspective, what is the biggest barrier to adoption of machine learning today?Closing Announcements Thank 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 Machine Learning Podcast helps you go from idea to production with machine learning.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.Links Aigo.aiArtificial General IntelligenceCognitive AIKnowledge GraphCausal ModelingBayesian StatisticsThinking Fast & Slow by Daniel Kahneman (affiliate link)Agent-Based ModelingReinforcement LearningDARPA 3 Waves of AI presentationWhy Don't We Have AGI Yet? whitepaperConcepts Is All You Need WhitepaperHellen KellerStephen HawkingThe intro and outro music is from Hitman's Lovesong feat. Paola Graziano by The Freak Fandango Orchestra/CC BY-SA 3.0

Summary Generative AI promises to accelerate the productivity of human collaborators. Currently the primary way of working with these tools is through a conversational prompt, which is often cumbersome and unwieldy. In order to simplify the integration of AI capabilities into developer workflows Tsavo Knott helped create Pieces, a powerful collection of tools that complements the tools that developers already use. In this episode he explains the data collection and preparation process, the collection of model types and sizes that work together to power the experience, and how to incorporate it into your workflow to act as a second brain.

Announcements Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data managementDagster offers a new approach to building and running data platforms and data pipelines. It is an open-source, cloud-native orchestrator for the whole development lifecycle, with integrated lineage and observability, a declarative programming model, and best-in-class testability. Your team can get up and running in minutes thanks to Dagster Cloud, an enterprise-class hosted solution that offers serverless and hybrid deployments, enhanced security, and on-demand ephemeral test deployments. Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/dagster today to get started. Your first 30 days are free!Data lakes are notoriously complex. For data engineers who battle to build and scale high quality data workflows on the data lake, Starburst powers petabyte-scale SQL analytics fast, at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods, so that you can meet all your data needs ranging from AI to data applications to complete analytics. Trusted by teams of all sizes, including Comcast and Doordash, Starburst is a data lake analytics platform that delivers the adaptability and flexibility a lakehouse ecosystem promises. And Starburst does all of this on an open architecture with first-class support for Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake and Hudi, so you always maintain ownership of your data. Want to see Starburst in action? Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/starburst and get $500 in credits to try Starburst Galaxy today, the easiest and fastest way to get started using Trino.Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Tsavo Knott about Pieces, a personal AI toolkit to improve the efficiency of developersInterview IntroductionHow did you get involved in machine learning?Can you describe what Pieces is and the story behind it?The past few months have seen an endless series of personalized AI tools launched. What are the features and focus of Pieces that might encourage someone to use it over the alternatives?model selectionsarchitecture of Pieces applicationlocal vs. hybrid vs. online modelsmodel update/delivery processdata preparation/serving for models in context of Pieces appapplication of AI to developer workflowstypes of workflows that people are building with piecesWhat are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen Pieces used?What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on Pieces?When is Pieces the wrong choice?What do you have planned for the future of Pieces?Contact Info LinkedInParting Question From your perspective, what is the biggest barrier to adoption of machine learning today?Closing Announcements Thank 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 Machine Learning Podcast helps you go from idea to production with machine learning.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.Links PiecesNPU == Neural Processing UnitTensor ChipLoRA == Low Rank AdaptationGenerative Adversarial NetworksMistralEmacsVimNeoVimDartFlutte

Summary

Generative AI has rapidly transformed everything in the technology sector. When Andrew Lee started work on Shortwave he was focused on making email more productive. When AI started gaining adoption he realized that he had even more potential for a transformative experience. In this episode he shares the technical challenges that he and his team have overcome in integrating AI into their product, as well as the benefits and features that it provides to their customers.

Announcements

Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data management Dagster offers a new approach to building and running data platforms and data pipelines. It is an open-source, cloud-native orchestrator for the whole development lifecycle, with integrated lineage and observability, a declarative programming model, and best-in-class testability. Your team can get up and running in minutes thanks to Dagster Cloud, an enterprise-class hosted solution that offers serverless and hybrid deployments, enhanced security, and on-demand ephemeral test deployments. Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/dagster today to get started. Your first 30 days are free! Data lakes are notoriously complex. For data engineers who battle to build and scale high quality data workflows on the data lake, Starburst powers petabyte-scale SQL analytics fast, at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods, so that you can meet all your data needs ranging from AI to data applications to complete analytics. Trusted by teams of all sizes, including Comcast and Doordash, Starburst is a data lake analytics platform that delivers the adaptability and flexibility a lakehouse ecosystem promises. And Starburst does all of this on an open architecture with first-class support for Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake and Hudi, so you always maintain ownership of your data. Want to see Starburst in action? Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/starburst and get $500 in credits to try Starburst Galaxy today, the easiest and fastest way to get started using Trino. Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Andrew Lee about his work on Shortwave, an AI powered email client

Interview

Introduction How did you get involved in the area of data management? Can you describe what Shortwave is and the story behind it?

What is the core problem that you are addressing with Shortwave?

Email has been a central part of communication and business productivity for decades now. What are the overall themes that continue to be problematic? What are the strengths that email maintains as a protocol and ecosystem? From a product perspective, what are the data challenges that are posed by email? Can you describe how you have architected the Shortwave platform?

How have the design and goals of the product changed since you started it? What are the ways that the advent and evolution of language models have influenced your product roadmap?

How do you manage the personalization of the AI functionality in your system for each user/team? For users and teams who are using Shortwave, how does it change their workflow and communication patterns? Can you describe how I would use Shortwave for managing the workflow of evaluating, planning, and promoting my podcast episodes? What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen Shortwave used? What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on Shortwave? When is Shortwave the wrong choice? What do you have planned for the future of Shortwave?

Contact Info

LinkedIn Blog

Parting Question

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

Closing Announcements

Thank 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 Machine Learning Podcast helps you go from idea to production with mach