Seattle Data Guy

I have been thinking about #ChangeDataCapture in #dataengineering a lot lately. Estuary was not in my radar, David Yaffe reading the product comparison pages in your site has been great help to frame your product in comparison to Fivetran and Airbyte, great work! I am excited to continue exploring what makes Estuary unique! I am also very excited to see new entrants, innovation and healthy competition in data analytics as acquisitions such as dbt Labs SDF Labs and Tabular (now part of Databricks) have pushed in the opposite direction. #cdc #software #acquisitions #innovation #analytics #ai #datascience

Are you looking to improve your data team or data infrastructure in 2025? Here are 9 great articles aimed at helping improve your team, reduce costs and improve output. 1. 7 Questions Every Data Team Should Ask the Business https://lnkd.in/gGNi77K6 2. Don’t Lead a Data Team Before Reading This https://lnkd.in/gqGDUTZA 3. How To Turn Around A Failing Data Team - Tales From Consulting https://lnkd.in/grxERsdd 4. Crossing The Senior Chasm - Getting To The Next Level As A Data Professional With Cameran Hetrick https://lnkd.in/gzgYPMNm 5. Cutting Your Data Stack Costs: How To Approach It And Common Issues https://lnkd.in/gnWBC3t6 6. Centralized vs Decentralized vs Federated Data Teams https://lnkd.in/gjqaj3qd 7. Onboarding For Data Teams – How to set-up a streamlined onboarding experience https://lnkd.in/gp7xCT_g 8. Common Pitfalls of Data Analytics Projects https://lnkd.in/gEV4AvgG 9. Thinking Like an Owner: Elevating Your Data Team's Impact In 2025 https://lnkd.in/gYAi_Eky What are your favorite articles?

CTO: We need to revamp our data strategy. Snowflake or Databricks? Me: Neither. Just put it all into Excel and email it around as attachments. Jokes aside, if you want to talk about data strategy or infrastructure I'll be in SF in November and I'd love to chat! I'll be co-hosting a happy hour here - https://luma.com/mbg70e9j

Your CEO when you tell them you’ve spent $32,000/mo on Databricks and yet... - Finance still asks you to pull CSVs manually every month - You haven’t delivered a single dashboard or integrated a machine learning model. - There’s still no automated report going out to sales or marketing. - The churn model they keep hearing about is stuck in a Jupyter notebook no one else can run. - You can’t show a single process that’s faster, cheaper, or more reliable than before you bought all these tools. And here you are asking for another $16,000 a month for a new hire.

It’s the end of 2025, if you didn’t start that newsletter, learn more about AI/LLMs, or make that career move, then it’s probably too late. Might as well wait until 2026, right? We’ve all felt that way. But here is the thing, you don't have to wait. Because then you'll wait again, and again and again. You don't want to be looking back in another year, wishing you had taken that chance or learned that new skill. Maybe it's the right skill, maybe it's not. But nothing is going to change if you sit still. So don't wait for a sign or an arbitrary date on a calendar, move yourself one step closer to your goal today!

🍸 Queries, Cocktails & Community – Small Data SF Happy Hour 🍸 Heading to Small Data SF next month? End the workshop day with drinks, data conversations, and great company. We’re teaming up with Recce, Database Tycoon LLC, and Seattle Data Guy to bring together founders, engineers, analysts, and data leaders for a relaxed evening of networking and knowledge sharing. 📍 Nightingale Bar, San Francisco 📅 Tuesday, Nov 4 · 6:00 PM – 9:30 PM PST Space is limited — secure your spot today: 👉 https://luma.com/mbg70e9j

One day, you're a stellar data engineer building data pipelines and tables, and the next, you're put in charge of an entire data team. The problem? You've had no training or preparation. After all, you were a good IC; you should be a great manager, right? Maybe if you're lucky, someone in leadership recommends a book for you to read. That's it. Suddenly, you must deal with project prioritization, contractors, employees, vendors, budgets, and so much more. That's why, over the past few months, I have been talking to data directors and managers to understand what they wish they had known when they started their journey. So here are 7 articles and videos you can use to quickly get up to speed about the challenges of leading data teams. 1. Frameworks data leader and ICs should know to maximize their impact with Tessa Xie https://lnkd.in/gKX5Aeqd 2. Don’t Lead a Data Team Before Reading This https://lnkd.in/gqGDUTZA 3. The Data Team Playbook: 50+ Resources For High-Performing Data Teams https://lnkd.in/g8Y2G4v4 4. How To Manage Data Teams Successfully - Asking A Director Of Data Architecture And Governance with Jeff Nemecek https://lnkd.in/g6384SCB 5. The Data Leader’s Guide to Crucial Conversations https://lnkd.in/gvmtHsuY 6. Don’t Lead a Data Team Before Reading This https://lnkd.in/gqGDUTZA 7. What Skills Do You Need To Lead A Data Team - With Ana Zapata https://lnkd.in/dPW8QHuP What articles, books or videos would you recommend people read?

One day, you're a stellar data engineer building data pipelines and tables, and the next, you're put in charge of an entire data team. The problem? You've had no training or preparation. After all, you were a good IC; you should be a great manager, right? Maybe if you're lucky, someone in leadership recommends a book for you to read. That's it. Suddenly, you must deal with project prioritization, contractors, employees, vendors, budgets, and so much more. That's why, over the past few months, I have been talking to data directors and managers to understand what they wish they had known when they started their journey. So here are 7 articles and videos you can use to quickly get up to speed about the challenges of leading data teams. 1. Frameworks data leader and ICs should know to maximize their impact with Tessa Xie https://lnkd.in/gKX5Aeqd 2. Don’t Lead a Data Team Before Reading This https://lnkd.in/gqGDUTZA 3. The Data Team Playbook: 50+ Resources For High-Performing Data Teams https://lnkd.in/g8Y2G4v4 4. How To Manage Data Teams Successfully - Asking A Director Of Data Architecture And Governance with Jeff Nemecek https://lnkd.in/g6384SCB 5. The Data Leader’s Guide to Crucial Conversations https://lnkd.in/gvmtHsuY 6. Don’t Lead a Data Team Before Reading This https://lnkd.in/gqGDUTZA 7. What Skills Do You Need To Lead A Data Team - With Ana Zapata https://lnkd.in/dPW8QHuP What articles, books or videos would you recommend people read?

Look, I get it, Seattle is not for everyone. It rains and it's grey all winter. And some people probably missed the Airflow Summit because of it. Ok, thats probably not why, there are plenty of reasons why you might have missed the Airflow Summit last week. But don't worry, there are plenty of virtual conferences you can check out! Including....the Airflow Summit! Which is running an online event for speakers will all new speakers! Here are a few talks you won't want to miss! 1. Using Airflow for Real-Time Data Processing at Scale: Architecture, Challenges & Wins with Vishvesh Pandey 2. Empowering Precision Healthcare with Apache Airflow-iKang Healthcare Group’s DataHub Journey with Yuan Luo and Huiliang Zhang 3. Automating Healthcare Triage with Airflow and Large Language Models with Milcah Mbithi You can sign up here -https://lnkd.in/g44Z7WQT

It’s no surprise the Fivetran-dbt merger is making headlines. Together, they shaped much of what became known as the “modern data stack.” But with all the recent mergers and acquisitions, I wanted to bring up a question I often face as a consultant: how should teams think about building their stack when the tools they rely on keep changing hands? Here are a few things I've seen happen with tools that have been acquired over the last few years that have negatively impacted my clients. 1. Pricing can change overnight - I’ve seen clients get hit with massive pricing shifts after an acquisition, sometimes that’s the reason they end up hiring me in the first place. They need to migrate and fast. 2. Tools can disappear - Remember Chartio? It’s one of dozens of tools that were sunset after being acquired. Even if the acquiring company promises continuity today, that can change the moment their strategy does. 3. Roadmaps get deprioritized - The acquiring company might shift focus toward their core offering. Features your team depends on stop getting updates, while new ones align with someone else’s vision. 4. Integrations break - Mergers often slow down support for open integrations, especially if they compete with the parent company’s ecosystem. 5. Innovation slows down - Smaller, nimble tools often push the space forward. After consolidation, there’s less incentive to experiment or challenge the status quo. In fact recently this made a tool selection for a client considerably harder because the two major players in the space were both acquired and it's hard to say where they will go. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the space, not just about today's merger but in general what do y'all think in terms of finding the right tools when so much is changing.