Top data engineering writer on Medium & Senior Data Engineer in media; I use my skills as a former journalist to demystify data science/programming concepts so beginners to professionals can target, land and excel in data-driven roles.
[ETR #19] 1 Question New Data Engineers Can't Ask
Extract. Transform. Read.A newsletter from Pipeline Hi past, present or future data professional! I recently participated in a technical design meeting that was derailed by a single, fundamental question. “Why?” Despite the fact that I worked with the particular data source we were discussing for nearly two years, I fell into the common trap of going “on autopilot” and failing to question the initial need for the data. At this point, you would think asking “why” of years’ worth of work would be offensive. Instead of myself or other team members getting defensive, it led to a productive conversation about not just refining our approach to ingestion, but also inspired talk of how we can manage stakeholder expectations and softly encourage them to “do more with less.” Fortunately, you don’t need to derail a meeting to leverage what I call a productive why. Asking occasional, tactful “whys” can position you as a critical thinker and thought leader (or at least an enthusiastic thought contributor) within your org. When appropriate, consider asking…
I realize you may not be in a professional role; nonetheless, I’ve found a lot of value can result from occasionally asking “why” even when you’re simply writing code. For instance, I was a habitual user of Pandas’ .append() method. Unfortunately, to my disappointment, Pandas 2.0 deprecated .append() in the past year. I easily could have panicked and said “Iterating and appending key values to an empty data frame is how I’ve always converted JSON to a data frame. What am I going to do?” But being forced to adapt to the change made me think about what prompted that habit initially. To learn what that motivation was plus how a simple "why" nearly left me tongue-tied in an interview, read the latest on Pipeline. And so you don’t have to question where those hyperlinks go, here they are as plain text.
Questions? zach@pipelinetode.com Thanks for ingesting, -Zach Quinn |
Pipeline To DE
Top data engineering writer on Medium & Senior Data Engineer in media; I use my skills as a former journalist to demystify data science/programming concepts so beginners to professionals can target, land and excel in data-driven roles.
Extract. Transform. Read. A newsletter from Pipeline Hi past, present or future data professional! If you haven’t heard "Happy New Year" enough in the past week… let me be, hopefully, the last to say it as we embrace all 2025 has to offer. Beginning a new year comes with the inevitable conception (and ultimately ignorance) of a new year’s resolution. Instead of focusing on one abstract goal to improve, I’d like to suggest, instead, that you form lasting habits, especially when it comes to...
Extract. Transform. Read. A newsletter from Pipeline Hi past, present or future data professional! In 2024 I published roughly 75 stories, mostly about data engineering or technology; understandably, with the pace of life and media, you most likely missed something I hope you’ll find valuable and actionable. Keeping with one of my core beliefs, that data-driven tools should result in both professional enrichment and reduce personal problems, my methodology for picking stories out of that...
Extract. Transform. Read. A newsletter from Pipeline Hi past, present or future data professional! If you’ve ever seen the legendary American sitcom Seinfeld, you might be familiar with the fictional holiday the characters create, festivus, “A festival for the rest of us.” As a rejection of conventional winter holidays like Christmas/Haunnukah, a core part of festivus is the “airing of grievances.” While I have yet to attempt this in real-life, I’ve spent the past two years airing my...