Extract. Transform. Read. A newsletter from Pipeline. Hi past, present or future data professional! This holiday season will be a little less bright thanks to my lack of personal GitHub commits. Like you, I began 2024 full of ideas and motivation that, let’s be honest, was depleted by the end of Q1 when I was cranking out enough code at work that would please even notorious code volume stickler Elon Musk. Despite my lacking output, I managed to hunker down to create useful “bespoke” (a.k.a....
14 days ago • 2 min read
Extract. Transform. Read. A newsletter from Pipeline. Hi past, present or future data professional! When I worked at Disney there was one line (aside from “Have a Magical Day”) that was borderline beaten into us: “We are all custodial employees.” The line meant, of course, to keep areas under your purview neat and presentable (“show ready” in Disney-speak). Using the same logic, I’d like to emphasize that while the various data roles (data analyst, data scientist, data engineer, etc.) have...
21 days ago • 2 min read
Extract. Transform. Read. A Newsletter From Pipeline Hi past, present or future data professional! Since today marks Thanksgiving in the US, I hope this reaches you before your eyes glaze over from the tryptophan-induced turkey coma we all inevitably slip into. While today is a day of gratitude, from a data engineering perspective, I’d like to focus, instead, on the under-the-radar tasks that can make a difference at this time of year—even if they don’t gain you any recognition at work. The...
28 days ago • 2 min read
Extract. Transform. Read. A newsletter from Pipeline Hi past, present or future data professional! It’s never good when you wake up to this from a coworker: 💀 The skull wasn’t because the sender felt like they would suffer any kind of dramatic fate. Instead, they were prepared to administer near-fatal justice to the junior engineer who made several unnecessary overnight commits straight to our org’s main branch. The thing is, for a first-time violation, I can understand why testing is an...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Extract. Transform. Read. A newsletter from Pipeline Hi past, present or future data professional! It’s been a busy fall; I currently have 14 tasks in various states of development. Right now my JIRA board looks like I just won bingo—twice. Unfortunately when you climb the tech ladder things only get busier which means you’re going to burn out unless you take steps toward proactivity. For me this means learning which tasks I don’t need to (and really shouldn’t) do manually. And before you...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Extract. Transform. Read. A newsletter from Pipeline Hi past, present or future data professional! Despite falling into the realm of engineering, data infrastructure construction is a bit like basic art. At times building a data pipeline is as simple as filling in one of those color-by-numbers books. Other times, the process of extracting and ingesting data can be as abstract and disconnected as paint flicked onto a canvas, Jackson Pollack style. No matter the complexity of your build, there...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Extract. Transform. Read. A newsletter from Pipeline Hi past, present or future data professional! To those in the U.S.: Happy Halloween! In the spirit of the spooky season, I’d like to scare—I mean warn—you about 3 truly creepy trends that might give you goosebumps during a job search. A Shady Recruiter “Ghost” Writing Your Resume When in the job market, one of the first things you learn, after how to write a resume, is how to format one. I’m sure you know about headings, bullet points, etc....
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
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...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Extract. Transform. Read. A newsletter from Pipeline Hi past, present or future data professional! When I worked at Disney, the absolute worst thing you could say to a guest was “No.” It’s not so much that Disney guests would hear “yes” throughout their vacation; they just wouldn’t hear no. And that’s why, as a developer and individual contributor, it’s important to master what The Art of Being Indispensable At Work author Bruce Tulgan calls the “good no.” A bad no is a no said to something...
2 months ago • 1 min read