Change data capture is a popular technique to copy data from DBs into warehouses. However, it can be tricky to understand at first. Without working with a CDC system, knowing what it does, why it's needed, or how it works can be challenging. However, understanding the what, why, and how of CDC can help you set up pipelines that are resilient and reliable. If you have wondered what CDC does, why it's needed, and how it works, this post is for you. By the end of this post, you will have a good idea of what a CDC system is, where it's used, the different types of CDC, and how a CDC system built on debezium and Kafka works.
As data engineers, you might have heard the terms functional data pipeline, factory pattern, singleton pattern, etc. One can quickly look up the implementation, but it can be tricky to understand what they are precisely and when to (& when not to) use them. Blindly following a pattern can help in some cases, but not knowing the caveats of a design will lead to hard-to-maintain and brittle code!
While writing clean and easy-to-read code takes years of experience, you can accelerate that by understanding the nuances and reasoning behind each pattern. Imagine being able to design an implementation that provides the best extensibility and maintainability! Your colleagues (& future self) will be extremely grateful, your feature delivery speed will increase, and your boss will highly value your opinion.
In this post, we will go over the specific code design patterns used for data pipelines, when and why to use them, and when not to use them, and we will also go over a few python specific techniques to help you write better pipelines. By the end of this post, you will be able to identify patterns in your data pipelines and apply the appropriate code design patterns. You will also be able to take advantage of pythonic features to write bug-free, maintainable code that is a joy to work on!
Data pipelines built (and added on to) without a solid foundation will suffer from poor efficiency, slow development speed, long times to triage production issues, and hard testability. What if your data pipelines are elegant and enable you to deliver features quickly? An easy-to-maintain and extendable data pipeline significantly increase developer morale, stakeholder trust, and the business bottom line! Using the correct design pattern will increase feature delivery speed and developer value (allowing devs to do more in less time), decrease toil during pipeline failures, and build trust with stakeholders. This post goes over the most commonly used data flow design patterns, what they do, when to use them, and, more importantly, when not to use them. By the end of this post, you will have an overview of the typical data flow patterns and be able to choose the right one for your use case.
Setting up data infra is one of the most complex parts of starting a data engineering project. Overwhelmed trying to set up data infrastructure with code? Or using dev ops practices such as CI/CD for data pipelines? In that case, this post will help! This post will cover the critical concepts of setting up data infrastructure, development workflow, and sample data projects that follow this pattern. We will also use a data project template that runs Airflow, Postgres, & Metabase to demonstrate how each concept works.
Frustrated trying to pry data pipeline requirements out of end users? Is scope creep preventing you from delivering data projects on time? You assume that the end-users know (and communicate) exactly what they want, but that is rarely the case! Adhoc feature/change requests throw off your delivery timelines.
You want to deliver on time and make an impact, but you are interrupted constantly! Requirements gathering is rough, but it doesn't have to be!
We go over five steps you can follow, to work with the end-user to define requirements, validate data before wasting engineering hours, deliver iteratively, and handle new feature/change requests without context switching.
Do you feel overworked and underpaid? Are you a data engineer labeled as a data analyst, with a data analyst pay? Are you struggling to prepare efficiently for data engineering interviews? You want to work on problems that interest you, be able to earn a good salary and be acknowledged for your skills. But, landing such a job can seem daunting and almost impossible. In this post, we will go over 5 steps to help you land a data engineering role that pays well and enables you to work on interesting problems
Struggling with setting up a local development environment for your python data projects? Then this post is for you! In this post, you will learn how to set up a local development environment for data projects using docker. By the end of this post, you will know how to set up your local development environment the right way with docker. You will be able to increase developer ergonomics, increase development velocity and reduce bugs.
Confused by all the "data lake vs data warehouse" articles? Struggling to understand what the differences between data lakes and warehouses are? Then this post is for you. We go over what data lakes and warehouses are. We also cover the key points to consider when choosing your lake and warehouse tools.
Struggling to come up with a data engineering project idea? Overwhelmed by all the setup necessary to start building a data engineering project? Don't know where to get data for your side project? Then this post is for you. We will go over the key components, and help you understand what you need to design and build your data projects. We will do this using a sample end-to-end data engineering project.