DataTalks.Club

0:00

hi everyone Welcome to our event this event is brought to you by data dos club which is a community of people who love

0:06

data and we have weekly events and today one is one of such events and I guess we

0:12

are also a community of people who like to wake up early if you're from the states right Christopher or maybe not so

0:19

much because this is the time we usually have uh uh our events uh for our guests

0:27

and presenters from the states we usually do it in the evening of Berlin time but yes unfortunately it kind of

0:34

slipped my mind but anyways we have a lot of events you can check them in the

0:41

description like there's a link um I don't think there are a lot of them right now on that link but we will be

0:48

adding more and more I think we have like five or six uh interviews scheduled so um keep an eye on that do not forget

0:56

to subscribe to our YouTube channel this way you will get notified about all our future streams that will be as awesome

1:02

as the one today and of course very important do not forget to join our community where you can hang out with

1:09

other data enthusiasts during today's interview you can ask any question there's a pin Link in live chat so click

1:18

on that link ask your question and we will be covering these questions during the interview now I will stop sharing my

1:27

screen and uh there is there's a a message in uh and Christopher is from

1:34

you so we actually have this on YouTube but so they have not seen what you wrote

1:39

but there is a message from to anyone who's watching this right now from Christopher saying hello everyone can I

1:46

call you Chris or you okay I should go I should uh I should look on YouTube then okay yeah but anyways I'll you don't

1:53

need like you we'll need to focus on answering questions and I'll keep an eye

1:58

I'll be keeping an eye on all the question questions so um

2:04

yeah if you're ready we can start I'm ready yeah and you prefer Christopher

2:10

not Chris right Chris is fine Chris is fine it's a bit shorter um

2:18

okay so this week we'll talk about data Ops again maybe it's a tradition that we talk about data Ops every like once per

2:25

year but we actually skipped one year so because we did not have we haven't had

2:31

Chris for some time so today we have a very special guest Christopher Christopher is the co-founder CEO and

2:37

head chef or hat cook at data kitchen with 25 years of experience maybe this

2:43

is outdated uh cuz probably now you have more and maybe you stopped counting I

2:48

don't know but like with tons of years of experience in analytics and software engineering Christopher is known as the

2:55

co-author of the data Ops cookbook and data Ops Manifesto and it's not the

3:00

first time we have Christopher here on the podcast we interviewed him two years ago also about data Ops and this one

3:07

will be about data hops so we'll catch up and see what actually changed in in

3:13

these two years and yeah so welcome to the interview well thank you for having

3:19

me I'm I'm happy to be here and talking all things related to data Ops and why

3:24

why why bother with data Ops and happy to talk about the company or or what's changed

3:30

excited yeah so let's dive in so the questions for today's interview are prepared by Johanna berer as always

3:37

thanks Johanna for your help so before we start with our main topic for today

3:42

data Ops uh let's start with your ground can you tell us about your career Journey so far and also for those who

3:50

have not heard have not listened to the previous podcast maybe you can um talk

3:55

about yourself and also for those who did listen to the previous you can also maybe give a summary of what has changed

4:03

in the last two years so we'll do yeah so um my name is Chris so I guess I'm

4:09

a sort of an engineer so I spent about the first 15 years of my career in

4:15

software sort of working and building some AI systems some non- AI systems uh

4:21

at uh Us's NASA and MIT linol lab and then some startups and then um

4:30

Microsoft and then about 2005 I got I got the data bug uh I think you know my

4:35

kids were small and I thought oh this data thing was easy and I'd be able to go home uh for dinner at 5 and life

4:41

would be fine um because I was a big you started your own company right and uh it didn't work out that way

4:50

and um and what was interesting is is for me it the problem wasn't doing the

4:57

data like I we had smart people who did data science and data engineering the act of creating things it was like the

5:04

systems around the data that were hard um things it was really hard to not have

5:11

errors in production and I would sort of driving to work and I had a Blackberry at the time and I would not look at my

5:18

Blackberry all all morning I had this long drive to work and I'd sit in the parking lot and take a deep breath and

5:24

look at my Blackberry and go uh oh is there going to be any problems today and I'd be and if there wasn't I'd walk and

5:30

very happy um and if there was I'd have to like rce myself um and you know and

5:36

then the second problem is the team I worked for we just couldn't go fast enough the customers were super

5:42

demanding they didn't care they all they always thought things should be faster and we are always behind and so um how

5:50

do you you know how do you live in that world where things are breaking left and right you're terrified of making errors

5:57

um and then second you just can't go fast enough um and it's preh Hadoop era

6:02

right it's like before all this big data Tech yeah before this was we were using

6:08

uh SQL Server um and we actually you know we had smart people so we we we

6:14

built an engine in SQL Server that made SQL Server a column or

6:20

database so we built a column or database inside of SQL Server um so uh

6:26

in order to make certain things fast and and uh yeah it was it was really uh it's not

6:33

bad I mean the principles are the same right before Hadoop it's it's still a database there's still indexes there's

6:38

still queries um things like that we we uh at the time uh you would use olap

6:43

engines we didn't use those but you those reports you know are for models it's it's not that different um you know

6:50

we had a rack of servers instead of the cloud um so yeah and I think so what what I

6:57

took from that was uh it's just hard to run a team of people to do do data and analytics and it's not

7:05

really I I took it from a manager perspective I started to read Deming and

7:11

think about the work that we do as a factory you know and in a factory that produces insight and not automobiles um

7:18

and so how do you run that factory so it produces things that are good of good

7:24

quality and then second since I had come from software I've been very influenced

7:29

by by the devops movement how you automate deployment how you run in an agile way how you

7:35

produce um how you how you change things quickly and how you innovate and so

7:41

those two things of like running you know running a really good solid production line that has very low errors

7:47

um and then second changing that production line at at very very often they're kind of opposite right um and so

7:55

how do you how do you as a manager how do you technically approach that and

8:00

then um 10 years ago when we started data kitchen um we've always been a profitable company and so we started off

8:07

uh with some customers we started building some software and realized that we couldn't work any other way and that

8:13

the way we work wasn't understood by a lot of people so we had to write a book and a Manifesto to kind of share our our

8:21

methods and then so yeah we've been in so we've been in business now about a little over 10

8:28

years oh that's cool and uh like what

8:33

uh so let's talk about dat offs and you mentioned devops and how you were inspired by that and by the way like do

8:41

you remember roughly when devops as I think started to appear like when did people start calling these principles

8:49

and like tools around them as de yeah so agile Manifesto well first of all the I

8:57

mean I had a boss in 1990 at Nasa who had this idea build a

9:03

little test a little learn a lot right that was his Mantra and then which made

9:09

made a lot of sense um and so and then the sort of agile software Manifesto

9:14

came out which is very similar in 2001 and then um the sort of first real

9:22

devops was a guy at Twitter started to do automat automated deployment you know

9:27

push a button and that was like 200 Nish and so the first I think devops

9:33

Meetup was around then so it's it's it's been 15 years I guess 6 like I was

9:39

trying to so I started my career in 2010 so I my first job was a Java

9:44

developer and like I remember for some things like we would just uh SFTP to the

9:52

machine and then put the jar archive there and then like keep our fingers crossed that it doesn't break uh uh like

10:00

it was not really the I wouldn't call it this way right you were deploying you

10:06

had a Dey process I put it yeah

10:11

right was that so that was documented too it was like put the jar on production cross your

10:17

fingers I think there was uh like a page on uh some internal Viki uh yeah that

10:25

describes like with passwords and don't like what you should do yeah that was and and I think what's interesting is

10:33

why that changed right and and we laugh at it now but that was why didn't you

10:38

invest in automating deployment or a whole bunch of automated regression

10:44

tests right that would run because I think in software now that would be rare

10:49

that people wouldn't use C CD they wouldn't have some automated tests you know functional

10:56

regression tests that would be the exception whereas that the norm at the beginning of your career and so that's

11:03

what's interesting and I think you know if we if we talk about what's changed in the last two three years I I think it is

11:10

getting more standard there are um there's a lot more companies who are

11:15

talking data Ops or data observability um there's a lot more tools that are a lot more people are

11:22

using get in data and analytics than ever before I think thanks to DBT um and

11:29

there's a lot of tools that are I think getting more code Centric right that

11:35

they're not treating their configuration like a black box there there's several

11:41

bi tools that tout the fact that they that they're uh you know they're they're git Centric you know and and so and that

11:49

they're testable and that they have apis so things like that I think people maybe let's take a step back and just do a

11:57

quick summary of what data Ops data Ops is and then we can talk about like what changed in the last two years sure so I

12:06

guess it starts with a problem and that it's it sort of

12:11

admits some dark things about data and analytics and that we're not really successful and we're not really happy um

12:19

and if you look at the statistics on sort of projects and problems and even

12:25

the psychology like I think about a year or two we did a survey of

12:31

data Engineers 700 data engineers and 78% of them wanted their job to come with a therapist and 50% were thinking

12:38

of leaving the career altogether and so why why is everyone sort of unhappy well I I I think what happens is

12:46

teams either fall into two buckets they're sort of heroic teams who

12:52

are doing their they're working night and day they're trying really hard for their customer um and then they get

13:01

burnt out and then they quit honestly and then the second team have wrapped

13:06

their projects up in so much process and proceduralism and steps that doing

13:12

anything is sort of so slow and boring that they again leave in frustration um

13:18

or or live in cynicism and and that like the only outcome is quit and

13:24

start uh woodworking yeah the only outcome really is quit and start working

13:29

and um as a as a manager I always hated that right because when when your team

13:35

is either full of heroes or proceduralism you always have people who have the whole system in their head

13:42

they're certainly key people and then when they leave they take all that knowledge with them and then that

13:48

creates a bottleneck and so both of which are aren aren't and I think the

13:53

main idea of data Ops is there's a balance between fear and herois

14:00

that you can live you don't you know you don't have to be fearful 95% of the time maybe one or two% it's good to be

14:06

fearful and you don't have to be a hero again maybe one or two per it's good to be a hero but there's a balance um and

14:13

and in that balance you actually are much more prod

Links:

Free LLM course: https://github.com/DataTalksClub/llm-zoomcamp

We stream the podcasts on YouTube, where each session is also recorded and published on our channel, complete with timestamps, a transcript, and important links.

We talked about:

Links:

We talked about:

Links:

Free Data Engineering course: https://github.com/DataTalksClub/data-engineering-zoomcamp

Links:

Free Data Engineering course: https://github.com/DataTalksClub/data-engineering-zoomcamp

Links:

Free Data Engineering course: https://github.com/DataTalksClub/data-engineering-zoomcamp

We talked about:

Links:

Free Data Engineering course: https://github.com/DataTalksClub/data-engineering-zoomcamp

We talked about:

Links:

Free Data Engineering course: https://github.com/DataTalksClub/data-engineering-zoomcamp