Data Engineering as a Team Sport: Coaching, Accountability, and Pragmatism

In this episode, Sam Wrench, Lead at Reality Mine, joins us to explore what actually makes data teams perform at a high level.

We cover:

Why data engineering breaks down when teams optimise for tools instead of people
 How coaching principles translate directly from elite sport to data leadership
 Why dogfooding your own data creates faster feedback loops and better quality
 How to think about AI as a managed colleague, not an autopilot
 Why pragmatic, security-first tooling often beats chasing industry hype

This is a grounded conversation for anyone building data platforms that real teams and real decisions depend on.