In this episode of Data Engineering Central, I sit down with Bart Konieczny — data engineer, distributed systems expert, and well-known author in the Data and Spark ecosystem — for a deep technical conversation about modern data engineering.

We cover:

* How Bart got into tech and distributed systems

* His journey through different engineering roles

* Spark internals and why they still matter

* The realities of lakehouse architecture

* Streaming vs batch systems

* AI’s impact on data engineering

* What engineers should focus on in 2026

In a world obsessed with abstractions and AI tooling, we explore whether understanding the internals is still worth it — or if the game has fundamentally changed.

If you’re a data engineer, architect, or platform leader trying to navigate the next phase of the lakehouse era, this one’s for you.

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🎙️ Data Engineering Central PodcastHosted by Daniel Beach

If you’re a CTO or data leader looking for help building or optimizing your data platform, reach out — consulting inquiries welcome.

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