Data Engineering Central Podcast

49:52

AI Is a Mirror: MLOps, LLMOps & the Future of AI...

Data Engineering Central Podcast ·

2026/09/30

What does it actually take to build AI systems that work in production?In this episode of Data Engineering Central, I sit down with Maria Vechtomova, AI Engineering Lead, co-founder of CAUCHY, Databricks MVP, and author of MLOps with Databricks.Maria has spent more than 12 years working across data, machine learning, MLOps, and AI engineering. We talk about how production ML has evolved from the early days of homegrown model platforms to today’s world of LLMs, agents, Databricks, MLflow, and

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46:52

The Future of Data Engineering in the Age of AI |...

Data Engineering Central Podcast ·

2026/09/16

I sat down with Erfan Hesami, founder of Pipeline to Insights, to talk about where data engineering is headed as AI and agents become part of everyday engineering work.We dig into the changing role of the data engineer, the growing overlap between data and AI engineering, and why strong fundamentals may actually become more important as AI makes writing code cheaper and easier.We also talk about AI agents inside modern data platforms, governance and security, AI-generated code and technical debt,

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49:09

Big Tech Laid Him Off. He Realized He Didn’t Need a...

Data Engineering Central Podcast ·

2026/09/09

What happens when you spend decades building a successful career in tech, finally reach Big Tech, and then suddenly get laid off?In this episode of the Data Engineering Central Podcast, I sit down with AsianDadEnergy to talk about his journey from writing BASIC on an IBM 386 and working with COBOL mainframes to consulting, becoming a chief architect in Big Tech, and eventually losing his job after seven years.But the layoff wasn’t the end of the story.Years earlier, the 2008 financial crisis

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56:36

Spark Isn't Going Anywhere. So They Rebuilt It in...

Data Engineering Central Podcast ·

2026/09/02

In this episode, I sit down with Shehab Amin, co-founder and CEO of LakeSail, to talk about what happens when you decide to rebuild one of data engineering’s most important technologies, Apache Spark, in Rust … sorta.We dig into Shehab’s journey from writing C++ as a kid to studying computer science at Berkeley, becoming a founder, and eventually building Sail. We talk about why Spark has remained so sticky, what Rust, Apache Arrow, and DataFusion are changing about data infrastructure, and why

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33:40

Agentic Data Engineering Is Here — But Can It Close...

Data Engineering Central Podcast ·

2026/07/22

AI can now write SQL, generate Python, review pull requests, and build entire applications with a few well-crafted prompts. Yet despite all of that progress, data engineering still feels oddly resistant to the full AI revolution. Pipelines break. Data models drift. Production data needs validation. Someone still has to close the loop.In this episode of the Data Engineering Central Podcast, I sat down with Hugo Lu, founder and CEO of Orchestra, to talk about what “agentic data engineering” actually

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47:41

What Happens When a Software Engineer Builds a...

Data Engineering Central Podcast ·

2026/07/15

When people think about starting a software company, they usually imagine raising venture capital, hiring engineers, and growing a team as quickly as possible.Michael Drogalis chose a different path.After helping build technology in the Kafka ecosystem, founding a startup that was ultimately acquired by Confluent, and leading product for stream processing, he walked away from big tech to see if one person could build a serious B2B software company.* The result became ShadowTraffic, a product that

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60:12

The Creator of Pandas on AI, Apache Arrow, and the...

Data Engineering Central Podcast ·

2026/07/08

The creator of Pandas and co-creator of Apache Arrow, Wes McKinney, joins the Data Engineering Central Podcast for an in-depth conversation about how modern data engineering came to exist, where AI is taking software development, and why good engineering still matters more than ever.We start with Wes’ journey from building GoldenEye fan websites as a teenager to creating Pandas while working at a quantitative hedge fund, and eventually launching Apache Arrow, one of the foundational technologies

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56:46

From COBOL to Copilot: 30 Years of Data, BI, and AI...

Data Engineering Central Podcast ·

2026/07/01

What happens when someone who started programming on a Commodore 64 watches AI reshape the entire data industry?In this episode of the Data Engineering Central Podcast, I sit down with Dave Langer to explore nearly three decades of experience across software engineering, business intelligence, analytics, data science, and AI.Dave’s career spans COBOL programming on IBM mainframes, enterprise architecture, Microsoft’s Xbox division, machine learning, startup leadership, authorship, and building one

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44:38

Semantic Layers, Agents, and the Future of Analytics

Data Engineering Central Podcast ·

2026/06/24

In this episode of the Data Engineering Central Podcast, I sit down with David Jaitillake to explore the future of data engineering, analytics, and AI. David has spent nearly two decades working across data teams, from analyst roles in the early SQL Server days to leading teams, founding startups, serving as VP of AI at Cube, and now co-founding Quarry.We discuss why semantic layers have suddenly become one of the most important concepts in modern data platforms, how tools like Claude Code are

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55:55

The Future of the Lakehouse: Delta Lake, Rust, and...

Data Engineering Central Podcast ·

2026/06/17

In this episode of the Data Engineering Central Podcast, I sit down with Ethan, a maintainer of delta-rs and an expert in modern lakehouse architecture working in the pharmaceutical industry.We discuss Ethan’s journey into tech and data engineering, the evolution of open table formats like Delta Lake and Apache Iceberg, and what it actually takes to build scalable enterprise data platforms in highly regulated environments like big pharma.We also dive into:* delta-rs and the future of Delta Lake

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52:06

From Failure to AWS: What Actually Makes a Great...

Data Engineering Central Podcast ·

2026/06/10

Victor Moreno went from failing out of a top CS program to becoming a senior engineer at AWS, and his story says a lot about what actually matters in software engineering today.In this conversation, we go deep into the reality behind the AI hype, what makes engineers valuable (it’s not writing more code), and why the future of the field looks very different from what most people think.We talk about the shift from coding to system thinking, why fundamentals matter more in the age of AI, and how

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49:12

How Real Data Engineers Think (Beyond Tools and Hype)

Data Engineering Central Podcast ·

2026/06/03

In this episode of the Data Engineering Central Podcast, I sit down with Yordan Ivanov, Head of Data Engineering at a growing fintech company, to talk through what it actually looks like to build and run real data platforms in production.Yordan’s story starts like many of mine, early programming, gaming, PHP, Linux servers—but what makes this conversation interesting is how he evolved from a generalist software engineer into a data engineering leader without even realizing it at first.We spend a lot

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49:54

Data, AI, and DuckDB

Data Engineering Central Podcast ·

2026/05/27

In this episode of the Data Engineering Central Podcast, I sit down with Jacob Matson, Developer Advocate at MotherDuck, to unpack one of the most interesting shifts happening in data engineering right now.Jacob didn’t start in tech the way most people expect. He began in accounting, working with Excel and financial systems, before slowly realizing that the real problem he loved solving wasn’t finance, it was data pipelines. That path eventually led him deep into SQL Server, data warehousing, and

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52:56

Why I Left Facebook to Work for Myself

Data Engineering Central Podcast ·

2026/05/20

In this episode of the Data Engineering Central Podcast, I sit down with Ben Rogojan to talk about the real story behind data engineering careers, Big Tech, and what’s changing right now.Ben shares how he went from working in kitchens… to data engineering… to Facebook… and eventually walking away from it all to build his own consulting business.And yeah, it wasn’t all glamorous.“I was making the same money as Facebook… and I hated my life.”We get into the stuff most people don’t talk about:* What

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55:37

Academic → CTO: What Actually Matters in Data...

Data Engineering Central Podcast ·

2026/05/13

Most companies don’t have a tooling problem. They have a foundation problem.In this episode, I sit down with Matthew Housley, a famed co-author of Data Engineering Fundamentals and former CTO of Ternary Data, to talk about what actually makes data teams successful and why so many organizations get it wrong despite having modern stacks, cloud platforms, and expensive dashboards.* Matthew’s path is a little different than most. He started in academia as a mathematics instructor before moving into

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63:42

AI Isn’t Replacing Curious Developers

Data Engineering Central Podcast ·

2026/05/06

AI isn’t just changing how we write code. It’s changing what it even means to build software.In this episode of the Data Engineering Central Podcast, I sit down with Neil Roberts — a developer who’s been through every major wave of the web, from BASIC on an Atari to modern TypeScript, and now deep into LLMs and agentic workflows.This is not another surface-level “AI will change everything” conversation. We get into what is actually happening right now, where it works, where it completely breaks, and

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56:58

AI Is Changing Data Engineering Fast

Data Engineering Central Podcast ·

2026/04/29

In this episode of the Data Engineering Central Podcast, I sit down with Andreas Kretz to break down what is really happening in the industry right now. We go far beyond surface-level AI hype and talk about how data engineering actually works in the real world, what skills still matter, and where most engineers are wasting time.Andreas shares his full journey from industrial IoT and working at Bosch to building one of the largest data engineering education platforms in the world, training over 2,000

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58:49

Most Data Teams Are Doing It Wrong

Data Engineering Central Podcast ·

2026/04/22

Most data teams think they’re building value. In reality, they’ve become ticket queues.In this episode, Chris Gambill explains his storied career in tech and data through the years, dealing with data at Fortune 500 company scale, and breaking out on his own.We cover career growth, what separates senior engineers from true strategic operators, and the biggest mistakes people make early on. We discuss the classic problems that have plagued data teams for decades and why it’s all still a

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48:18

From Industrial Data at BASF to Delta Lake Committer

Data Engineering Central Podcast ·

2026/04/15

In this episode, Robert Pack walks through his journey from engineering and simulation work to building large-scale data systems across 900+ plants at BASF.We break down what those systems actually looked like, including ingestion, modeling, and the realities of batch vs real-time in industrial environments.We also dive into:* AI Workflows for Developers* His work as a committer on Delta Lake* Where lakehouse architecture works and where it falls short* The transition into Developer Relations at

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52:04

He Quit Apple After 13 Years

Data Engineering Central Podcast ·

2026/04/01

In this episode of Data Engineering Central, I sit down with Kevin, who spent 13 years working at Apple before walking away at the end of 2025.* Not to jump to another job.* Not to start a company.* But to take a step back from everything.Kevin shares his full journey—from growing up in the suburbs of Atlanta to building a career at Apple, and ultimately reaching the point where he could walk away financially and mentally.You can follow along with Kevin below.We dive deep into what it’s really like

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