Stay ConnectedI’m Joe Reis, co-author of Fundamentals of Data Engineering, creator of Mixed Model Arts, international speaker, and long-time observer of the tech industry’s favorite recurring mistakes.
Weekly broadcasts from somewhere on the road. Expect raw solo rants and long-form conversations with the engineers and leaders actually building things. I dive into data, AI, architecture, and career survival.
This podcast is invitation-only. Unsolicited guest pitches and PR outreach are not considered.
Copyright: © Joe Reis
Matthew Scullion (CEO, Co-Founder of Matillion) joins me to chat about the future of data engineering, namely agentic data engineering teams.
What does this new world look like? Matthew shares some ideas of what he's building at Matillion, and the broader context of what agentic AI means for the data ecosystem, teams, and workflows.
Wrapping up the week at Snowflake Summit. As always, the big platform ate away at their partners. If you're a partner, what can you do to shield yourself from platform cannibalization? In this episode, I give some advice from what I've seen in the data ecosystem over the years.
Svetlana Tarnagurskaja (CEO of the Dot Collective) joins me to chat about her entrepreneurial journey in the data space, building a boutique data consultancy, competing with Big Consulting, the challenges of building a team, and the importance of creating a human-centric company culture.
The Dot Collective: https://www.thedotcollective.co.uk
Hannes Mühleisen shows off DuckLake and answers live questions.DuckLake: https://duckdb.org/2025/05/27/ducklake.html
Ash Smith is a data engineer based in Perth, Australia (the most remote city in the world). We chat about data products, interoperability, and the importance of collaboration and incentive structures within data teams.
Regular guest Gordon Wong and I chat about what you should think about if you want to work in data. Spoiler - it's probably not what you think.
Shoutout to GoodData and MonteCarlo for sponsoring this episode.
Imagine writing SQL and getting instant results as you type? Yes, this is reality now. It's amazing!DuckDB/MotherDuck's Instant SQL made a big splash at last month's Data Council. Hamilton Ulmer gives a demo of Instant SQL at the Practical Data Community.----------------------------Instant SQL: https://motherduck.com/blog/introducing-instant-sql/Practical Data Community Discord: https://discord.gg/gNfw5AKWSK
Gaëlle Seret is a data leader based in France. We chat about how she helps large organizations drive change, especially around data architecture and strategy. We dig into her approach to upskilling teams, why data strategy matters, and how to work through the inevitable organizational challenges that come with transformation. We also discuss the AI in learning and work, and some interesting differences in education between USA and France. Enjoy! 🇫🇷
Last week I posted about the gulf in the data industry between people in favor and opposed AI. The data industry has an atrocious track record of success over the decades. Shall we keep repeating the same mistakes with AI?
I think AI denialism is holding back and AI has the potential to help us correct a lot of the sins of the past, namely quick delivery of value. Whether we get there is another question...
Thanks to dbt, GoodData, and Ellie.ai for sponsoring this podcast.
dbt: https://www.getdbt.com
GoodData: https://www.gooddata.com
Ellie.ai: https://www.ellie.ai
Ryan Russon is an ML Engineer. He stopped by my house for a practical and grounded chat about ML and AI. Enjoy!
---------
Join dbt Labs May 28 for the dbt Launch Showcase to hear from executives and product leaders about the latest features landing in dbt. See firsthand how features will empower data practitioners and organizations in the age of AI.
Thanks to dat Labs for sponsoring this episode.
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
