#21 Data Mesh in Practice: Insights from Zalando's 2 Year Journey w/ Data Mesh - Interview w/ Max Schultze

Feb 1, 2022

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Provided as a free resource by Data Mesh Understanding / Scott Hirleman. Get in touch with Scott on LinkedIn if you want to chat data mesh.

Max's contact info and related links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-schultze-b11996110/

Twitter: @mcs1408 / https://twitter.com/mcs1408

Presentations:

Similar to content of the book (Data Innovation Summit): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqYFqtztWi4

Zalando's Story (Spark AI Summit): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrM8yCjmzzw

Max and Arif's 'Data Mesh in Practice' book links:

O'Reilly: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/data-mesh-in/9781098108502/

Starburst (free gated download): https://www.starburst.io/info/data-mesh-in-practice-ebook/

Max and Arif's upcoming training (Feb 14th): https://www.oreilly.com/live-events/data-mesh-in-practice/0636920508816/0636920068685/

Transcript (link) courtesy of Starburst; check out their other data mesh resources here

Part of Starburst's Datanova Data Mesh Summit takeover week.

Max and Arif's upcoming (Feb 9th) Datanova/Starburst Data Mesh Summit Presentation: https://www.starburst.io/info/datanova2022/

In this episode, Scott interviews one of the most prolific content producers in data mesh, Max Schultze, Data Engineering Manager at Fashion E-Tailer Zalando.

Max shares a LOT of very valuable advice while reflecting on Zalando's data mesh journey so far two years in. Max recommends starting with empathy building and knowledge sharing but looking for ways to scale versus only 1:1 or small group conversations. He had a clever way to force the hands of data consumers to speak to data producers via an Inverse Conway Maneuver that might work for your org too.

Overall, 5 main points/themes emerged:

Data mesh is a journey
Empathy is crucial - have it for those you are working with and work towards building it between teams
Technology is not the most important aspect of an implementation - no matter how cool it might sound or be to focus on it
Start from knowledge sharing, getting people to understand each others' roles and contexts (see empathy!)
Try not to get ahead of yourself

Highly recommend giving this one a listen, maybe twice to pick up the nuggets in there.

Data Mesh Radio is hosted by Scott Hirleman. If you want to connect with Scott, reach out to him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scotthirleman/

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All music used this episode was found on PixaBay and was created by (including slight edits by Scott Hirleman): Lesfm, MondayHopes, SergeQuadrado, ItsWatR, Lexin_Music, and/or nevesf