Data Engineering Podcast Data Teams with Will McGinnis - Episode 19
Feb 19, 2018
28:39
Summary
The responsibilities of a data scientist and a data engineer often overlap and occasionally come to cross purposes. Despite these challenges it is possible for the two roles to work together effectively and produce valuable business outcomes. In this episode Will McGinnis discusses the opinions that he has gained from experience on how data teams can play to their strengths to the benefit of all.
Preamble
- Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data infrastructure
- When you’re ready to launch your next project you’ll need somewhere to deploy it. Check out Linode at dataengineeringpodcast.com/linode and get a $20 credit to try out their fast and reliable Linux virtual servers for running your data pipelines or trying out the tools you hear about on the show.
- Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com to subscribe to the show, sign up for the newsletter, read the show notes, and get in touch.
- You can help support the show by checking out the Patreon page which is linked from the site.
- To help other people find the show you can leave a review on iTunes, or Google Play Music, and tell your friends and co-workers
- A few announcements:
- There is still time to register for the O’Reilly Strata Conference in San Jose, CA March 5th-8th. Use the link dataengineeringpodcast.com/strata-san-jose to register and save 20%
- The O’Reilly AI Conference is also coming up. Happening April 29th to the 30th in New York it will give you a solid understanding of the latest breakthroughs and best practices in AI for business. Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/aicon-new-york to register and save 20%
- If you work with data or want to learn more about how the projects you have heard about on the show get used in the real world then join me at the Open Data Science Conference in Boston from May 1st through the 4th. It has become one of the largest events for data scientists, data engineers, and data driven businesses to get together and learn how to be more effective. To save 60% off your tickets go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/odsc-east-2018 and register.
- Your host is Tobias Macey and today I’m interviewing Will McGinnis about the relationship and boundaries between data engineers and data scientists
Interview
- Introduction
- How did you get involved in the area of data management?
- The terms “Data Scientist” and “Data Engineer” are fluid and seem to have a different meaning for everyone who uses them. Can you share how you define those terms?
- What parallels do you see between the relationships of data engineers and data scientists and those of developers and systems administrators?
- Is there a particular size of organization or problem that serves as a tipping point for when you start to separate the two roles into the responsibilities of more than one person or team?
- What are the benefits of splitting the responsibilities of data engineering and data science?
- What are the disadvantages?
- What are some strategies to ensure successful interaction between data engineers and data scientists?
- How do you view these roles evolving as they become more prevalent across companies and industries?
Contact Info
- Website
- wdm0006 on GitHub
- @willmcginniser on Twitter
Parting Question
- From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?
Links
- Blog Post: Tendencies of Data Engineers and Data Scientists
- Predikto
- Categorical Encoders
- DevOps
- SciKit-Learn
The intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA