Toby Mao's Journey into Data Engineering

Toby Mao began his career as a pharmaceutical consultant and transitioned to software engineering, developing an interest in data engineering while working at Scribd and Netflix. At Netflix, he led the experimentation team, where he recognized the challenges data scientists faced due to varying SQL dialects across platforms like Spark and Presto. This experience motivated him to create SQL Glot, an open-source SQL parser and transpiler, which eventually influenced his decision to co-found Tobiko Data and develop SQL Mesh. His journey reflects a deep understanding of how data tools can better facilitate the work of data engineers and scientists, especially in complex environments.