The Data Stack Show

On this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Eric and Kostas are joined by Matthew Housley, CTO, and Joe Reis, CEO and co-founder of Ternary Data. These self-described “recovering data scientists” focus on teaching skills to build a solid foundation for organizations to work with their data.Highlights from this week’s episode include:Joe and Matt’s background and expertise (2:44)Common threads and trends in the data sphere (9:39)Differences and commonalities between startups and enterprises and the way they deal with data (18:28)Discussing how the role of data engineering has evolved over the years and what it might morph into in the near future (27:52)The ideal data infrastructure and what future shifts excite them (39:52)How ML is shaping the data space (44:30)The state of real time (49:56)The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

On this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Eric and Kostas are joined by Stefanía Bjarney Ólafsdóttir, the CEO and co-founder of Avo. Avo, which started in 2018, provides data analytics governance as a service, helping organizations make data-driven decisions to improve their customer experience.Highlights from this week’s episode include:Stefania's background with mathematics, philosophy, bioinformatics and consumer mobile (2:39)Making pioneering decisions as head of data science at QuizUp (8:34)Is less more? Choosing fundamental parts of the customer experience and understanding them very well (16:56)Bringing data consumers closer to data producers (18:34)Avo mission to provide analytics governance as a service (25:09)Avo use cases (36:37)Focusing on event-based data (44:29)The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

On this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Eric and Kostas are joined by Mike Luby, director of engineering at LeafLink. LeafLink is a cannabis industries B2B wholesale marketplace where thousands of brands can manage and track their orders and relationships.Highlights from this week’s episode include:The infrastructure LeafLink provides for the cannabis supply chain and how it deals with compliance issues. (2:03)Structuring product management organization to launch high-velocity teams (8:08)How it started vs. How it's going (12:00)Containerization and leveraging AWS tools for LeafLink's stack (13:19)Shifting to an event-driven architecture (24:46)Using APIs to provide critical integrations for customers to automate and optimize their businesses (32:47)Keeping an eye for the future but building for today (36:56)The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

On this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Eric and Kostas are joined by Daniel Gremymell, head of data at Policygenius, Inc. Policygenius, an insurance marketplace, strives to make it easy for people to understand their options, compare quotes, and buy a policy all in one place with help from licensed experts.Highlights from this week’s episode include:What brought Daniel to Policygenius and how his background in industrial engineering and statistics impacts what he does (1:49)Policygenius consolidates carriers and pairs insurance customers with live experts to get the best prices and plans (6:29)How data analysts and data scientists re-shape the customer experience of selecting insurance (10:36)How roles and titles like "head of data" are changing the industry (24:32)Organizing a company with structured embedding (27:28) Policygenius' data stack (31:31)The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

On this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Kostas is joined by Willem Pienaar, tech lead at Tecton to discuss machine learning, features and feature stores.Highlights from this week’s episode include:Willem Pienaar's background in South Africa and southeast Asia and from Goject to Tecton (1:58)Tecton was founded by the builders of Uber's Michaelangelo (6:37)Defining features and their life cycles (10:05)Comparing a feature store to a database (16:40)Data architecture in a feature store (26:16)How feature stores evolve as a company expands (30:12)Main touchpoints between the feature and the data infrastructure (37:59)How Tecton manages productizing complex architectures (41:44)How Feast and Tecton work together (45:12)Tecton impressing VCs and preparing for a competitive, emerging market (48:14)The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

On this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Eric is joined by Duc Haba, an AI researcher and enterprise mobility solution architect consultant who most recently did AI consulting work with Cognizant. Their discussion revolves around demystifying artificial intelligence and why so many people either fear AI or place too much trust in it. Duc talks about some of the AI projects he has worked on, some successes and some failures, and points to how the data biases that humans bring into the models can radically alter the outcome of those endeavors.Highlights from this week’s episode include:Duc's background with AI and getting to work with LeVar Burton (1:44)Demystifying AI and coming up with a definition for it (3:34)Misplaced fears of AI (7:53)Misplaced trust in AI (10:36)Public versus hidden AI (13:58)Acquiring the data needed for to train AI models (23:11)Examples of interesting AI projects Duc has worked on (27:58)Where to go to learn more about AI (35:06)Thinking of AI as something that can help your business do something better with what it's already been doing (39:53)Anticipating the near-future of AI (44:16)The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

On this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Kostas and Eric are joined by the risk data engineering manager at Intuit, Alex Lancaster. Alex has been with Intuit, known for its products like QuickBooks, TurboTax, Mint and more, for 15 years and was part of a recent massive and successful re-architecturing from on prem to cloud-based.Highlights from this week’s episode include:Alex and his role at Intuit (1:51)Data marts at Intuit (2:57)Revolutionary changes in the data engineering space in the past 15 years (6:46)Security in the cloud vs. on prem (12:46)Data architecture at Intuit (15:42)Doing ETLs inside or outside of the database (19:11)How to transition successfully from on prem to cloud. Forklifting vs. re-stacking (23:22)Alex’s application of software engineering skills to data engineering (28:44)Dealing with data engineering challenges related to security and regulation (31:48)Pipelines managed and challenges in data types (36:45)The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

Season One of The Data Stack Show is in the books, and in this episode, Kostas and Eric take a look back at some of the biggest takeaways, trends, and topics from the season. With some great guests already set for season two, the next slate of episodes is shaping up to take an even deeper dive into the world of data and the people shaping it.Key points in the conversation include:Patterns with data warehouses and data lakes (3:38)Looking back at the people behind the data and their stories (8:12)Minimizing flaws while remembering that data is built by humans, for humans (11:02) Using proven technology and making mature solutions (15:20)Data involves a significant amount of trust (23:38)The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

On this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Kostas and Eric are joined by the co-founders of Iteratively, CEO Patrick Thompson and CTO Ondrej Hrebicek. Iteratively helps companies know that their data can be trusted by helping capture clean, consistent product analytics. Today’s conversation digs into the behind the scenes of Iteratively and how trust in data can help accelerate the velocity of an organization.Highlights from this week’s episode include:Patrick and Ondrej’s background and the biggest problem Iteratively addresses (2:50)Why some companies still use spreadsheet schema management and the potential pitfalls they’re setting themselves up for with this (4:39)Defining schema in the context of data (7:02)Viewing the process as a team sport (11:34)Identifying common mistakes and implementing best practices (13:46)A walkthrough of Iteratively (17:13)Utilizing a JSON schema format (26:58)Laying Iteratively on top of or integrating it with an implementation for analytics (30:36)Entry point into organizations (33:02)Organizational change and velocity realized after implementing Iteratively (36:04)What’s next for Iteratively? (42:47)The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

This week on The Data Stack Show, Kostas and Eric are joined by Arian Osman, a senior data scientist at Homesnap who is also nearing the end of his PhD in computational sciences and informatics and is the developer of an e-commerce clothing brand. Homesnap is designed for both homebuyers and agents to access data from the MLS (Multiple Listing Service), providing real-time, accurate information to all parties involved.Highlights from this week’s episode include:Arian’s background and an overview of Homesnap (2:30)Utilizing data in Arian’s e-commerce clothing brand (7:14)Homesnap’s sell speed feature and visualizing outputs (13:28)The psychology that drives upper and lower limits (19:33)Deciding the life-cycle of a model (25:50)Collaborating with internal stakeholders (30:47)Unique challenges of data in the real estate domain (38:16)Useful third-party tools (43:33)The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.