Summary

The modern data stack has been gaining a lot of attention recently with a rapidly growing set of managed services for different stages of the data lifecycle. With all of the available options it is possible to run a scalable, production grade data platform with a small team, but there are still sharp edges and integration challenges to work through. Peter Fishman and Dan Silberman experienced these difficulties firsthand and created Mozart Data to provide a single, easy to use option for getting started with the modern data stack. In this episode they explain how they designed a user experience to make working with data more accessibly by organizations without a data team, while allowing for more advanced users to build out more complex workflows. They also share their thoughts on the modern data ecosystem and how it improves the availability of analytics for companies of all sizes.

Announcements

• Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data management
• When you’re ready to build your next pipeline, or want to test out the projects you hear about on the show, you’ll need somewhere to deploy it, so check out our friends at Linode. With their managed Kubernetes platform it’s now even easier to deploy and scale your workflows, or try out the latest Helm charts from tools like Pulsar and Pachyderm. With simple pricing, fast networking, object storage, and worldwide data centers, you’ve got everything you need to run a bulletproof data platform. Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/linode today and get a $100 credit to try out a Kubernetes cluster of your own. And don’t forget to thank them for their continued support of this show!
• Atlan is a collaborative workspace for data-driven teams, like Github for engineering or Figma for design teams. By acting as a virtual hub for data assets ranging from tables and dashboards to SQL snippets & code, Atlan enables teams to create a single source of truth for all their data assets, and collaborate across the modern data stack through deep integrations with tools like Snowflake, Slack, Looker and more. Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/atlan today and sign up for a free trial. If you’re a data engineering podcast listener, you get credits worth $3000 on an annual subscription
• Modern Data teams are dealing with a lot of complexity in their data pipelines and analytical code. Monitoring data quality, tracing incidents, and testing changes can be daunting and often takes hours to days. Datafold helps Data teams gain visibility and confidence in the quality of their analytical data through data profiling, column-level lineage and intelligent anomaly detection. Datafold also helps automate regression testing of ETL code with its Data Diff feature that instantly shows how a change in ETL or BI code affects the produced data, both on a statistical level and down to individual rows and values. Datafold integrates with all major data warehouses as well as frameworks such as Airflow & dbt and seamlessly plugs into CI workflows. Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/datafold today to start a 30-day trial of Datafold.
• Your host is Tobias Macey and today I’m interviewing Peter Fishman and Dan Silberman about Mozart Data and how they are building a unified experience for the modern data stack

Interview

• Introduction
• How did you get involved in the area of data management?
• Can you describe what Mozart Data is and the story behind it?
• The promise of the "modern data stack" is that it’s all delivered as a service to make it easier to set up. What are the missing pieces that make something like Mozart necessary?
• What are the main workflows or industries that you are focusing on?
• Who are the main personas that you are building Mozart for?
  • How has that combination of user persona and industry focus informed your decisions around feature priorities and user experience?
• Can you describe how you have architected the Mozart platform?
  • How have you approached the build vs. buy decision internally?
  • What are some of the most interesting or challenging engineering projects that you have had to work on while building Mozart?
• What are the stages of the data lifecycle that you work the hardest to automate, and which do you focus on exposing to customers?
• What are the edge cases in what customers might try to do in the bounds of Mozart, or areas where you have explicitly decided not to include in your features?
  • What are the options for extensibility, or custom engineering when customers encounter those situations?
• What do you see as the next phase in the evolution of the data stack?
• What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen Mozart used?
• What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on Mozart?
• When is Mozart the wrong choice?
• What do you have planned for the future of Mozart?

Contact Info

• Peter
  • LinkedIn
  • @peterfishman on Twitter
• Dan
  • LinkedIn
  • silberman on GitHub

Parting Question

• From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?

Closing Announcements

• Thank you for listening! Don’t forget to check out our other show, Podcast.__init__ to learn about the Python language, its community, and the innovative ways it is being used.
• Visit the site to subscribe to the show, sign up for the mailing list, and read the show notes.
• If you’ve learned something or tried out a project from the show then tell us about it! Email hosts@dataengineeringpodcast.com) with your story.
• To help other people find the show please leave a review on iTunes and tell your friends and co-workers

Links

• Mozart Data
• Modern Data Stack
• Mode Analytics
• Fivetran
  • Podcast Episode
• Snowflake
  • Podcast Episode

The intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA