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Notes on dataarchitecture.

Short essays on architecture, cost, hiring and AI: one cartoon, one idea, most days of the week. No tutorials, no listicles.

May 19, 2026 Organizational Dynamics

The Hiring Gap For Senior DEs

87% of tech leaders rate senior data engineer hiring as difficult. Most of them are bidding against AI startups.

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May 18, 2026 Organizational Dynamics

Westrum Culture In Data Teams

If your post-mortems start with "who shipped that," your org culture is the bug.

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May 17, 2026 Technical Debt & Economics

AI Act Data Traceability Checklist

The AI Act compliance deadline is August 2026. Your SME doesn't need Atlan to make it.

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May 16, 2026 Data Architecture

Contract-First Data For Cross-Team Handoffs

Most cross-team data fights are caused by an undocumented assumption upstream.

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May 15, 2026 Data Architecture

Orchestration Tool Audit For Small Data Teams

Two-engineer data teams keep picking Airflow because it's "industry standard." Six months in, half the DAGs are commented out.

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May 14, 2026 Data Architecture

Semantic Layer Is A Consistency Tool, Not A Speed Tool

A semantic layer is a consistency tool. Most teams buy it for speed and end up disappointed.

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May 13, 2026 Data Architecture

Software Modernization Is Not Architectural Modernization

Software modernization and architectural modernization are different problems with different fixes.

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May 12, 2026 Organizational Dynamics

Brent Is Your Data Engineer (Phoenix Project applied)

Every data team has a Brent. The person every ticket eventually routes through.

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May 11, 2026 Technical Debt & Economics

The Day Our Pipeline Became a Person's Full-Time Job

The day I realized our pipeline had become a person's full-time job.

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May 10, 2026 Technical Debt & Economics

FinOps for Data Audit Checklist (8 Cost Levers)

Your cloud data bill grew 40% last year. Your revenue didn't.

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