C.J. Jameson
A Playbook for Leaders of Data Engineering Teams
As Presented at Data Council Austin 2024
Slides Here
1. Check Your Pebbles
The Rocks, Pebbles, and Sand metaphor
(Alex Ponomarev)
Examples of Rocks for a Data Team
- Replatform to new warehouse, retire legacy
- Install new catalog & semantic layer
- Add Streaming to make things real-time
- Quality Initiative: tests, data contracts, and observability
- “Data Products” with end-user value
🌶️ Spicy Take: Reward autonomy in performance reviews ... not only Rocks 🌶️
2. Say What You Mean
There aren't enough Data Product Managers to tell you what to build. Every leader on a data team can take ownership and say what you mean.
By Career Track...
- Technical-Expert: Say how to build it!
- Analysts: Say what matters!
- Line-of-Business: Say what decisions are critical!
- Data PM: Say what is reusable & durable!
- Manager: Say where things could be better!
- Field/Solutions: Say it’s the right tool for the job!
"Fiery Leaders" by Eric Livingston
Salesforce's V2MOM Framework ... pick something like this and go for it!
🌶️ Spicy Take: It’s ok if 1:1s focus on the task at hand 🌶️
3. Find Your Want
Amid all the support your data team does for other teams, what's your personal drive? If you're building self-serve analytics, where's the self-care?
More Links
"Eat The Frog" by Andrew Yeung
🌶️ Spicy Take: Teams smell if you don’t Find Your Want: be authentic 🌶️