Issue 39 - What's your question?
Issue 39 - What's your question?
A new publication
My current job title is "Solution Engineer".1
Is my job about finding solutions? Probably. But what usually resolves the underlying problem is a question.
What's your software version? What's your operating system?
Did you try this method? Did you follow the guide?
When asking these questions to customers, each of us earns one thing: they find the solution by themselves; I spend time asking another question so I can grow our relationship.
I love to ask probing questions.2
When we probe, we open ourselves up to new perspectives and insights. We challenge assumptions and seek out new information. We engage in active listening and genuine curiosity. And, in doing so, we create space for meaningful dialogue and connection.
As engineers, we often focus on having the right answers, rather than asking the right questions.
We prioritize certainty over inquiry. But the truth is, asking the right questions is just as important - if not more so - than having the right answers.
While waiting for the dinner to cook, I stumble upon this question in my Substack feed:
"What would you say if you could tell every single person in the world just one thing?"
I'll probably ask a question.
Before getting into the usual issue format, I would like to make public this new publication I created:
There, I'll publish essays not related to the data world. It would probably be more personal: I'll share my photo projects, experience new styles of writing, and ultimately just have fun :)
If you're not only a data nerd and you also like my writing, I would love to get you onboard!
Now let's go back to the fairway
📡 Expected Contents
We just need BigQuery (and DuckDB)
BigQuery is my go-to for data warehouse. It's simple, fast and not so expensive.
It's way simpler to use than Snowflake in my opinion.
The common pattern in GCP realm is to put your data into Google Cloud Storage (datalake) and load them into BigQuery. Plain, simple datalake to data warehouse pattern.
Probably a matter of experience and preferences (I use BigQuery for five years now), but I feel this pattern is harder to get in Snowflake. At least less explicit. Less uncoupled.
In a recent article, Vu dived into the heart of BigQuery internal execution plan.
It uncovers two things: how hard the Google team has worked to make BigQuery so simple to use. How hard it would be to go to the lakehouse architecture by ourselves, without a vendor by our side.
AI is cognitive automation, not cognitive autonomy
[...] you should not expect current AI technology to suddenly become autonomous, develop a will of its own, and take over the world. This is not where the current technological path is leading — if you extrapolate existing cognitive automation systems far into the future, they still look like cognitive automation. Better cognitive cartoons, but still not alive. Much like dramatically improving clock technology does not lead to a time travel device. Intelligence and automation are simply two different categories.
Nice unfolding and come-back-to-reality post about the current AI bubble.
Micro-libraries need to die already
If you have already written several AWS Lambda or have created the same API client repeatedly, this post is for you.
Ben goes against the creation and use of "micro-libraries". And how we should deal with dependencies.
Headless Support Portal
After Resend, here is another great team and product. Plain.
Plain is a support tool. Yes, it sounds boring but here is the twist: it's based on headless design. This means they care about the backend, you provide the frontend.
The frontend can be anything: emails, Slack, custom integration into your website, etc.
Beyond the product, what I love is their mindsets. When you look at their design, their blogs, etc. You feel human behind the screens. That's what I'm craving for.
Also, check out the last newsletter created by two of Resend and Plain team members - it just started but sounds very promising.
📰 The Blog Post
I was doubtful about this blog post name.
"How to shift left as a data engineer?" 👍
"What's the true value of declarativedom?" 🤓
"Why data platform engineers are shy?" 😅
"The bear engineers versus the bald business" ❌
If you're wondering why you hear about "declarative" programming, and why data platform teams are underrated: you might like this read!
Remember a data platform engineer costs more than $100k to a company (total employer cost). There is probably a good reason, and it's not only about the market and lack of talent 😉
🎨 Beyond The Bracket
I think Peter Thiel mentioned it in a recent interview: non-digital technological progress hasn't advanced that much in the last two decades.
AI is still the main trend today. But it doesn't change anything important in our lives. It's a nice toy but not the thing you dream of buying with your first salary. [3]
Maybe AI would be the common denominator for any future non-digital progress. I hope it will.
Things happening on the phone are real life. But they don't enlighten us. They don't save time so we can see our friends and family in real. Quite the opposite.
We should crave software that when we push buttons on our phone, things happen in the real world. Not creating fake images or dead sentences.
That's what I love about Resend or Plain: it's simple software designed with care.
While I'm not sure Procreate CEO statement is smart marketing or not ("Creativity is made, not generated."), I'm sure of one thing:
It's so amazing when people tell me that electronic music has not got soul.
And they blame the computers. They got their finger, point at the computers: "There's no soul here!"
It's like you can't blame the computer.
If there is no soul in the music it's because nobody put it there. It's the tool's fault.
Back-to-school vibes are coming. I think it's great. Slowing down during summer is nice but we are only in balance when we work too.
A lot of great stuff coming in on my side 👀
I hope you're in a good place!
See you soon 👋
I pivoted a bit in scope lately - getting back around product and analytics - but I still ask tons of questions 😅
I actually finish all my LLM prompts by asking probing questions