Team Topologies for Data Engineering Teams

Pedro Gomes Mota
Data Arena
Published in
5 min readMar 13, 2021

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Photo by Arlington Research on Unsplash

Team Topologies for Data Engineering Teams

Data Teams have been the outliers of the IT departments for quite a long time. The majority of these teams follow practices that lack the efficiency, structure and flow of software development and raise questions about the excessive time-to-market or the poor release quality.

In recent years, and especially with the introduction of new roles and areas such as Data Science, Machine Learning or Big Data Engineering, Data Teams are being force to adopt not only a set of new practices and tools but also a different mindset which is now starting to mold the term DataOps and bridging the gap between data and software development.

As part of my search to create a logical and agile organization for the Data Engineering Teams I’m currently leading, I have recently came across the book Team Topologies by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais, which features relevant and interesting analysis and definitions of topics such as Team First Approach, Team API, Cognitive Load, Fundamental Team Topologies and Team Interaction Modes.

Rooted in the idea that a team is the core element of an organization and that objectives should be assigned to teams and not to individuals, I’ve used the Team Topologies proposed in the book to settle an Ecosystem for Data Engineering Teams which…

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Pedro Gomes Mota
Data Arena

Driven by a strong believe that technology and humanity should work in a perfect symbiosis to transcend any known boundaries.