The Pillars of Data Engineering with Richie Bachala at Yugabyte

Hashmap on Tap Ep. 129

--

“[The] database is the foundational piece for everything.”

- Richie Bachala, Principal at Yugabyte

If you’ve been keeping up with the Hashmap on Tap podcast for a while, you may remember catching Richie Bachala on episode #61 early last year. While on the podcast, he discussed his experience at Sherwin-Williams and migrating from Oracle to Snowflake. Having Richie on the podcast was such a great time, so we decided to go ahead and bring him back on!

That’s right, Richie’s back for another recent episode of the podcast. Since we last spoke, he’s made a move from Sherwin-Williams to becoming a Principal at Yugabyte, a distributed SQL database built to power global-scale, cloud-native applications. Yugabyte is an open-source option that is scalable, resistant, and consistent, accessible anywhere you are. On tap for this episode is a combination of unsweetened black tea and Sanpellegrino for Richie and a bulletproof coffee with A2 half and half for host Kelly Kohlleffel.

Fun fact: Cows produce A1 protein and A2 protein in their milk, and the A2 protein can be easier for us to digest. Who knew?

One of the main topics of discussion for this episode was a recent blog post of Richie’s, Building a Data Engineering Center of Excellence. Richie has been working with data teams for years, so he knows what a data team needs to succeed. One of the key points in this blog post is the six pillars of responsibilities of a data engineering team, so be sure to check out the full blog for those pillars and a high-level overview of what he sees as a necessity when building that team.

On the podcast, Richie also touches on the need for companies to quickly hop on board for a digital transformation journey. During the pandemic, flexibility has become a huge necessity, and with that comes the need for digital transformation. A great benefit to this transformation has been the positive impact it has had on companies’ sustainability goals, which has been another main focus in the past couple of years. He mentions the recent COP26 conference in Glasgow as being a big part of that shift to focusing on sustainable solutions.

Make sure to check out the full episode to catch up with Richie and hear more about his new journey with Yugabyte, which has already been an extremely positive experience for him so far. You can also join the Yugabyte Slack community to learn more!

Hear Richie’s perspectives on:

  • Two big trends he sees on the forefront of every C-suite executive’s agenda
  • A centralized vs. decentralized data approach
  • Auto ML and AI tools that are catching his eye
  • Whether or not a company needs data scientists
  • The benefits of Yugabyte being an open-source tool

Listen to the episode:

🚨Subscribe to Hashmap on Tap on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, & Google Podcasts.🚨

Additional Resources:

Ready to Accelerate Your Digital Transformation?

At Hashmap, an NTT DATA Company, we work with our clients to build better, together. We are partnering with companies across a diverse range of industries to solve the toughest data challenges and design and build data products — we can help you shorten time to value!

We offer a range of enablement workshops and assessment services, data modernization and migration services, and consulting service packages for building new data products as part of our service offerings. We would be glad to work through your specific requirements. Connect with us here.

--

--