MDS Newsletter #32

Ayushi Rathod -

Let's celebrate the force which holds MDS Community together🧡

Community Speaks

This week's question: How to create a superior data user experience while building a data product?

You can answer this question over here

Last week's question: Any tips on ensuring smooth functioning between Analytics teams and Platform/Engineering teams so that analytics teams don't get stuck in the middle?

Teams I have coached have taken a few different approaches. Some have treated the data platform as a product. So they create a Data Platform Owner role who engages with the different Analytics teams early to see whats on their roadmap and then works to prioritise what data platform features need to be delivered so the Analytics team can use it. The Platform/Engineering teams treat the Analytics Teams as their customers. Another approach is to collocate a platform/engineer skilled person in each Analytics squad. They build out initial platform features as they are reqiured. Those features are then iterated on in the future as they are reqiured by other Analytics Squads. I have seen wokred with teams where the iteration was done by a dedicated platform squad, but also where it was iterated by the next Analytics squad that needed that feature. Let me knwo if you want any more details on any of these approaches.
Shane Gibson, Co-Founder AgileData.io

Producer contracts (like schemas, evolution and definitions) and quality/SLA metrics are very powerful tools. They can easily be orchestrated without the need for lengthy alignments and ensure that downstream development either starts with the producer (forward compatible) or the consumer (backward compatible) but happens without downtime.
Benjamin Djidi, CEO at Popsink

  • Rivery.io is a SaaS ELT platform for modern teams and data professionals. It extracts data from any API source, ingests the data into a leading cloud data warehouse, and transforms the data in-database for usage in business intelligence, analytics, and data workflows.

    Category: ETL

    Rivery.io has raised a total of $22.5M in funding over 3 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Mar 30th, 2021 from a Series A round.
  • Cyral delivers enterprise data security and governance across all data services such as S3, Snowflake, Kafka, and more. Cyral automates workflows and enables collaboration between DevOps and Security teams to operationalize assurance and prevent data leakage.

    Category: Data Privacy and Governance

    Cyral has raised a total of $41.1M in funding over 4 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on May 13th, 2021 from a Series B round.

Good reads and resources

  • Modern Data Stack Essentials: Next-gen Analytics and Decision Intelligence:  The discussion related to Modern Data Stack is centered around movement, transformation, and governance of data but there has been very little talk about the analytics layer of the MDS. If organizations are going to take a fresh, modern approach to their data stack, they should also update the analytics experience for their users that can take insight-driven organizations to the next level. In this article team, Tellius has explained four essential pieces for modernizing the analytics layer of the Modern Data Stack.
  • 10 predictions for Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) in 2030: Every customer's journey is unique, they arrive at your product or service with a different context, a different struggle, and through a different medium. Recent developments in Customer Data Platform (CDP) are starting to address these issues. But there’s still a lot more to come as we move closer to the end goal of offering a great, delightful customer experience. In this article Mario Hayashi has talked about what a CDP is and his predictions for CDP in 2030.
  • What is a data pipeline?: If your organization has at least some online presence, you might be wondering how to leverage your data. Data points are generated whenever someone signs up for your service, sends you an inquiry, or performs a transaction on your website. While such data is not very informative on its own, it can produce astounding insights when aggregated. Businesses have understood the power of data and are looking for ways to make it work for them. The first step towards that goal? Building a reliable data pipeline. Read this article by Vladyslav Hrytsenko where he has talked about data pipelines and their design in detail.
  • Ways You Are Doing BI (Business Intelligence) Wrong: As businesses strive to become data-driven, data and its analysis has become a crucial part of business operation. It is the main source of wisdom for many companies and Business Intelligence teams are very busy these days. But in diving into the ocean of different data sources and company goals, it is very easy to stray off the path and make mistakes. In this article, Santiago Tacoronte talks about the 5 mistakes to avoid while doing Business Intelligence.
  • The informed company with Matt David: In this podcast host Loris Marini with Matt David talks about the process of creating data products, architectural and transformational patterns, the process of implementing and maintaining a source of truth, challenges in sharing clean data with the rest of the organisation, the role of data literacy, and other topics.

Upcoming data events and webinars

  • CDO Magazine and EDM Council are organizing the “CDO & Data Leaders' Global Summit" on May 5, 2022.

    Discussions on the theme of Leadership, Data, and Analytics for Digital Transformation will be conducted with 100+ leaders in 40+ sessions – designed specifically for senior and C-level data and analytics executives.
    Register here
  • ThoughtSpot is unveiling the new rules for dominating the decade of data on May 10 at 9 am PT.

    Get an inside look at the latest trends in data and analytics, how innovative businesses like Verizon, Disney Streaming, Mastercard, and others are transforming the way they use data with Live Analytics, and what you can do today to leave a lasting legacy as a data leader.
    Save your spot here
  • Big Data World Frankfurt with BARC is hosting an in-person event ‘Big Data and AI World Frankfurt’ on May 11-12, 2022, in Frankfurt, Germany.

    Enjoy a two-day conference program of thought-provoking panel discussions, inspirational keynotes, and practical insight sessions from 300 speakers, covering: Data Strategy, BI & Analytics, Decision Intelligence, Advanced Analytics and so much more.
    Register here

Data Startup funding news

  • Cogniti raises $4M in funding

    Coginiti provides integrated analytics management tools that empower data engineers, analysts, and teams of analysts to generate consistent, high-quality insights in less time. The firm believes that the future of intelligence is collaborative.

    This round of funding was led by Circadian Ventures.

    Read the full story here
  • Mozart Data raised $15M in a Series A round of funding.

    Mozart Data is the fastest and easiest way to get the data stack you need to consolidate, organize, and clean your data so it’s ready for analysis.

    This round of funding was led by led by Craft Ventures, with participation from Goldcrest Capital, Spearhead, Apollo Projects, and Valor Equity Partners.

    Read the full story here
  • Toplyne raised $15 million in a Series A round of funding.

    Toplyne helps sales teams at product-led companies convert their freemium users.

    This round of funding was led by Tiger Global and Sequoia with participation from returning investors Together Fund, Sequoia India’s Surge program, and angel investors from Canva, Vercel, and Zomminfo.

    Read the full story here

Data Stacks on MDS

Take a look and get an idea about how popular companies are building their data stack:  Canva, L'Oréal, Capdesk, Wellthy, and Ebury.

Add your company's data stack here.

MDS Jobs

  • Databand is hiring a ‘Data Solution Architect’
    Location - New York
    Check out Databand’s data stack here
    Apply here
  • Spanx is hiring a ‘Data Services Director'
    Location- Remote, USA
    Data Stack- Fivetran, dbt, Snowflake, Tableau
    Apply here
  • Lacework is hiring a ‘Senior Analytics Engineer’
    Location- Remote, United States
    Data Stack- Fivetran, Snowflake, dbt, Tableau
    Apply here
  • CipherHealth is looking for a ‘BI Engineer’
    Location: Remote, United States
    Data Stack: Looker, Snowflake, dbt
    Apply here
  • Merkle is hiring a ‘Senior Data Engineer’
    Location- Remote, United States
    Data Stack- Apache Airflow, Redshift
    Apply here

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