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Pipelines, warehouses, and the plumbing that makes data trustworthy. dbt, Snowflake, BigQuery, ELT patterns, and how to scale infra without runaway costs.

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[REVIEW] Looker Studio vs Power BI 2026
Data Engineering
[REVIEW] Looker Studio vs Power BI 2026

Looker Studio vs Power BI: the short answer Pick Looker Studio if your stack is Google, GA4, Google Ads, BigQuery,…

Airbyte vs Fivetran in 2026: a working analyst’s comparison
Data Engineering
Airbyte vs Fivetran in 2026: a working analyst’s comparison

Airbyte vs Fivetran: the short answer Pick Fivetran for managed reliability when engineering capacity is the constraint and the budget…

ClickHouse vs Snowflake in 2026: a working analyst’s comparison
Data Engineering
ClickHouse vs Snowflake in 2026: a working analyst’s comparison

ClickHouse vs Snowflake: the short answer Pick ClickHouse for real-time analytics on event data above roughly 1 TB per day,…

Data Engineer Roadmap 2026: skills, tools, salary, and what AI actually changes
Data Engineering
Data Engineer Roadmap 2026: skills, tools, salary, and what AI actually changes

A practical 2026 roadmap for mid-level data engineers in the US: the skills that still matter, the ones AI made…

Migrating Off Redash, For The Last Time
Data Engineering
Migrating Off Redash, For The Last Time

I spent three years writing about Redash. The first post in late 2018 framed it as on-demand analytics with a…

Building a Data Mart with Claude Over MCP, in 20 Minutes
Data Engineering
Building a Data Mart with Claude Over MCP, in 20 Minutes

This is a walk-through of one consulting engagement, not a theoretical piece on AI tooling. The brief was small enough…

10 Dashboard Design Rules, 6 Years Later
Data Engineering
10 Dashboard Design Rules, 6 Years Later

When we adapted Slava Shestopalov’s “10 rules for better dashboard design” in late 2020, the list felt close to definitive.…

BigQuery vs Snowflake in 2026: a working analyst’s comparison
Data Engineering
BigQuery vs Snowflake in 2026: a working analyst’s comparison

The 2026 head-to-head moved past features. Pricing, real concurrency, and operational fit decide it. List prices, TCO scenarios, the Fivetran…

Claude Code on a data team: three rollouts, real numbers, and what we’d do differently
Data Engineering
Claude Code on a data team: three rollouts, real numbers, and what we’d do differently

Five engineers on Max plans, two months of receipts, and three rollouts (Fivetran, Metabase, MetaLens) with concrete time and cost…

How to Use dbt MCP with Claude Code (and Stop Grepping the Manifest)
AI for Data
How to Use dbt MCP with Claude Code (and Stop Grepping the Manifest)

How to set up dbt Labs' official MCP server with Claude Code, including a real legacy-project audit story, the read-only…

Why Your A/B Test Won’t Measure That Policy Change
Data Engineering
Why Your A/B Test Won’t Measure That Policy Change

The marketing director walks into a planning meeting on Monday with a proposed packaging change for the company’s flagship product.…

How to Use Fivetran MCP with Claude Code (and Stop Clicking Through Connector UIs)
AI for Data
How to Use Fivetran MCP with Claude Code (and Stop Clicking Through Connector UIs)

How to set up Fivetran's official MCP server with Claude Code, with a real client case study (HelpScout to BigQuery),…

How to Use MCP Toolbox for Databases with Claude Code: BigQuery Setup, Tools, and a Read-Only Production Pattern
AI for Data
How to Use MCP Toolbox for Databases with Claude Code: BigQuery Setup, Tools, and a Read-Only Production Pattern

Practical guide to wiring Google's MCP Toolbox for Databases into Claude Code for BigQuery work. Setup commands, the .mcp.json block,…

How to Use OpenClaw for Your Data Team: Self-Hosted Setup, Skills, and Hosted Alternative
AI for Data
How to Use OpenClaw for Your Data Team: Self-Hosted Setup, Skills, and Hosted Alternative

Practical guide to running OpenClaw for a data team. Self-hosted on a Hostinger VPS, ChatGPT OAuth for primary inference, Moonshot…

How to Use Metabase MCP with Claude Code: A Practical Walkthrough
AI for Data
How to Use Metabase MCP with Claude Code: A Practical Walkthrough

A practical walkthrough of using Metabase MCP with Claude Code on real client projects: dashboard audits in seconds, SQL from…

The Pricing Committee Is Where Margin Decisions Stick
Data Engineering
The Pricing Committee Is Where Margin Decisions Stick

A consumer manufacturer’s marketing director wakes up one Tuesday with a one-point margin lift opportunity. The category data says it.…

Mean vs Median: When the Choice Changes the Business Decision
Data Engineering
Mean vs Median: When the Choice Changes the Business Decision

Two analysts can look at the same dataset and report numbers that are 2x apart, both correct. The arithmetic mean…

Forecasting Demand That Survives the Holiday Spike
Data Engineering
Forecasting Demand That Survives the Holiday Spike

Every consumer business with a planning function has a forecast that runs eleven months a year and breaks the twelfth.…

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