The Data Stack Show - The PRQL: Data Engineering in 2025: Tooling, Headcount, and Survival Strategies with the Cynical Data Guy

Episode Date: July 7, 2025

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Welcome to the Data Stack Show prequel. This is a short bonus episode where we preview the upcoming show. You'll get to meet our guests and hear about the topics we're going to cover. If they're interesting to you, you can catch the full-length show when it drops on Wednesday. Welcome back to our favorite monthly installment of the Data Stack Show where we go deep into the bowels of corporate data America with the cynical data guy, Matt. Always a pleasure to have you.

Hello. Thanks for having me back, I guess. Is that a new mic? It's not a new mic. I'm just normally in studio, so I don't have to use this mic. I'm just normally in studio, so I don't have to use this mic. All of you people went shit setting everywhere. Yeah, for all the listeners at home, we normally do this in person. We're phoning in from three different time zones and it's 8 o'clock, I think, where you are. It's 11 o'clock. Three time zones, two continents.

Yeah, it's 11 o'clock. We're time zones to continents. Yeah. Yes. Yeah Okay, we need to get to it because we have a really fun bonus round one if we have enough time, so Let's start out talking about analytics engineers This is a nice post. I will read it and then cynical data guy you get first take on this one Analytics engineers have always existed before DBT before before the modern data stack, before cloud warehousing. These things do not define the role of an analytics engineer. Were they always called analytics engineers?

No, they were called data architects, data engineers, data modelers, and even data analysts. These people were always building sustainable data practices with best and even data analysts. These people were always building sustainable data practices with best practices at the forefront. They just didn't have a way of defining what they were really doing beyond their responsibilities. Now we finally have a name for these data roles

and it's not going anywhere. Is it? Is it not going anywhere? All right, that's a wrap for the prequel. The full-length episode will drop Wednesday morning. Subscribe now so you don't miss it.