Data Engineering

Designing OLAP Schemas by Query Shape

How we learned that schema purity matters less than matching the natural grain of your queries.Image generated using ChatGPTBefore we talk schema design, we need to discuss the problem. Without the domain context, the technical decisions won’t make sense.Think of the digital billboards you see on highways, in malls, airports, or gyms. Each physical screen is called a .Advertisers don’t just ask — How many people see this screen?They ask:: Physical advertising screens. In the US alone, there are millions...

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Practical Testing Strategies for Databricks: A Software Engineer's Journey into Data Engineering

Ioseb Laghidze, a Solution Consultant at Sahaj Software, shared practical strategies for implementing disciplined and reliable testing practices in Databricks-based data engineering projects.Drawing from proven software engineering techniques, he demonstrated how data engineers can validate their pipelines more effectively by designing for testability from the ground up.The talk covered modularizing PySpark transformations for effective unit testing, setting up containerized local environments using PySpark, Delta, and Kafka, designing integration tests that simulate real-world data flows, incorporating testing strategies into CI/CD pipelines,...

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Agent-Assisted Story Crafting: Shaping Your Stories with AI

We’ve all been immersed in the hype surrounding Generative AI. It’s becoming a critical part of business operations, whether for sales, support, or analysis. As a techie, I’ve also been exploring how to leverage these tools to boost my productivity. Ideally, I’d use them for code generation and analysis. However, the effectiveness of these tools purely depends on the wielder.“A smartphone is only as smart as the user.”While everyone around me was getting accustomed to smart code completion tools, we’ve...

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Agent-Assisted Story Crafting: Shaping Your Stories with AI

We’ve all been immersed in the hype surrounding Generative AI. It’s fast becoming a critical part of business operations, whether for sales, support, or analysis. As a techie, I’ve also been exploring how to leverage these tools to boost my productivity. Ideally, I’d use them for code generation and analysis. However, the effectiveness of these tools purely depends on the wielder.“A smartphone is only as smart as the user.”While everyone around me was getting accustomed to smart code completion tools,...

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How to Choose your Coding Assistants

Coding assistants like Cursor, Windsurf, Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Codex, Aider, OpenCode, Jetbrains AI, etc. have been making the news for the last few months. Yet, the choice of tools is a lot harder and limited for some of us than it seems.TL;DR: OpenCode > Claude Code > Aider > Copilot > *Disclaimer: Not all tools are created equal. The examples listed here might be invalid fairly soon as tools evolve fairly rapidly.You can plot the different types of coding...

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Level Up Code Quality with an AI Assistant

I've previously discussed how a world class developer experience is essential for a high-performing team. When teams lack such a setup, the most common response is a lack of time or buy-in from stakeholders to build these things. With AI coding assistants being readily available to most developers today, the engineering effort and the cost investment for the business are lessened, reducing the barrier to entry.This blog showcases an actual codebase that has not been actively maintained for over five...

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What makes a Developer's Experience World-Class?

Developer Experience (DevEx) isn’t just about fancy tools or slick UIs — it is about removing friction so teams can move with confidence, speed, and clarity. In high-performing teams, great DevEx means fewer context switches, faster feedback loops, and more time spent actually building. In this blog, we’ll explore the five non-negotiables every codebase should have to support world-class collaboration, and we’ll map out a practical DevEx stack to help your team deliver better products, faster.Short, sweet and simpleWrite a short note...

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Patterns for AI-assisted Software Development

In the last blog (), we explored how AI is transforming software engineering beyond just writing code. Now, let’s look at what that means for teams and individuals in practice.For individuals leading and participating in teams that will build software with the assistance of AI tools, there are a few key patterns to keep in mind.With the AI ecosystem shifting weekly, C-level and VP-level stakeholders, who prioritise modular documentation, model pairing, scoped context, and tooling agility, will drive the highest...

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AI for Software Engineering, Not (only) Code Generation

Everyone has been talking about using coding assistants to aid with software delivery. There is more to delivering good software than writing code.Every software development project requires a couple of different activities from analysis (figure out what needs to be built) to planning to design and development (build) to test (ensure the right thing was built) to deploy (release software and ensure it runs correctly on production). Each of these roles require different skills and these skills have an opportunity...

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Smart Workflows: The Key to Boosting Adoption and Fuelling Growth

We are living in an exciting time, right in the middle of a tech revolution. The ever changing technology is helping businesses solve innovative challenges, and at the same time, user expectations are changing faster than ever. To stay ahead, businesses must anticipate and adapt to these changes. Understanding and meeting these expectations is critical because how users perceive and interact with technology can significantly impact their trust and satisfaction.The key to this transformation? —a shift from static experiences to...

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