Building a multimodal lakehouse for AI (w/ Chang She)
The Analytics Engineering Podcast
In this episode, Tristan Handy sits down with Chang She — a co-creator of Pandas and now CEO of LanceDB — to explore the convergence of analytics and AI engineering. The team at LanceDB is rebuilding the data lake from the ground up with AI as a first principle, starting with a new AI-native file format called Lance. Tristan traces Chang’s journey as one of the original contributors to the pandas library to building a new infrastructure layer for AI-native data. Learn why vector databases alone aren’t enough, why agents require new architecture, and how LanceDB is building a AI...
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Agentic coding in analytics engineering (w/ Mikkel Dengsøe)
The Analytics Engineering Podcast
Tristan talks with Mikkel Dengsøe, co-founder at SYNQ, to break down what agentic coding looks like in analytics engineering. Mikkel walks through a hands-on project using Cursor, the dbt MCP server, Omni’s AI assistant, and Snowflake. They cover where agents shine (staging, unit tests, lineage-aware checks), where they’re risky (BI chat for non-experts), and how observability is shifting from dashboards to root-cause explanations. For full show notes and to read 6+ years of back issues of the podcast's companion newsletter, head to . The Analytics Engineering Podcast is sponsored by dbt...
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Under the hood of Apache Iceberg (w/ Christian Thiel)
The Analytics Engineering Podcast
Tristan digs deep into the world of Apache Iceberg. There’s a lot happening beneath the surface: multiple catalog interfaces, evolving REST specs, and competing implementations across open source, proprietary, and academic contexts. Christian Thiel, co-founder of Lakekeeper, one of the most widely used Iceberg catalogs, joins to walk through the state of the Iceberg ecosystem. For full show notes and to read 6+ years of back issues of the podcast's companion newsletter, head to . The Analytics Engineering Podcast is sponsored by dbt Labs.
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The pragmatic guide to AI agents in the enterprise (w/ Sean Falconer)
The Analytics Engineering Podcast
What does it mean to be agentic? Is there a spectrum of agency? In this episode of The Analytics Engineering Podcast, Tristan Handy talks to Sean Falconer, senior director of AI strategy at Confluent, about AI agents. They discuss what truly makes software "agentic," where agents are successfully being deployed, and how to conceptualize and build agents within enterprise infrastructure. Sean shares practical ideas about the changing trends in AI, the role of basic models, and why agents may be better for businesses than for consumers. This episode will give you a clear, practical...
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How Amazon S3 works (w/ Andy Warfield)
The Analytics Engineering Podcast
In this season of the Analytics Engineering podcast, Tristan is deep into the world of developer tools and databases. If you're following us here, you've almost definitely used Amazon S3 it and its Blob Storage siblings. They form the foundation for nearly all data work in the cloud. In many ways, it was the innovations that happened inside of S3 that have unlocked all of the progress in cloud data over the last decade. In this episode, Tristan talks with Andy Warfield, VP and senior principal engineer at AWS, where he focuses primarily on storage. They go deep on S3, how it works, and what it...
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From Docker to Dagger (w/ Solomon Hykes)
The Analytics Engineering Podcast
In this season of the Analytics Engineering podcast, Tristan is digging deep into the world of developer tools and databases. There are few more widely used developer tools than Docker. From its launch back in 2013, Docker has completely changed how developers ship applications. In this episode, Tristan talks to Solomon Hykes, the founder and creator of . They trace Docker’s rise from startup obscurity to becoming foundational infrastructure in modern software development. Solomon explains the technical underpinnings of containerization, the pivotal shift from platform-as-a-service to...
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The history and future of the data ecosystem (w/ Lonne Jaffe)
The Analytics Engineering Podcast
In this decades-spanning episode, Tristan Handy sits down with Lonne Jaffe, Managing Director at Insight Partners and former CEO of Syncsort (now Precisely), to trace the history of the data ecosystem—from its mainframe origins to its AI-infused future. Lonne reflects on the evolution of ETL, the unexpected staying power of legacy tech, and why AI may finally erode the switching costs that have long protected incumbents. For full show notes and to read 6+ years of back issues of the podcast's companion newsletter, head to . The Analytics Engineering Podcast is sponsored by dbt Labs.
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Everything terminals (w/ Zach Lloyd)
The Analytics Engineering Podcast
In this episode, Tristan talks to Zach Lloyd, founder of Warp—a terminal built for the modern era, including for AI agents. They explore the history of terminals, differences between terminals and shells, and what the future might look like. In a world driven by generative AI, the terminal could once again be the control center of computer usage. For full show notes and to read 6+ years of back issues of the podcast's companion newsletter, head to . The Analytics Engineering Podcast is sponsored by dbt Labs.
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Why compilers matter (w/ Lukas Schulte)
The Analytics Engineering Podcast
In this episode, Tristan Handy and Lukas Schulte, co-founder of SDF Labs and now part of dbt Labs, dive deep into the world of compilers—what they are, how they work, and what they mean for the data ecosystem. SDF, recently acquired by dbt Labs, builds a world-class SQL compiler aimed at abstracting away the complexity of warehouse-specific SQL. Join Tristan and members of the SDF team at the dbt Launch showcase to learn more about the brand new dbt engine. Register at For full show notes and to read 8+ years of back issues of the podcast's companion newsletter, head to . The Analytics...
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The evolution of databases (w/ Wolfram Schulte)
The Analytics Engineering Podcast
In the first episode of our new season on developer experience, the cofounder and CTO of SDF Labs, now a part of dbt Labs, discusses databases, compilers, and dev tools. Wolfram spent close to two decades in Microsoft Research and several years at Meta building their data platform. For full show notes and to read 6+ years of back issues of the podcast's companion newsletter, head to . The Analytics Engineering Podcast is sponsored by dbt Labs.
info_outlineEric Avidon is a journalist at TechTarget who's interviewed Tristan a few times, and now Tristan gets to flip the script and interview Eric. Eric is a journalist veteran, covering everything from finance to the Boston Red Sox, but now he spends a lot of time with vendors in the data space and has a broad view of what's going on. Eric and Tristan discuss AI and analytics and how mature these features really are today, data quality and its importance, the AI strategies of Snowflake and Databricks, and a lot more. Plus, part way through you can hear Tristan reacting to a mild earthquake that hit the East Coast.
For full show notes and to read 6+ years of back issues of the podcast's companion newsletter, head to https://roundup.getdbt.com.