DIY Data Stack: Some Dos and a Lot of Do Nots

• Topic: DIY Data Stack: Some Dos and a Lot of Do Nots
• Date: Friday 23rd October 2026 at 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
• Networking: 5:30 pm - 6:00 pm and 6:45 pm - 7:30 pm
• Presentation Time: 6:00 pm - 6.45 pm
  (includes welcome, presentation 30 mins & community marketplace)
• Location: Thoughtworks HQ Level 35/360 Collins St, Melbourne VIC 3000
• Ticket: Free of cost, however, registrations and RSVP are required!
• Sponsor: Thoughtworks

Precis
Building and self-hosting a data stack can seem like the perfect weekend project, until one weekend becomes many. In this candid, practical session, Ryan, a Data Strategist at Thoughtworks, shares the lessons learned from taking the DIY route: what worked, what broke and what he would do differently from the start.

Whether you are experimenting on a shoestring budget, building your first platform or weighing self-hosting against managed services, you will leave with grounded guidance on where to invest effort, which pitfalls to avoid, and how to make sensible choices for your skills, needs and constraints.

About The Speaker
Ryan is a Data Strategist at Thoughtworks, focused on data strategy and AI platforms. Over an eighteen-year career, he's worked across software development, data science, and product management - spanning industries from retail to fintech to government.

He co-organises the Data Engineering Melbourne meetup, previously taught Data Analytics bootcamp, spoken at PyCon Australia and gets woken by his cat about 1 hour before sunrise every day.