Next Generation Data Engineering Meetup

Join us for an engaging evening exploring the forefront of next-generation data engineering.
Dive into cutting-edge topics with expert-led talks that cover scaling data operations with Lakeway, innovative solutions to the ETL bottleneck with Tobiko Cloud, and an exclusive look at upcoming developments in Apache Iceberg for 2025.
Whether you're a data engineer, architect, or enthusiast, this meetup is the perfect opportunity to connect, learn, and stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of data.

17:30
Pizza & Beers

18:00
Data Engineering 2025: Regaining Control in a Democratized World
Doron Porat, CEO and Co-Founder At Lakeway

In 2022, during an interview on The Data Swamp podcast, a data engineer from Meta shared a vision of a perfectly controlled data platform - a future still out of reach for most organizations due to limited resources and growing complexity. After conducting hundreds of conversations with data teams, we’ve uncovered a shared challenge: managing platforms amidst increasing chaos.
As data democratization grows it empowers non-technical users leaving platform teams to struggle with disconnected pipelines, unclear usage patterns, and limited operational insight.
This talk explores how data engineering must evolve in order to regain control. We’ll share lessons, trends, and practical principles for transforming chaos into clarity with scalable automation - without exponentially growing manpower. Join us to envision the future of efficient, streamlined data operations.

18:30
From DBT to SQLMesh: Achieving a Scalable Data Delivery Process
Iaroslav Zeigerman, (Ex-Apple, Ex-Netflix) Chief Architect and Co-Founder At Tobiko Data

With existing tools, every time we merge code to main, the actual changes are “eventually” applied to our data pipelines at some point in future. By the time our code actually runs in production and a bug occurs, it’s already too late. The pipeline is broken, the data is late, and stakeholders are sending us angry emails.
We often talk about data deployments, but what does that really mean, and why does what we have today fail to provide a fast and safe delivery process? I will highlight key gaps in our current methods, particularly in promoting changes to production, and demonstrate how to achieve a robust data delivery process using existing open-source tools. I will also cover advanced techniques for minimizing compute when iterating on and deploying changes.

19:00
Apache Iceberg: A Great Present, An Even Brighter Future
Yonatan Dolan, Analytics Specialist At AWS

Apache Iceberg has become a cornerstone of modern data lakehouse architectures, offering groundbreaking features that transform data management. Yet, opportunities for further enhancement remain. Inspired by Alex Merced’s Apache Iceberg: The Definitive Guide, this talk delves into the ecosystem's upcoming advancements, exploring how Iceberg continues to evolve in 2025 and beyond, shaping the future of data engineering.