Agentic Data Engineering Is Here — But Can It Close the Loop?

More from Data Engineering Central Podcast All episodes →

1. 

   30 Sep 2026 · 50 min

   AI Is a Mirror: MLOps, LLMOps & the Future of AI Engineering | Maria Vechtomova

   What does it actually take to build AI systems that work in production? In this episode of Data Engineering Central, I sit down with Maria Vechtomova , AI Engineering Lead, co-founder of CAUCHY, Databricks MVP, and author of MLOps with Databricks . Maria has spent more than 12 years working across data, machine learning, MLOps, and AI engineering. We talk about how production ML has evolved from the early days of homegrown model platforms to today’s world of LLMs, agents, Databricks, MLflow, and AI-assisted coding. We dig into why LLM applications can be significantly harder to evaluate and…

2. 

   16 Sep 2026 · 47 min

   The Future of Data Engineering in the Age of AI | Erfan Hesami

   I sat down with Erfan Hesami , founder of Pipeline to Insights , to talk about where data engineering is headed as AI and agents become part of everyday engineering work. We dig into the changing role of the data engineer, the growing overlap between data and AI engineering, and why strong fundamentals may actually become more important as AI makes writing code cheaper and easier. We also talk about AI agents inside modern data platforms, governance and security, AI-generated code and technical debt, controlling AI costs, the importance of human judgment, and why communication and business…

3. 

   9 Sep 2026 · 49 min

   Big Tech Laid Him Off. He Realized He Didn’t Need a Job. — Asian Dad Energy

   What happens when you spend decades building a successful career in tech, finally reach Big Tech, and then suddenly get laid off? In this episode of the Data Engineering Central Podcast , I sit down with AsianDadEnergy to talk about his journey from writing BASIC on an IBM 386 and working with COBOL mainframes to consulting, becoming a chief architect in Big Tech, and eventually losing his job after seven years. But the layoff wasn’t the end of the story. Years earlier, the 2008 financial crisis convinced him and his wife to live below their means, eliminate debt, save aggressively, and…

4. 

   2 Sep 2026 · 57 min

   Spark Isn't Going Anywhere. So They Rebuilt It in Rust. — Shehab Amin, CEO of LakeSail

   In this episode, I sit down with Shehab Amin , co-founder and CEO of LakeSail , to talk about what happens when you decide to rebuild one of data engineering’s most important technologies, Apache Spark, in Rust … sorta. We dig into Shehab’s journey from writing C++ as a kid to studying computer science at Berkeley, becoming a founder, and eventually building Sail. We talk about why Spark has remained so sticky, what Rust, Apache Arrow, and DataFusion are changing about data infrastructure, and why rebuilding Spark compatibility turned out to be much harder—and more interesting—than expected.…

5. 

   15 Jul 2026 · 48 min

   What Happens When a Software Engineer Builds a Company Alone?

   When people think about starting a software company, they usually imagine raising venture capital, hiring engineers, and growing a team as quickly as possible. Michael Drogalis chose a different path. After helping build technology in the Kafka ecosystem, founding a startup that was ultimately acquired by Confluent, and leading product for stream processing, he walked away from big tech to see if one person could build a serious B2B software company. * The result became ShadowTraffic , a product that helps engineering teams generate realistic production traffic for testing, demos, and…

6. 

   8 Jul 2026 · 1 hr

   The Creator of Pandas on AI, Apache Arrow, and the Future of Software Engineering

   The creator of Pandas and co-creator of Apache Arrow , Wes McKinney , joins the Data Engineering Central Podcast for an in-depth conversation about how modern data engineering came to exist, where AI is taking software development, and why good engineering still matters more than ever. We start with Wes’ journey from building GoldenEye fan websites as a teenager to creating Pandas while working at a quantitative hedge fund, and eventually launching Apache Arrow, one of the foundational technologies behind today’s modern data ecosystem. Along the way, we discuss Cloudera, Parquet, DuckDB,…

7. 

   1 Jul 2026 · 57 min

   From COBOL to Copilot: 30 Years of Data, BI, and AI with David Langer

   What happens when someone who started programming on a Commodore 64 watches AI reshape the entire data industry? In this episode of the Data Engineering Central Podcast, I sit down with Dave Langer to explore nearly three decades of experience across software engineering, business intelligence, analytics, data science, and AI. Dave’s career spans COBOL programming on IBM mainframes, enterprise architecture, Microsoft’s Xbox division, machine learning, startup leadership, authorship, and building one of the largest personal brands in the data space. We discuss why many of the biggest problems…

8. 

   24 Jun 2026 · 45 min

   Semantic Layers, Agents, and the Future of Analytics

   In this episode of the Data Engineering Central Podcast, I sit down with David Jaitillake to explore the future of data engineering, analytics, and AI. David has spent nearly two decades working across data teams, from analyst roles in the early SQL Server days to leading teams, founding startups, serving as VP of AI at Cube, and now co-founding Quarry . We discuss why semantic layers have suddenly become one of the most important concepts in modern data platforms, how tools like Claude Code are transforming engineering workflows, and why the core problems in data haven’t really changed…

9. 

   17 Jun 2026 · 56 min

   The Future of the Lakehouse: Delta Lake, Rust, and Data Platforms at Scale

   In this episode of the Data Engineering Central Podcast, I sit down with Ethan , a maintainer of delta-rs and an expert in modern lakehouse architecture working in the pharmaceutical industry. We discuss Ethan’s journey into tech and data engineering, the evolution of open table formats like Delta Lake and Apache Iceberg, and what it actually takes to build scalable enterprise data platforms in highly regulated environments like big pharma. We also dive into: * delta-rs and the future of Delta Lake outside Spark * Lakehouse architecture and open catalogs * Rust in the modern data ecosystem *…