Sarah Taylor

RMIT University's data mesh transformation is as much about people as technology. Our wide community of domain experts bring deep subject knowledge but often little experience with cloud platforms, transformations, or version control.

At RMIT we are proud to push the boundaries of what dbt is capable of every day. However, what happens when a single line of code causes a cascade of failures in production? Come on a journey with us as we share with you what happened on the day we broke dbt Platform. Follow along as we recount our harried attempts to restore prod, identify the root cause, patch the issue, and save the day. Learn how we were able to trace our issue to a single line of code in dbt-core, and how we used many tools in our toolbox to find a solution, leaving for posterity a trail of relatable Teams chat comments. Expect technical takeaways, lessons on how data engineering teams rally together during incidents, and an abiding appreciation for dbt and open-source collaboration.

In this presentation, Sarah and Darren discuss RMIT’s journey to implementing the modern data stack with dbt. They bring tales of their musical successes and misadventures, lessons learned with both music and data engineering, and how these seemingly disparate worlds overlap.