The Joe Reis Show

In this Freestyle Friday episode, I break down results from the June 2026 Pulse Survey on organizational dysfunction among data engineers. I also dig into why data product ownership (or lack thereof) is one of the fundamental issues standing between companies and success with data and AI.
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Sponsor: Fivetran
With the rise of AI and agents, having centralized, trustworthy data is the absolute foundation for building tools and training models. Fivetran automates your data pipelines, removing the need to build fragile connectors so your data arrives clean and reliable. By handling the messy infrastructure behind the scenes, Fivetran allows your team to focus on building the future. Visit fivetran.com to learn more.
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Sponsor: Revefi
Save serious money on your cloud costs with Revefi’s new autonomous AI DBA, a tool built to handle the gritty reality of cloud data management so you can stop babysitting your infrastructure. Start saving money today at ⁠revefi.com/ai-dba

I walk through exactly how I use AI for idea generation, review, editing, and drafting on my upcoming book, Mixed Model Arts. This is also the first in a new Wednesday format where I answer listener questions about what I'm building.
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Mixed Model Arts will be out soon. If you want to get a good deal on the e-book and on-demandcourse, please go to Practical Data Modeling.: https://practicaldatamodeling.substack.com/

Kirill Bobrov, a senior data engineer at Spotify and author of the blog Luminousmen, joins me to talk about his viral "Drunk Post" repost, whether the AI boom is real infrastructure or another bubble, why engineering judgment can't be automated away, and the process of writing a technical book on concurrency.
Luminousmen: https://luminousmen.com/

Just a heads up on some new weekly content formats coming out.
Monday Mental Models - One durable concept each week, related to data engineering, architecture, AI/ML, modeling, etc.

Wednesday Builder’s Log (plus optional office hour listener questions) - Behind the scenes of what I’m working on, experiments, etc.

More random rants.

This is in addition to Freestyle Fridays/newsletter and podcast interviews with guests. Will be an audio podcast (maybe occasional video), and an accompanying Substack post. Posts will be either on my personal substack or practical data modeling.
Also, been stuck in the bat cave finishing the book and course (might be some good material for the Wednesday show?), so expect more drips on that very soon :)

With AI reshaping employer expectations, junior candidates in data are facing real anxiety about the job market. I share the technical and personal skills I'd focus on, my top five traits I look for in a candidate, and how to build a network from scratch.
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Sponsor: Revefi
Save serious money on your cloud costs with Revefi’s new autonomous AI DBA, a tool built to handle the gritty reality of cloud data management so you can stop babysitting your infrastructure.
With a five-minute, zero-touch setup, it deploys 18 specialized agents across your data estate to automatically manage FinOps, performance tuning, and data quality. If you want to cut your cloud costs by 30% to 70% and get back to actual data architecture, check out what they are building at revefi.com/ai-dba