Agent skill

senior-data-engineer

Data engineering skill for building scalable data pipelines, ETL/ELT systems, and data infrastructure. Expertise in Python, SQL, Spark, Airflow, dbt, Kafka, and modern data stack. Includes data modeling, pipeline orchestration, data quality, and DataOps. Use when designing data architectures, building data pipelines, optimizing data workflows, implementing data governance, or troubleshooting data issues.

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Metadata

Additional technical details for this skill

tags
airflow spark data-pipelines warehousing etl
author
borghei
domain
data-engineering
updated
1774915200
version
1.0.0
category
engineering

SKILL.md

Senior Data Engineer

Production-grade data engineering skill for building scalable, reliable data systems.

Table of Contents

  1. Trigger Phrases
  2. Quick Start
  3. Workflows
    • Building a Batch ETL Pipeline
    • Implementing Real-Time Streaming
    • Data Quality Framework Setup
  4. Architecture Decision Framework
  5. Tech Stack
  6. Reference Documentation
  7. Troubleshooting

Trigger Phrases

Activate this skill when you see:

Pipeline Design:

  • "Design a data pipeline for..."
  • "Build an ETL/ELT process..."
  • "How should I ingest data from..."
  • "Set up data extraction from..."

Architecture:

  • "Should I use batch or streaming?"
  • "Lambda vs Kappa architecture"
  • "How to handle late-arriving data"
  • "Design a data lakehouse"

Data Modeling:

  • "Create a dimensional model..."
  • "Star schema vs snowflake"
  • "Implement slowly changing dimensions"
  • "Design a data vault"

Data Quality:

  • "Add data validation to..."
  • "Set up data quality checks"
  • "Monitor data freshness"
  • "Implement data contracts"

Performance:

  • "Optimize this Spark job"
  • "Query is running slow"
  • "Reduce pipeline execution time"
  • "Tune Airflow DAG"

Quick Start

Core Tools

bash
# Generate pipeline orchestration config
python scripts/pipeline_orchestrator.py generate \
  --type airflow \
  --source postgres \
  --destination snowflake \
  --schedule "0 5 * * *"

# Validate data quality
python scripts/data_quality_validator.py validate \
  --input data/sales.parquet \
  --schema schemas/sales.json \
  --checks freshness,completeness,uniqueness

# Optimize ETL performance
python scripts/etl_performance_optimizer.py analyze \
  --query queries/daily_aggregation.sql \
  --engine spark \
  --recommend

Workflows

Workflow 1: Building a Batch ETL Pipeline

Scenario: Extract data from PostgreSQL, transform with dbt, load to Snowflake.

Step 1: Define Source Schema

sql
-- Document source tables
SELECT
    table_name,
    column_name,
    data_type,
    is_nullable
FROM information_schema.columns
WHERE table_schema = 'source_schema'
ORDER BY table_name, ordinal_position;

Step 2: Generate Extraction Config

bash
python scripts/pipeline_orchestrator.py generate \
  --type airflow \
  --source postgres \
  --tables orders,customers,products \
  --mode incremental \
  --watermark updated_at \
  --output dags/extract_source.py

Step 3: Create dbt Models

sql
-- models/staging/stg_orders.sql
WITH source AS (
    SELECT * FROM {{ source('postgres', 'orders') }}
),

renamed AS (
    SELECT
        order_id,
        customer_id,
        order_date,
        total_amount,
        status,
        _extracted_at
    FROM source
    WHERE order_date >= DATEADD(day, -3, CURRENT_DATE)
)

SELECT * FROM renamed
sql
-- models/marts/fct_orders.sql
{{
    config(
        materialized='incremental',
        unique_key='order_id',
        cluster_by=['order_date']
    )
}}

SELECT
    o.order_id,
    o.customer_id,
    c.customer_segment,
    o.order_date,
    o.total_amount,
    o.status
FROM {{ ref('stg_orders') }} o
LEFT JOIN {{ ref('dim_customers') }} c
    ON o.customer_id = c.customer_id

{% if is_incremental() %}
WHERE o._extracted_at > (SELECT MAX(_extracted_at) FROM {{ this }})
{% endif %}

Step 4: Configure Data Quality Tests

yaml
# models/marts/schema.yml
version: 2

models:
  - name: fct_orders
    description: "Order fact table"
    columns:
      - name: order_id
        tests:
          - unique
          - not_null
      - name: total_amount
        tests:
          - not_null
          - dbt_utils.accepted_range:
              min_value: 0
              max_value: 1000000
      - name: order_date
        tests:
          - not_null
          - dbt_utils.recency:
              datepart: day
              field: order_date
              interval: 1

Step 5: Create Airflow DAG

python
# dags/daily_etl.py
from airflow import DAG
from airflow.providers.postgres.operators.postgres import PostgresOperator
from airflow.operators.bash import BashOperator
from airflow.utils.dates import days_ago
from datetime import timedelta

default_args = {
    'owner': 'data-team',
    'depends_on_past': False,
    'email_on_failure': True,
    'email': ['data-alerts@company.com'],
    'retries': 2,
    'retry_delay': timedelta(minutes=5),
}

with DAG(
    'daily_etl_pipeline',
    default_args=default_args,
    description='Daily ETL from PostgreSQL to Snowflake',
    schedule_interval='0 5 * * *',
    start_date=days_ago(1),
    catchup=False,
    tags=['etl', 'daily'],
) as dag:

    extract = BashOperator(
        task_id='extract_source_data',
        bash_command='python /opt/airflow/scripts/extract.py --date {{ ds }}',
    )

    transform = BashOperator(
        task_id='run_dbt_models',
        bash_command='cd /opt/airflow/dbt && dbt run --select marts.*',
    )

    test = BashOperator(
        task_id='run_dbt_tests',
        bash_command='cd /opt/airflow/dbt && dbt test --select marts.*',
    )

    notify = BashOperator(
        task_id='send_notification',
        bash_command='python /opt/airflow/scripts/notify.py --status success',
        trigger_rule='all_success',
    )

    extract >> transform >> test >> notify

Step 6: Validate Pipeline

bash
# Test locally
dbt run --select stg_orders fct_orders
dbt test --select fct_orders

# Validate data quality
python scripts/data_quality_validator.py validate \
  --table fct_orders \
  --checks all \
  --output reports/quality_report.json

Workflow 2: Implementing Real-Time Streaming

Scenario: Stream events from Kafka, process with Flink/Spark Streaming, sink to data lake.

Step 1: Define Event Schema

json
{
  "$schema": "http://json-schema.org/draft-07/schema#",
  "title": "UserEvent",
  "type": "object",
  "required": ["event_id", "user_id", "event_type", "timestamp"],
  "properties": {
    "event_id": {"type": "string", "format": "uuid"},
    "user_id": {"type": "string"},
    "event_type": {"type": "string", "enum": ["page_view", "click", "purchase"]},
    "timestamp": {"type": "string", "format": "date-time"},
    "properties": {"type": "object"}
  }
}

Step 2: Create Kafka Topic

bash
# Create topic with appropriate partitions
kafka-topics.sh --create \
  --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 \
  --topic user-events \
  --partitions 12 \
  --replication-factor 3 \
  --config retention.ms=604800000 \
  --config cleanup.policy=delete

# Verify topic
kafka-topics.sh --describe \
  --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 \
  --topic user-events

Step 3: Implement Spark Streaming Job

python
# streaming/user_events_processor.py
from pyspark.sql import SparkSession
from pyspark.sql.functions import (
    from_json, col, window, count, avg,
    to_timestamp, current_timestamp
)
from pyspark.sql.types import (
    StructType, StructField, StringType,
    TimestampType, MapType
)

# Initialize Spark
spark = SparkSession.builder \
    .appName("UserEventsProcessor") \
    .config("spark.sql.streaming.checkpointLocation", "/checkpoints/user-events") \
    .config("spark.sql.shuffle.partitions", "12") \
    .getOrCreate()

# Define schema
event_schema = StructType([
    StructField("event_id", StringType(), False),
    StructField("user_id", StringType(), False),
    StructField("event_type", StringType(), False),
    StructField("timestamp", StringType(), False),
    StructField("properties", MapType(StringType(), StringType()), True)
])

# Read from Kafka
events_df = spark.readStream \
    .format("kafka") \
    .option("kafka.bootstrap.servers", "localhost:9092") \
    .option("subscribe", "user-events") \
    .option("startingOffsets", "latest") \
    .option("failOnDataLoss", "false") \
    .load()

# Parse JSON
parsed_df = events_df \
    .select(from_json(col("value").cast("string"), event_schema).alias("data")) \
    .select("data.*") \
    .withColumn("event_timestamp", to_timestamp(col("timestamp")))

# Windowed aggregation
aggregated_df = parsed_df \
    .withWatermark("event_timestamp", "10 minutes") \
    .groupBy(
        window(col("event_timestamp"), "5 minutes"),
        col("event_type")
    ) \
    .agg(
        count("*").alias("event_count"),
        approx_count_distinct("user_id").alias("unique_users")
    )

# Write to Delta Lake
query = aggregated_df.writeStream \
    .format("delta") \
    .outputMode("append") \
    .option("checkpointLocation", "/checkpoints/user-events-aggregated") \
    .option("path", "/data/lake/user_events_aggregated") \
    .trigger(processingTime="1 minute") \
    .start()

query.awaitTermination()

Step 4: Handle Late Data and Errors

python
# Dead letter queue for failed records
from pyspark.sql.functions import current_timestamp, lit

def process_with_error_handling(batch_df, batch_id):
    try:
        # Attempt processing
        valid_df = batch_df.filter(col("event_id").isNotNull())
        invalid_df = batch_df.filter(col("event_id").isNull())

        # Write valid records
        valid_df.write \
            .format("delta") \
            .mode("append") \
            .save("/data/lake/user_events")

        # Write invalid to DLQ
        if invalid_df.count() > 0:
            invalid_df \
                .withColumn("error_timestamp", current_timestamp()) \
                .withColumn("error_reason", lit("missing_event_id")) \
                .write \
                .format("delta") \
                .mode("append") \
                .save("/data/lake/dlq/user_events")

    except Exception as e:
        # Log error, alert, continue
        logger.error(f"Batch {batch_id} failed: {e}")
        raise

# Use foreachBatch for custom processing
query = parsed_df.writeStream \
    .foreachBatch(process_with_error_handling) \
    .option("checkpointLocation", "/checkpoints/user-events") \
    .start()

Step 5: Monitor Stream Health

python
# monitoring/stream_metrics.py
from prometheus_client import Gauge, Counter, start_http_server

# Define metrics
RECORDS_PROCESSED = Counter(
    'stream_records_processed_total',
    'Total records processed',
    ['stream_name', 'status']
)

PROCESSING_LAG = Gauge(
    'stream_processing_lag_seconds',
    'Current processing lag',
    ['stream_name']
)

BATCH_DURATION = Gauge(
    'stream_batch_duration_seconds',
    'Last batch processing duration',
    ['stream_name']
)

def emit_metrics(query):
    """Emit Prometheus metrics from streaming query."""
    progress = query.lastProgress
    if progress:
        RECORDS_PROCESSED.labels(
            stream_name='user-events',
            status='success'
        ).inc(progress['numInputRows'])

        if progress['sources']:
            # Calculate lag from latest offset
            for source in progress['sources']:
                end_offset = source.get('endOffset', {})
                # Parse Kafka offsets and calculate lag

Workflow 3: Data Quality Framework Setup

Scenario: Implement comprehensive data quality monitoring with Great Expectations.

Step 1: Initialize Great Expectations

bash
# Install and initialize
pip install great_expectations

great_expectations init

# Connect to data source
great_expectations datasource new

Step 2: Create Expectation Suite

python
# expectations/orders_suite.py
import great_expectations as gx

context = gx.get_context()

# Create expectation suite
suite = context.add_expectation_suite("orders_quality_suite")

# Add expectations
validator = context.get_validator(
    batch_request={
        "datasource_name": "warehouse",
        "data_asset_name": "orders",
    },
    expectation_suite_name="orders_quality_suite"
)

# Schema expectations
validator.expect_table_columns_to_match_ordered_list(
    column_list=[
        "order_id", "customer_id", "order_date",
        "total_amount", "status", "created_at"
    ]
)

# Completeness expectations
validator.expect_column_values_to_not_be_null("order_id")
validator.expect_column_values_to_not_be_null("customer_id")
validator.expect_column_values_to_not_be_null("order_date")

# Uniqueness expectations
validator.expect_column_values_to_be_unique("order_id")

# Range expectations
validator.expect_column_values_to_be_between(
    "total_amount",
    min_value=0,
    max_value=1000000
)

# Categorical expectations
validator.expect_column_values_to_be_in_set(
    "status",
    ["pending", "confirmed", "shipped", "delivered", "cancelled"]
)

# Freshness expectation
validator.expect_column_max_to_be_between(
    "order_date",
    min_value={"$PARAMETER": "now - timedelta(days=1)"},
    max_value={"$PARAMETER": "now"}
)

# Referential integrity
validator.expect_column_values_to_be_in_set(
    "customer_id",
    value_set={"$PARAMETER": "valid_customer_ids"}
)

validator.save_expectation_suite(discard_failed_expectations=False)

Step 3: Create Data Quality Checks with dbt

yaml
# models/marts/schema.yml
version: 2

models:
  - name: fct_orders
    description: "Order fact table with data quality checks"

    tests:
      # Row count check
      - dbt_utils.equal_rowcount:
          compare_model: ref('stg_orders')

      # Freshness check
      - dbt_utils.recency:
          datepart: hour
          field: created_at
          interval: 24

    columns:
      - name: order_id
        description: "Unique order identifier"
        tests:
          - unique
          - not_null
          - relationships:
              to: ref('dim_orders')
              field: order_id

      - name: total_amount
        tests:
          - not_null
          - dbt_utils.accepted_range:
              min_value: 0
              max_value: 1000000
              inclusive: true
          - dbt_expectations.expect_column_values_to_be_between:
              min_value: 0
              row_condition: "status != 'cancelled'"

      - name: customer_id
        tests:
          - not_null
          - relationships:
              to: ref('dim_customers')
              field: customer_id
              severity: warn

Step 4: Implement Data Contracts

yaml
# contracts/orders_contract.yaml
contract:
  name: orders_data_contract
  version: "1.0.0"
  owner: data-team@company.com

schema:
  type: object
  properties:
    order_id:
      type: string
      format: uuid
      description: "Unique order identifier"
    customer_id:
      type: string
      not_null: true
    order_date:
      type: date
      not_null: true
    total_amount:
      type: decimal
      precision: 10
      scale: 2
      minimum: 0
    status:
      type: string
      enum: ["pending", "confirmed", "shipped", "delivered", "cancelled"]

sla:
  freshness:
    max_delay_hours: 1
  completeness:
    min_percentage: 99.9
  accuracy:
    duplicate_tolerance: 0.01

consumers:
  - name: analytics-team
    usage: "Daily reporting dashboards"
  - name: ml-team
    usage: "Churn prediction model"

Step 5: Set Up Quality Monitoring Dashboard

python
# monitoring/quality_dashboard.py
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
import pandas as pd

def generate_quality_report(connection, table_name: str) -> dict:
    """Generate comprehensive data quality report."""

    report = {
        "table": table_name,
        "timestamp": datetime.now().isoformat(),
        "checks": {}
    }

    # Row count check
    row_count = connection.execute(
        f"SELECT COUNT(*) FROM {table_name}"
    ).fetchone()[0]
    report["checks"]["row_count"] = {
        "value": row_count,
        "status": "pass" if row_count > 0 else "fail"
    }

    # Freshness check
    max_date = connection.execute(
        f"SELECT MAX(created_at) FROM {table_name}"
    ).fetchone()[0]
    hours_old = (datetime.now() - max_date).total_seconds() / 3600
    report["checks"]["freshness"] = {
        "max_timestamp": max_date.isoformat(),
        "hours_old": round(hours_old, 2),
        "status": "pass" if hours_old < 24 else "fail"
    }

    # Null rate check
    null_query = f"""
    SELECT
        SUM(CASE WHEN order_id IS NULL THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) as null_order_id,
        SUM(CASE WHEN customer_id IS NULL THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) as null_customer_id,
        COUNT(*) as total
    FROM {table_name}
    """
    null_result = connection.execute(null_query).fetchone()
    report["checks"]["null_rates"] = {
        "order_id": null_result[0] / null_result[2] if null_result[2] > 0 else 0,
        "customer_id": null_result[1] / null_result[2] if null_result[2] > 0 else 0,
        "status": "pass" if null_result[0] == 0 and null_result[1] == 0 else "fail"
    }

    # Duplicate check
    dup_query = f"""
    SELECT COUNT(*) - COUNT(DISTINCT order_id) as duplicates
    FROM {table_name}
    """
    duplicates = connection.execute(dup_query).fetchone()[0]
    report["checks"]["duplicates"] = {
        "count": duplicates,
        "status": "pass" if duplicates == 0 else "fail"
    }

    # Overall status
    all_passed = all(
        check["status"] == "pass"
        for check in report["checks"].values()
    )
    report["overall_status"] = "pass" if all_passed else "fail"

    return report

Architecture Decision Framework

Use this framework to choose the right approach for your data pipeline.

Batch vs Streaming

Criteria Batch Streaming
Latency requirement Hours to days Seconds to minutes
Data volume Large historical datasets Continuous event streams
Processing complexity Complex transformations, ML Simple aggregations, filtering
Cost sensitivity More cost-effective Higher infrastructure cost
Error handling Easier to reprocess Requires careful design

Decision Tree:

Is real-time insight required?
├── Yes → Use streaming
│   └── Is exactly-once semantics needed?
│       ├── Yes → Kafka + Flink/Spark Structured Streaming
│       └── No → Kafka + consumer groups
└── No → Use batch
    └── Is data volume > 1TB daily?
        ├── Yes → Spark/Databricks
        └── No → dbt + warehouse compute

Lambda vs Kappa Architecture

Aspect Lambda Kappa
Complexity Two codebases (batch + stream) Single codebase
Maintenance Higher (sync batch/stream logic) Lower
Reprocessing Native batch layer Replay from source
Use case ML training + real-time serving Pure event-driven

When to choose Lambda:

  • Need to train ML models on historical data
  • Complex batch transformations not feasible in streaming
  • Existing batch infrastructure

When to choose Kappa:

  • Event-sourced architecture
  • All processing can be expressed as stream operations
  • Starting fresh without legacy systems

Data Warehouse vs Data Lakehouse

Feature Warehouse (Snowflake/BigQuery) Lakehouse (Delta/Iceberg)
Best for BI, SQL analytics ML, unstructured data
Storage cost Higher (proprietary format) Lower (open formats)
Flexibility Schema-on-write Schema-on-read
Performance Excellent for SQL Good, improving
Ecosystem Mature BI tools Growing ML tooling

Tech Stack

Category Technologies
Languages Python, SQL, Scala
Orchestration Airflow, Prefect, Dagster
Transformation dbt, Spark, Flink
Streaming Kafka, Kinesis, Pub/Sub
Storage S3, GCS, Delta Lake, Iceberg
Warehouses Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, Databricks
Quality Great Expectations, dbt tests, Monte Carlo
Monitoring Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog

Reference Documentation

1. Data Pipeline Architecture

See references/data_pipeline_architecture.md for:

  • Lambda vs Kappa architecture patterns
  • Batch processing with Spark and Airflow
  • Stream processing with Kafka and Flink
  • Exactly-once semantics implementation
  • Error handling and dead letter queues

2. Data Modeling Patterns

See references/data_modeling_patterns.md for:

  • Dimensional modeling (Star/Snowflake)
  • Slowly Changing Dimensions (SCD Types 1-6)
  • Data Vault modeling
  • dbt best practices
  • Partitioning and clustering

3. DataOps Best Practices

See references/dataops_best_practices.md for:

  • Data testing frameworks
  • Data contracts and schema validation
  • CI/CD for data pipelines
  • Observability and lineage
  • Incident response

Troubleshooting

Pipeline Failures

Symptom: Airflow DAG fails with timeout

Task exceeded max execution time

Solution:

  1. Check resource allocation
  2. Profile slow operations
  3. Add incremental processing
python
# Increase timeout
default_args = {
    'execution_timeout': timedelta(hours=2),
}

# Or use incremental loads
WHERE updated_at > '{{ prev_ds }}'

Symptom: Spark job OOM

java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space

Solution:

  1. Increase executor memory
  2. Reduce partition size
  3. Use disk spill
python
spark.conf.set("spark.executor.memory", "8g")
spark.conf.set("spark.sql.shuffle.partitions", "200")
spark.conf.set("spark.memory.fraction", "0.8")

Symptom: Kafka consumer lag increasing

Consumer lag: 1000000 messages

Solution:

  1. Increase consumer parallelism
  2. Optimize processing logic
  3. Scale consumer group
bash
# Add more partitions
kafka-topics.sh --alter \
  --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 \
  --topic user-events \
  --partitions 24

Data Quality Issues

Symptom: Duplicate records appearing

Expected unique, found 150 duplicates

Solution:

  1. Add deduplication logic
  2. Use merge/upsert operations
sql
-- dbt incremental with dedup
{{
    config(
        materialized='incremental',
        unique_key='order_id'
    )
}}

SELECT * FROM (
    SELECT
        *,
        ROW_NUMBER() OVER (
            PARTITION BY order_id
            ORDER BY updated_at DESC
        ) as rn
    FROM {{ source('raw', 'orders') }}
) WHERE rn = 1

Symptom: Stale data in tables

Last update: 3 days ago

Solution:

  1. Check upstream pipeline status
  2. Verify source availability
  3. Add freshness monitoring
yaml
# dbt freshness check
sources:
  - name: raw
    freshness:
      warn_after: {count: 12, period: hour}
      error_after: {count: 24, period: hour}
    loaded_at_field: _loaded_at

Symptom: Schema drift detected

Column 'new_field' not in expected schema

Solution:

  1. Update data contract
  2. Modify transformations
  3. Communicate with producers
python
# Handle schema evolution
df = spark.read.format("delta") \
    .option("mergeSchema", "true") \
    .load("/data/orders")

Performance Issues

Symptom: Query takes hours

Query runtime: 4 hours (expected: 30 minutes)

Solution:

  1. Check query plan
  2. Add proper partitioning
  3. Optimize joins
sql
-- Before: Full table scan
SELECT * FROM orders WHERE order_date = '2024-01-15';

-- After: Partition pruning
-- Table partitioned by order_date
SELECT * FROM orders WHERE order_date = '2024-01-15';

-- Add clustering for frequent filters
ALTER TABLE orders CLUSTER BY (customer_id);

Symptom: dbt model takes too long

Model fct_orders completed in 45 minutes

Solution:

  1. Use incremental materialization
  2. Reduce upstream dependencies
  3. Pre-aggregate where possible
sql
-- Convert to incremental
{{
    config(
        materialized='incremental',
        unique_key='order_id',
        on_schema_change='sync_all_columns'
    )
}}

SELECT * FROM {{ ref('stg_orders') }}
{% if is_incremental() %}
WHERE _loaded_at > (SELECT MAX(_loaded_at) FROM {{ this }})
{% endif %}

Troubleshooting

Problem Cause Solution
Pipeline silently produces zero rows Incremental watermark column has timezone mismatch between source and warehouse Normalize all timestamps to UTC at extraction; add a row-count assertion (dbt_utils.equal_rowcount) after every incremental load
Spark shuffle stage takes 10x longer than expected Heavy data skew on the join key (a few keys hold most rows) Salt the skewed key (CONCAT(key, '_', MOD(RAND()*10,10))) or use broadcast join for the smaller table
Airflow scheduler marks DAG as "no tasks to run" Circular or broken dependency reference in the DAG definition Run airflow dags list-import-errors and fix the import; use pipeline_orchestrator.py validate --dag <file> --type airflow
dbt run succeeds but downstream dashboards show stale data Source freshness not checked before transformation begins Add dbt source freshness as a prerequisite task in the DAG; define freshness.warn_after and error_after in sources.yml
Kafka consumer lag grows unbounded Consumer throughput is lower than producer rate; partition count too low Increase partitions, scale consumer group, and batch max.poll.records; monitor with data_quality_validator.py profile on output tables
Data quality validator reports false-positive anomalies Default z-score threshold (3.0) is too tight for heavy-tailed distributions Raise the z-threshold or switch to IQR mode with a higher multiplier; re-run data_quality_validator.py validate --detect-anomalies
Cost estimate differs significantly from actual cloud bill The tool uses heuristic estimates without live warehouse metadata Treat etl_performance_optimizer.py estimate-cost output as a directional guide; cross-reference with the warehouse query history view

Success Criteria

  • Pipeline SLA above 99.5% -- fewer than 2 unplanned failures per month across all production DAGs.
  • Data freshness under 15 minutes for streaming pipelines and under 2 hours for batch pipelines measured at the mart layer.
  • Data quality score >= 95% on completeness, uniqueness, validity, consistency, and accuracy (as reported by data_quality_validator.py).
  • Zero duplicate records in all fact and dimension tables enforced by primary key merge/upsert logic and dbt uniqueness tests.
  • Query optimization savings >= 30% in compute cost or execution time after applying recommendations from etl_performance_optimizer.py analyze-sql.
  • Schema drift detected within one pipeline run -- all contract violations surfaced automatically before data reaches the mart layer.
  • Incident MTTR under 30 minutes for P1 pipeline failures with documented runbooks referencing the troubleshooting table above.

Scope & Limitations

This skill covers:

  • End-to-end batch and streaming pipeline design (Airflow, Prefect, Dagster, Kafka, Spark)
  • Data quality validation, profiling, anomaly detection, and Great Expectations suite generation
  • SQL and Spark performance analysis with actionable optimization recommendations
  • Data modeling patterns (star schema, snowflake, data vault, SCD types)

This skill does NOT cover:

  • Machine learning model training and serving -- see senior-ml-engineer
  • Statistical experiment design and hypothesis testing -- see senior-data-scientist
  • Cloud infrastructure provisioning (Terraform, CloudFormation) -- see senior-devops or aws-solution-architect
  • Application-level security hardening and vulnerability scanning -- see senior-secops or senior-security

Integration Points

Skill Integration Data Flow
senior-data-scientist Feature engineering pipelines consume cleaned data from the mart layer Data engineer publishes curated datasets; data scientist runs experiments and feeds feature definitions back for productionization
senior-ml-engineer ML training pipelines depend on feature store tables built by data engineering Data engineer maintains feature store refresh; ML engineer deploys model artifacts and monitoring
senior-devops CI/CD for dbt projects, Airflow deployment, and container orchestration Data engineer defines pipeline code; DevOps manages infrastructure, Docker images, and deployment workflows
senior-architect Architecture reviews for data platform decisions (lakehouse vs warehouse, Lambda vs Kappa) Data engineer proposes designs; architect validates against enterprise standards and non-functional requirements
senior-backend API-sourced ingestion and event-driven pipelines consume backend service events Backend publishes events to Kafka/queues; data engineer builds consumers and transformation layers
code-reviewer Pipeline code reviews for Airflow DAGs, dbt models, and Spark jobs Data engineer submits PRs; code reviewer validates SQL patterns, idempotency, and error handling

Tool Reference

pipeline_orchestrator.py

Purpose: Generate pipeline configurations for Airflow, Prefect, and Dagster. Supports ETL pattern generation, dependency management, scheduling, and DAG validation.

Subcommands:

generate -- Generate pipeline code

bash
python scripts/pipeline_orchestrator.py generate \
  --type airflow \
  --source postgres \
  --destination snowflake \
  --tables orders,customers \
  --schedule "0 5 * * *" \
  --mode incremental \
  --output dags/my_pipeline.py
Flag Short Required Default Description
--type -t Yes -- Pipeline framework: airflow, prefect, dagster
--source -s No postgres Source system type
--destination -d No snowflake Destination system type
--tables -- No -- Comma-separated list of tables to extract
--config -c No -- Configuration YAML file (overrides other source/dest flags)
--output -o No stdout Output file path for generated code
--name -n No auto-generated Pipeline name
--schedule -- No 0 5 * * * Cron schedule expression
--mode -- No incremental Load mode: incremental or full

Output formats: Generated Python code written to file or printed to stdout.

validate -- Validate existing pipeline code

bash
python scripts/pipeline_orchestrator.py validate \
  --dag dags/my_dag.py \
  --type airflow
Flag Short Required Default Description
--dag -- Yes -- Path to the DAG/flow file to validate
--type -t Yes -- Framework type: airflow, prefect, dagster

Output formats: JSON validation result with valid (boolean), issues (list), and warnings (list). Exits with code 0 on success, 1 on failure.

template -- Generate from ETL pattern template

bash
python scripts/pipeline_orchestrator.py template \
  --pattern extract-load \
  --type airflow \
  --source postgres \
  --destination snowflake \
  --tables orders,customers \
  --output dags/el_pipeline.py
Flag Short Required Default Description
--pattern -p Yes -- ETL pattern: extract-load, transform, cdc
--type -t Yes -- Framework type: airflow, prefect, dagster
--source -s Yes -- Source system type
--destination -d Yes -- Destination system type
--tables -- Yes -- Comma-separated list of tables
--output -o No stdout Output file path

data_quality_validator.py

Purpose: Comprehensive data quality validation including schema checking, data profiling, anomaly detection, Great Expectations suite generation, and data contract enforcement. Supports CSV, JSON, and JSONL inputs.

Global flags:

Flag Short Description
--verbose -v Enable verbose logging output

Subcommands:

validate -- Validate data against a schema

bash
python scripts/data_quality_validator.py validate data.csv \
  --schema schema.json \
  --detect-anomalies \
  --output report.json \
  --json
Flag Short Required Default Description
input (positional) -- Yes -- Input data file (CSV, JSON, JSONL)
--schema -s No -- Schema file (JSON) to validate against
--output -o No stdout Output report file path
--json -- No false Output as JSON instead of human-readable text
--detect-anomalies -- No false Also run statistical anomaly detection (z-score and IQR)

Output formats: Human-readable validation report (default) or JSON with per-check results, severity, failed rows, and overall quality score.

profile -- Generate a statistical data profile

bash
python scripts/data_quality_validator.py profile data.csv \
  --output profile.json \
  --json
Flag Short Required Default Description
input (positional) -- Yes -- Input data file
--output -o No stdout Output profile file path
--json -- No false Output as JSON

Output formats: Per-column statistics including null counts, unique counts, min/max/mean/median/std_dev for numerics, length stats for strings, top values, and detected patterns.

generate-suite -- Generate a Great Expectations suite

bash
python scripts/data_quality_validator.py generate-suite data.csv \
  --output expectations.json
Flag Short Required Default Description
input (positional) -- Yes -- Input data file to base expectations on
--output -o No stdout Output expectations JSON file

Output formats: JSON expectation suite compatible with Great Expectations, derived from the data profile.

contract -- Validate against a data contract

bash
python scripts/data_quality_validator.py contract data.csv \
  --contract contract.yaml \
  --output report.json \
  --json
Flag Short Required Default Description
input (positional) -- Yes -- Input data file
--contract -c Yes -- Data contract file (YAML or JSON)
--output -o No stdout Output report file path
--json -- No false Output as JSON

Output formats: Contract validation report showing SLA compliance (freshness, completeness, accuracy) and per-field results.

schema -- Infer and generate a schema from data

bash
python scripts/data_quality_validator.py schema data.csv \
  --output schema.json
Flag Short Required Default Description
input (positional) -- Yes -- Input data file
--output -o No stdout Output schema JSON file

Output formats: JSON schema with inferred column types, nullability, uniqueness, and detected patterns.


etl_performance_optimizer.py

Purpose: ETL/ELT performance analysis and optimization. Analyzes SQL queries, Spark job metrics, partition strategies, and estimates cloud warehouse costs. Provides actionable recommendations sorted by priority and severity.

Global flags:

Flag Short Description
--verbose -v Enable verbose logging output

Subcommands:

analyze-sql -- Analyze a SQL query for optimization

bash
python scripts/etl_performance_optimizer.py analyze-sql query.sql \
  --warehouse snowflake \
  --stats data_stats.json \
  --output recommendations.json \
  --json
Flag Short Required Default Description
input (positional) -- Yes -- SQL file path or inline query string
--warehouse -w No -- Target warehouse: bigquery, snowflake, redshift, databricks
--stats -s No -- Data statistics JSON file for context-aware recommendations
--output -o No stdout Output file path
--json -- No false Output as JSON

Output formats: Prioritized list of recommendations with category, severity, title, description, current issue, recommendation, expected improvement, and implementation steps.

analyze-spark -- Analyze Spark job metrics

bash
python scripts/etl_performance_optimizer.py analyze-spark spark_metrics.json \
  --output report.json \
  --json
Flag Short Required Default Description
input (positional) -- Yes -- Spark metrics JSON file (from Spark History Server or custom export)
--output -o No stdout Output file path
--json -- No false Output as JSON

Output formats: Analysis of shuffle, memory, GC pressure, skew ratio, and task failure rates with targeted recommendations.

optimize-partition -- Recommend partition strategies

bash
python scripts/etl_performance_optimizer.py optimize-partition data_stats.json \
  --output partitions.json \
  --json
Flag Short Required Default Description
input (positional) -- Yes -- Data statistics JSON file with column cardinality and distribution info
--output -o No stdout Output file path
--json -- No false Output as JSON

Output formats: Partition strategy per column including type (range, hash, list), recommended partition count, target partition size in MB, reasoning, and implementation SQL.

estimate-cost -- Estimate query execution cost

bash
python scripts/etl_performance_optimizer.py estimate-cost query.sql \
  --warehouse snowflake \
  --stats data_stats.json \
  --output cost.json \
  --json
Flag Short Required Default Description
input (positional) -- Yes -- SQL file path or inline query string
--warehouse -w Yes -- Target warehouse: bigquery, snowflake, redshift, databricks
--stats -s No -- Data statistics JSON file for more accurate estimates
--output -o No stdout Output file path
--json -- No false Output as JSON

Output formats: Cost breakdown with compute, storage, and data transfer costs in USD plus underlying assumptions.

template -- Generate template files for input

bash
python scripts/etl_performance_optimizer.py template data_stats --output stats_template.json
python scripts/etl_performance_optimizer.py template spark_metrics --output metrics_template.json
Flag Short Required Default Description
template (positional) -- Yes -- Template type: data_stats or spark_metrics
--output -o No stdout Output file path

Output formats: JSON template with placeholder values showing the expected structure for --stats input files or Spark metrics files.

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