In-Process Analytical Data Management with DuckDB

Interview:

What's the focus of your work these days?

I spend most of my time working on DuckDB. It's the open source project that I co-founded, and we have spun out from the research institute that I worked on into a separate company, which is called DuckDB Labs, which I'm also leading.

What's the motivation for your talk at QCon London 2023?

The motivation for the talk came from interacting with data practitioners some years ago; we found out that they really hated using data systems. As somebody who builds data systems, I was a bit concerned that the world hated us, so we were starting to rethink how data systems could work. We came up with this idea that they should be running in process, and that's what I want to talk about. I want to show people how powerful this new way of thinking about data systems is.

How would you describe your main persona and target audience for this session?

I think there are two groups. The first group consists of data analysts and data scientists that are interested in processing large data sets with SQL. The other group is data engineers that are trying to build data pipelines, as DuckDB does it. I'm going to talk about this and it's going to be very useful for those with a more embedded role. These are the two groups that I think would most interested.

Is there anything specific that you'd like people to walk away with after watching your session?

My first motivation is for them to have heard of us. We are a fast-growing project, but I'm told there are still some people out there that haven't heard of us. I think the way DuckDB works can really open up new possibilities and dimensions for people to think about how to build data pipelines and how to analyze data. So I think for them to walk away with that insight would be great.