S3E7 – Building High-Performance Data Teams Starts With People, Not Tools

Data Engineering as a Team Sport: Coaching, Accountability, and Pragmatism

In this episode, Sam Wrench, Lead at Reality Mine, joins us to explore what actually makes data teams perform at a high level.

We cover:

• Why data engineering breaks down when teams optimise for tools instead of people
• How coaching principles translate directly from elite sport to data leadership
• Why dogfooding your own data creates faster feedback loops and better quality
• How to think about AI as a managed colleague, not an autopilot
• Why pragmatic, security-first tooling often beats chasing industry hype

This is a grounded conversation for anyone building data platforms that real teams and real decisions depend on.