Thanks to Jonny Lang for sharing his insights about his role and what motivates him at Dufrain. Jonny is a Data Architect who has been with Dufrain since 2022. Read his thoughts below on the innovative projects he’s worked on, the values that drive him, and what inspires him most within the company.
1. Tell us a little bit about what you do?
I am a Data Architect at Dufrain. I design and implement cloud data platforms following Microsoft’s Well-Architected Framework utilising Azure, AWS and Databricks technologies.
I have also designed and helped build one of Dufrain’s latest products called Accelerated BI, which sits on top of Dufrain’s data engineering services, and consists of:
- The creation of an optimised data warehouse/lakehouse following:
– Kimball methodology
– Second normal form
– Star schema - SparkSQL and PySpark scripts which populate and maintain all tables within the warehouse/lakehouse incrementally
- Templated Power BI reports, which have been specifically designed for the legal and insurance industries
- Data mapping documentation from the source to the target warehouse/lakehouse
2. What do you enjoy most about your job?
Getting the opportunity to design and build new data platforms for our clients and utilising the latest technologies.
3. What does a typical day look like for you?
In short… Wake up. Coffee. Design/build. Coffee. Test and documentation. Coffee. Meetings throughout. Sign off when the projects are in a good place, which doesn’t always mean 9am-5:30pm.
Throughout the day, I sign onto both Dufrain and client environments and have our stand-ups with the engineering team that I lead, and with clients. I’ll look through our backlog and assign tasks to the right person(s) and finish my own tasks whilst assisting others with theirs.
4. Which of our company values resonate with you the most?
“Pioneers at heart”. In the world of data, nothing is “impossible”, but there are many things to consider when making the seemingly impossible possible. Besides security and cost, one of the main focuses should be how we can achieve what we want to achieve optimally. We don’t just want to do the job, we want to do it well, and sometimes that involves thinking outside the box and finding new and interesting ways to achieve the necessary.
My grandad used to always say “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well”. Those words really resonated with me, and because of that, I still to this day make sure that whatever work I do is always the best that I have ever done.
5. What would you say has been your most significant achievement or the one you are most proud of whilst working at Dufrain?
Designing and building out one of our insurance client’s data solutions utilising a new technology that hasn’t been used in our company before. The project itself was supposed to just be designing and creating their analytical lakehouse, but in the end, it turned into a full data platform build utilising the Medallion architectural practice, including:
- Pull from Landing Zone and store in Bronze using Databricks’ Delta Live Tables (DLT)
- Technical transformations into Silver following the Data Vault methodology as DLT
- Build out of analytical Gold layer following Kimball methodology as DLT
- Creation of Databricks lead orchestration with administrative tables and dynamic capabilities for multi-threaded notebook execution
This project (despite growing in size from 30 tables to 230+ tables with custom-built dynamic/automatic Databricks lead orchestration) still managed to finish only just a few weeks outside of the original timescale.
All of this was achieved whilst also designing/building our Accelerated BI product and joining pre-sales calls at the same time – which is currently looking very promising!
6. Who inspires you the most within Dufrain?
There are people in Dufrain who achieve their absolute maximum value. Not only do they perform their client role perfectly, but they also work on internal projects and still make time for themselves to research all new/upcoming technologies and achieve qualifications in those technologies. These are the people that inspire me.
7. Which work benefit or perk is your favourite and why?
I quite like the training programmes through our partnerships with various vendors. These are very helpful when preparing for a new project.
8. What’s the best advice you can give to someone who wants to work for us?
You need to be able to adapt to any client project. If you know the project is going to be using a technology that you haven’t used before, then you need to do some research. Join a training course about that technology as there should be one available. Do anything to ensure that the project you work on is not just done quickly, but done well. If you can do this and take the initiative, then you’ll be a great fit for Dufrain!
9. What skill do you think everyone should learn?
Dev testing. ChatGPT can only get you so far. Consultants need to know how to properly dev test their work. Don’t just run your code robotically and expect that the results presented are correct. Test your work step-by-step, section-by-section. Ensure there are no duplicates or unexpected values. Take pride in the work that you’ve achieved.
10. What are some of your favourite things to do outside of work?
I play guitar and sing in a symphonic metal band called “Neverworld” (we just released our 3rd album, The Other Side of Midnight) and play shows up and down the country throughout the year.
I enjoy hiking, camping, and anything outdoors, spending time with my family, teaching my kids American sports, and playing board games.
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