# Section: dbt Summit
---
title: "dbt Summit in Las Vegas | Accessibility guide"
description: "Get key information on accessibility and inclusion at dbt Summit Las Vegas, including venue information, sensory considerations, restroom availability, and more."
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/accessibility-guide"
---
# Accessibility guide
Get key information on accessibility and inclusion at dbt Summit Las Vegas, including venue information, sensory considerations, and restroom availability.
### We're here to help, just ask
If you require accessibility accommodations, please request them directly on your event registration form. For any additional requests or questions about accessibility and inclusion at dbt Summit, email dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com
Thank you for helping us make dbt Summit a safe and inclusive experience for everyone!
This guide will be updated if event details change.
[Register now](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/registration)
---
---
title: "Community grant | dbt Summit 2026"
description: "dbt Summit Community Grants make it easier for community members to travel to dbt Summit. Apply for lodging, travel, and a complimentary ticket."
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/community-grant"
---
# Community Grant
We believe everyone deserves the chance to attend dbt Summit, make connections, and pursue a career in data. The dbt Summit Community Grant helps make that a reality.
### About the grant
dbt Labs is dedicated to making dbt Summit as inclusive and accessible as possible. We believe everyone deserves the chance to attend conferences like dbt Summit, make connections in the industry with peers and leaders, network with fellow practitioners, gain industry insights, pursue educational opportunities, and a career path in data (and have fun!). To help make this a reality, we're excited to offer dbt Summit Community Grants.
### Grant recipients receive
- Complimentary conference ticket
- Complimentary lodging
- Travel stipend
- Breakfast with Tristan Handy
- Meet and greet with photo opportunity
- Support from Community Team as dedicated point of contact
- Potential content creation opportunities
## FAQs
### What costs does the dbt Summit Community Grant cover?
The dbt Summit Community Grant covers the cost of lodging (up to 3 nights at a suitable venue of dbt Labs' choosing), and a meal and travel subsidy (up to a total maximum of $1,000 USD or local equivalent for meals and travel). In addition, each successful applicant will receive a complimentary conference ticket (which includes conference meals).
### Is training and certification included?
No, training and certifications are not included as part of the dbt Summit Community Grant.
### I live outside the United States but I am able to travel to the US. Can I apply?
Absolutely! However you will be responsible for your international travel costs (including visa applications) and must ensure that you have an appropriate visa in place. dbt Labs will provide a travel and meal subsidy up to a maximum of $1,000 USD or local equivalent.
---
---
title: "Community Grant Terms and Conditions | dbt Summit 2026"
description: "Read the terms and conditions for the dbt Summit 2026 Community Grant program."
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/community-grant-terms-and-conditions"
---
## Grant Terms and Conditions
- Event: : dbt Summit 2026, September 15 to 18, 2026
- Grant Application Deadline: : 5 pm PST June 30, 2026
- Grant Award Date: : July 22, 2026
- Acceptance Deadline: : July 29, 2026
- Engagement Deadline: : August 8, 2026
- Maximum Travel/Meals Stipend: : $1000 (or local equivalent)
These Grant Terms and Conditions (“Terms”) are between dbt Labs, Inc., a Delaware, USA corporation (“dbt Labs”, “we”, “us”) and you (“Applicant”, “you”). Accordingly, the parties agree as follows:
1. An application for a grant of hotel, travel, meal, and ticket expenses (“Grant”) as indicated herein to the Event indicated at the top must be received by Grant Application Deadline (see header) and are subject to Applicant’s agreement to these terms and conditions. Late applications and applications in languages other than English will not be accepted. We are not responsible for applications which are lost, incomplete, damaged or late due to computer, network or telecommunications failure based on third party telephone or data networks.
2. dbt Labs’ decision about eligibility, shortlisting and awarding the grant(s), including the validity of any applications submitted, is final. Correspondence will not be entered into. dbt Labs may at its sole discretion decide not to award the grant(s) where in its reasonable opinion, no application meets the relevant criteria.
3. dbt Labs will contact the successful Applicant by email on or before the Grant Award Date (see header). If successful, you must confirm your acceptance of the Grant in writing no later than the Acceptance Deadline (see header). If you don’t respond by the Acceptance Deadline, or if you subsequently withdraw or are withdrawn for any reason, we may select another applicant in your place without compensation to you.
4. You agree that all information submitted by you is true, accurate and complete, that you meet all of the eligibility requirements, and that receiving the grant will not violate any of your contract or legal commitments.
5. If successful, you will be registered with us on our Grant program. You agree to abide by our company policies as communicated to you from time to time.
6. If your Grant application is successful, the Grant will be offered to you for the specified Event, and cannot be or to another person. There is no cash or other compensation alternative to the Grant if you cannot accept the terms.
7. For the avoidance of doubt, training and certification exams are not included in the Grant and are not part of any Grant. For more information on training and learning opportunities, please refer to our “How to Learn” page.
8. dbt Labs will book and cover the room rate cost of up to three nights at the applicable hotel selected by dbt Labs for the specific nights indicated to you by dbt Labs. Any incidental charges above the room rate are your responsibility in full and will not be reimbursed by dbt Labs. The hotel may require you to give a credit card to cover incidental charges during your stay. You must register for the event, book travel tickets, and confirm your arrival and departure hotel dates prior to the Engagement Deadline, or dbt Labs may revoke the Grant. Aside from the nights specified in our communications to you, dbt Labs will not reimburse other nights or pay any additional charges other than those associated with the stated nights. You agree to attend the programming for the dates indicated under Event (above). Any transport costs you incur in attending the Event will be reimbursed within thirty (30) days of our receipt of your invoice with actual, out-of-pocket and documented receipts attached, up to the Maximum Travel/Meals Stipend value (see header). Invoices and accompanying receipts must be submitted to [ap@dbtlabs.com](mailto:ap@dbtlabs.com) with a cc to [meetup@dbtlabs.com](mailto:meetup@dbtlabs.com). Any receipts that are not verifiable, indicate other destinations aside from your residence, the transit location and the hotel, or do not substantiate travel or meals related to the Event will not be reimbursed. dbt Labs will not reimburse for meals other than for the Grant recipient and not for a time frame when a conference meal is available. For clarity, we will only reimburse properly submitted receipts for rideshares or taxis to and from the airport, bus terminal, train station, your residence and the hotel as logically sequenced and indicating travel between your house, to the departure location, and from the arrival location to the hotel.
9. In the event that you require a visa to attend the Event, you agree that all costs associated with any such application are your responsibility and such costs are not reimbursable by dbt Labs. You are responsible for procuring a visa by the Engagement Deadline. dbt Labs cannot provide advice or assistance in relation to any visa application, but we can provide a visa invitation letter. Please reach out to [dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com](mailto:dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com) if you require an official visa invitation letter.
10. dbt Labs may remove the Grant immediately in the event that (a) we are of the reasonable opinion that you have made any misrepresentation (whether negligently or intentionally) to us in respect of applying for the Grant; or (b) we are of the reasonable opinion that you have acted fraudulently or dishonestly in connection with securing your Grant. In such event, if you have incurred any costs, dbt Labs is not responsible for reimbursement if we remove the Grant.
11. In the event that your Grant is removed per Section 10 above or you do not attend the Event (except due to documented illness or unavoidable emergency situation), you agree that you will pay us back any already reimbursed hotel and travel expenses within seven days of our written request. You will not be required to reimburse us for the cost of the conference ticket.
12. We will use the personal information you provide to us to administer the Grant program and shall process your personal information in accordance with our Privacy Policy at ( [https://www.getdbt.com/cloud/privacy-policy/](https://www.getdbt.com/cloud/privacy-policy/) ). To the extent we have a sponsor providing Grant(s) (“Sponsor”), we have your consent to provide the Sponsor your personal information for the purpose of administering and communicating with you about the Grant.
13. You grant dbt Labs the irrevocable right and permission to take and use visual and audio media (including filming interviews/soundbites etc) during the event, and agree that all rights related to the filming and/or recording(s) (including reproductions) are the sole property of dbt Labs. You understand and agree that you may be identified by name, likeness, and/or biographical information in accompanying printed or internet information prior to, during, and after the event, and dbt Labs shall not be required to seek your approval for its use of your name, likeness and/or biographical information.
14. To the extent permitted by applicable law, we exclude all liability for any direct or indirect loss or liability, costs, claims, taxes, charges or expenses arising from your participation in the Grant or your reliance on statements made or advice given by us, our partners or contractors. If you submit any materials or items as part of your Grant application, this is at your own risk. We undertake no obligations to you to keep safely, maintain or return any materials or items.
15. Without prejudice to (11) above, our maximum liability to you in connection with the Grant (if any) is limited to the Maximum Travel/Meals Stipend value. Nothing in these terms and conditions excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence or fraudulent misrepresentation made by us.
16. These Terms and any claim, controversy or dispute arising from or related to these Terms, are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Delaware without giving effect to any conflicts of laws provisions. Any claim, suit, action or proceeding arising out of or relating to these Terms or its subject matter will be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts of Wilmington, Delaware, and each party irrevocably submits to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of such courts in connection with these Terms.
---
---
title: "Experience | dbt Summit 2026"
description: "There's a lot going on at dbt Summit, and it can be overwhelming. It's our goal that you make the most out of the event and leave feeling inspired, energized, ready to grow your career."
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/experience"
---
# Make the most of dbt Summit
There's a lot going on at dbt Summit, and it can be overwhelming. It's our goal that you make the most out of the event and leave feeling inspired, energized, ready to grow your career.
[Need help making the case?](#convince-your-boss)
## Explore at Summit
dbt Summit offers a full spectrum of ways to engage. Breakout sessions, hands-on labs, and time to connect with your people. All in one place. Check out the full agenda here.
*01*
### Training
Deep dives into dbt fundamentals and advanced workflows, led by the people building and using it every day.
*02*
### Certification
Validate your skills and demonstrate expertise with dbt through official certification opportunities.
*03*
### Hands-on labs
Guided, practical sessions to explore new features and workflows in a live dbt environment.
*04*
### Peer exchanges
Conversations with fellow practitioners sharing real-world approaches, challenges, and ideas.
*05*
### Summit Springboard
Our opening session to get the most out of your dbt Summit experience.
## Beyond the sessions
### Discovery Hall &
sponsored events
Partners make the dbt ecosystem great. dbt Summit is the largest gathering of our partners, all together at once. When you're planning your time, make sure to schedule intentional time in Discovery Hall. All meals and the Welcome Reception will be held in the Discovery Hall.
When you download the event app, make sure to sign up for activities hosted by our sponsors, like the Fun Run hosted by Sigma and the Sound Bath hosted by Euno.
### Amenities &
accommodations
dbt Summit is a place for the entire dbt community to feel welcome. There will be a prayer room, lactation room, and accommodations made for hearing, mobility, vision, or other needs that you can designate during registration. If you have questions or need to make a request, please email dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com.
### Refresh room
We know that time among 2,000+ of your closest data community friends over the better course of a week can be... a lot. We've created a space for attendees to un-plug and recharge.
### Networking
Outside of official conference events like the Welcome Reception and official dbt Summit Party, there will be plenty of time to connect with the data community. Make sure to check out #dbt-summit-irl to connect with attendees in person.
## Getting here
### Hotel
This year dbt Summit will be held at the Cosmopolitan hotel in the heart of the Las Vegas strip. The Cosmopolitan is easily accessible by rideshare or taxi. The dbt Summit room block is now closed — for reservations or changes, please contact the Cosmopolitan directly at 702.698.7000 (toll-free: 877.551.7778).
### Explore the area
dbt Summit takes place in Las Vegas, Nevada, September 15-18. While the week is packed with hands-on learning, networking opportunities, and evening events, you may want to take advantage of your time in Nevada. Before or after the conference you will be close enough to take day trips to the Hoover Dam or Red Rock Canyon, or even just a stroll down the iconic Las Vegas Strip. You can check Las Vegas CVB for other events.
### Ground transportation
We recommend using Uber, Lyft or taxi from Harry Reid International Airport to the venue. Taxi fares from the airport to the Las Vegas strip are a flat fee. The flat fee maps can be found here. For more information related to ground transportation please click here.
### Airport info
Harry Reid International Airport
5757 Wayne Newton Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89119
## FAQs
### What does the cost of the dbt Summit ticket include?
The cost of this ticket includes access to all keynotes, general sessions, breakouts, meals, and social activities such as the after party and more!
### How do I cancel my registration?
Use the 'View/Modify' link in your confirmation email or the 'Already Registered?' link on the dbt Summit website, and you'll find the option to cancel your registration.
Please note our cancellation policy:
- 100% refunds on cancellations until 11:59 PM PDT August 15, 2026
- After August 15, 2026, no refunds or cancellations.
- After August 15, 2026 you are still able to transfer your registration if needed.
### Is there special pricing available?
Groups of 3 or more automatically receive 25% off standard pricing, bringing each ticket to $1,421.
While this discount is applied at checkout, please note that group pricing cannot be applied retroactively or combined with other discounts (such as Government, Student, or Nonprofit rates).
### When and where can I check in for registration?
Registration will be open starting Tuesday, September 15 at 8:00 am, located on Level 3 at the Cosmopolitan. You'll need your government-issued ID to pick up your badge.
Registration hours:
- Tuesday, September 15: 8:00 am - 7:00 pm
- Wednesday, September 16: 7:00 am - 5:00 pm
- Thursday, September 17: 7:00 am - 5:00 pm
- Friday, September 18: 7:00 am - 2:00 pm
### Do I need to bring my laptop?
Yes, dbt Summit is a BYOD (bring your own device) conference. If you're participating in workshops, hands-on sessions, or certifications, or looking to get support from our experts, you'll need to bring your own device.
### What is the dress code for dbt Summit?
Come as you are, in whatever makes you feel your best and ready to have a great time. The conference venue temperature varies, so we recommend wearing layers and comfortable shoes to walk in. Even if you're staying at the same hotel as the venue, Vegas hotels are big, so you'll be doing lots of walking!
### Will there be luggage storage available?
Yes. On Friday, we'll have luggage storage available for those who need to check out before the conference is done.
### What are the Discovery Hall hours?
- Tuesday, September 15: 5:30 - 7:30 pm
- Wednesday, September 16: 7:30 - 8:45 am, 10:30 am - 5:00 pm
- Thursday, September 17: 7:30 - 8:45 am, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
- Friday, September 18: 7:30 am - 2:00 pm
### Where is the official dbt Summit party?
The official dbt Summit party will take place Thursday, September 17 at the Marquee Night Club inside the Cosmopolitan, from 7:00 - 10:00 pm.
Please note:
- Marquee night/dayclub requires all attendees to be 21 and over to enter.
- A conference badge is required.
- All guests must present a valid, physical, government-issued photo ID to enter.
- International guests must present a physical, valid passport.
- Laptops, tablets, backpacks, and large bags are not allowed.
### Is dbt Summit available online?
Yes, you can watch dbt Summit virtually. Registration is required to access the keynote livestream — [register here](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/registration/online).
### What is available at dbt Summit Online?
The livestream of keynote day 1 and 2. Post event you will get access to the breakout sessions on-demand.
### Can I network with attendees during dbt Summit Online?
Yes, you'll have the ability to chat with attendees through the event platform. We also encourage you to join the [dbt Community Slack channel](https://www.getdbt.com/community/join-the-community).
### How do I connect with other attendees?
Join the conversations in Slack, whether in-person or watching virtually, in [#dbt-summit-2026](https://getdbt.slack.com/archives/C07M7JJLEJW). And if you're with us in Las Vegas, join us at [#dbt-summit-irl](https://getdbt.slack.com/archives/C09FGMR4V7Z).
### I'm having issues with my registration, who do I contact?
Please reach out to [dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com](mailto:dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com) to get in touch with your registration team for support.
## Need help making the case?
Get a personalized letter for your manager in under a minute. Copy it or email it.
### Ready to join us?
Join data leaders and practitioners at dbt Summit for three days of ideas, skills, and shared progress.
[Register now](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/registration)
---
---
title: "dbt Summit in Las Vegas | FAQs"
description: "Got questions? We've got answers. Find everything you need to know to plan your Summit experience."
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/faqs"
---
# FAQs
Got questions? We've got answers. Find everything you need to know to plan your Summit experience.
## Event information
### Where is dbt Summit?
dbt Summit 2026 is held at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, Nevada.
### Who is the dbt Summit audience?
dbt Summit brings together the data community — Data Analysts, Data Engineers, Data Scientists, Heads of Data, VPs of Data, Data Leaders, Executives, and Marketing Operations professionals.
## Agenda & content
### When will the agenda be available?
You can view the [agenda at a glance](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit#agenda-at-a-glance) here, to get a preview of what to expect onsite. We will have a more detailed agenda as we get closer to the event. Stay tuned.
### Will you offer hands-on sessions?
Yes, in addition to keynotes and standard breakout sessions we will offer hands-on labs, trainings and certifications. More information to come, stay tuned!
### Are you accepting submissions to speak at the event?
Our Call For Papers (CFP) is now closed.
### I submitted through the CFP - when will I be notified?
CFP notifications will be shared starting in early May. Please note due to the volume of submissions we will be unable to give individual status updates and feedback to sessions. If you have additional questions related to the CFP, contact [speakers.dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com](mailto:speakers.dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com)
### Will I get feedback on my proposal if my proposal is not selected?
Due to the volume of proposals we receive, we are unable to provide individual feedback on proposals.
### I purchased an early bird ticket, what happens if the session is selected in the CFP?
If you purchased a ticket when registration opens in February and are accepted as a speaker you have the opportunity to transfer your ticket or return it for a full refund.
### What is included if my session is selected in the CFP?
All speakers will receive a full conference pass (valued at $1695). Access to a track leader to develop your session. Exclusive promotion kit for your network.
### I would like to withdraw my session, who can I reach out to?
Please contact [speakers.dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com](mailto:speakers.dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com)
### I have questions related to speaker resources and CFP, who can I contact?
Please contact [speakers.dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com](mailto:speakers.dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com)
## Sponsors
### Are there sponsors for dbt Summit 2026?
Yes, sponsorships are available for dbt Labs Partners. Please email [sponsorships@dbtlabs.com](mailto:sponsorships@dbtlabs.com) for more details.
### Who is the dbt Summit audience?
Primary job titles include Data Analysts, Data Engineers, Data Scientists, Heads of Data, VPs of Data, Data Leaders, Executives, and Marketing Operations.
### I'd like to sponsor dbt Summit!
Please email [sponsorships@dbtlabs.com](mailto:sponsorships@dbtlabs.com).
## Registration
### What does the cost of the dbt Summit ticket include?
The cost of this ticket includes access to all keynotes, general sessions, breakouts, meals, and social activities such as the after party and more!
### How do I cancel my registration?
Use the 'View/Modify' link in your confirmation email or the 'Already Registered?' link on the dbt Summit website, and you'll find the option to cancel your registration.
Please note our cancellation policy:
- 100% refunds on cancellations until 11:59 PM PDT August 15, 2026
- After August 15, 2026, no refunds or cancellations.
- After August 15, 2026 you are still able to transfer your registration if needed.
### Is group pricing available?
Groups of 3 or more automatically receive 25% off standard pricing, bringing each ticket to $1,421.
While this discount is applied at checkout, please note that group pricing cannot be applied retroactively or combined with other discounts (such as Government, Student, or Nonprofit rates).
### How do I transfer my registration?
Use the 'View/Modify' link in your confirmation email or the 'Already Registered?' link on the dbt Summit website. You'll have the option to transfer your registration. To complete a transfer, you'll need the name and email address for the new attendee.
Please note, transferring a registration transfers the entire registration, including sessions, purchased add-ons, and payment. Payment methods cannot be modified during a transfer. If this option is not available, please contact [dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com](mailto:dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com).
You can transfer your registration through the platform until September 15, 2026.
### Can I book lodging through registration?
To take advantage of our conference hotel room rate at The Cosmopolitan, please book accommodations through the housing website [here](https://book.passkey.com/event/51197798/owner/3623455/home). Do not book directly through the hotel's website to ensure you receive the discounted event rate.
## Travel
### What airport do you recommend?
We recommend flying into Harry Reid International Airport.
### Where is dbt Summit being held and how do I book my hotel room?
This year dbt Summit will be held at The Cosmopolitan hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Cosmopolitan is located on the Las Vegas strip and is easily accessible by rideshare or taxi. The dbt Summit team has secured a discounted hotel room rate - but space is limited.
[Follow the link here](https://book.passkey.com/event/51197798/owner/3623455/home) to book your hotel room today!
### Is parking offered on event days?
The parking rates at The Cosmopolitan hotel where dbt Summit is being held are:
- $20 for self-parking for the full day on Weekday (Mon - Thurs)
- $25 for self-parking for the full day on weekends (Fri - Sun)
- $40 for valet
The parking structure is a multi-level underground garage accessible from Las Vegas Boulevard or Harmon Avenue.
### Is there public transportation?
We recommend using Uber, Lyft or taxi from the Harry Reid International Airport to the venue. Taxi fares from the airport to The Las Vegas strip are a flat fee from the Harry Reid International Airport. The flat fee maps can be [found here](https://images.ctfassets.net/2pnrhs9eukyp/3sqnMqC4CooktwcYOGPBVn/5c08b27bb8e856b5591cfd40b3564b71/Base_rate_with_Map_8-24.jpg). For more information related to ground transportation please click [here](https://www.harryreidairport.com/all-options-to-and-from).
## Other
### Are there any volunteer opportunities at dbt Summit?
No - we are not looking for volunteers for our event.
### Do you offer visa / official invitation letters?
Yes we do. Please reach out to us at [dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com](mailto:dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com) and we can facilitate this for you.
### I have food allergies or dietary restrictions - will there be something for me to eat?
Yes, the dbt Summit planning team considers all major food allergies and restrictions while menu planning. During registration, you will be prompted to provide this information, please provide that information then.
If you have additional concerns or questions related to the conference menus, please reach out to us at [dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com](mailto:dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com).
### Can I bring a guest to dbt Summit?
We do not allow guests to dbt Summit - please refer to [registration](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/registration) for the different ticket types allowed.
### Ready to join us?
Join data leaders and practitioners at dbt Summit for three days of ideas, skills, and shared progress.
[Register now](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/registration)
---
---
title: "dbt Summit in Las Vegas | September 15-18"
description: "dbt Summit is the world’s largest gathering of dbt community members. Join data leaders, and practitioners to shape the future of data & AI."
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit"
---
## Community Keynote
Celebrate the dbt community and look ahead as dbt Core and Fusion unite under one framework — dbt — and we continue building in the open.
[Watch now](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/registration/online)
## New and now
Catch up on the latest product news, updates, and announcements from dbt.
[Read the blog recap](https://www.getdbt.com/blog/dbt-summit-2026-product-announcements)
## What to expect
### Level up dbt
Product announcements and hands-on time with the features that will define how your team works in the AI era.
### Level up your craft
100+ sessions covering the tools, patterns, and playbooks you can put to work immediately.
### Level up together
Join practitioners, leaders, and visionaries to be part of building what comes next.
## Voices of dbt Summit
## Featured
sessions
[See all sessions](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/agenda)
## Online experience
dbt Summit online is the most accessible way to experience the world’s largest gathering of dbt users shaping the future of data and AI. The best part: it’s free to join from wherever you are!
[Join us online](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/registration/online)
## Agenda at a glance
### Tuesday
### Wednesday
### Thursday
### Friday
> dbt Summit gives you a renewed passion and energy that we can do this better.
### Your next level starts here
Join data leaders and practitioners at dbt Summit for three days of ideas, skills, and shared progress.
[Register now](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/registration)
---
---
title: "How to Learn | dbt Summit 2026"
description: "dbt Summit is built for practitioners who learn by doing. Get the tools, patterns, and playbooks you can put to work right away."
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/how-to-learn"
---
# Level up your craft
dbt Summit is built for practitioners who learn by doing. Get the tools, patterns, and playbooks you can put to work right away.
## Learning experiences
Build an agenda that works for you: breakout sessions, hands-on labs, peer exchanges, and expert time to level up.
### Sessions that inspire
Hear from peers who are applying dbt across a variety of use cases from AI and data quality to cost optimization and self-service.
### Conversations that move the work forward
Dive deeper and join peer exchanges and roundtables where you'll hear what's working, what's not, and what's next, from speakers across industries.
### Stop watching, start building
Dive into hands-on sessions where you'll learn by doing, guided by the dbt Labs team. Leave with new skills, better workflows, and certifications.
### Expert lounge
Meet one-on-one with dbt Labs experts for personalized guidance, troubleshooting, and practical advice you can apply right away. Walk up any time — no appointment needed.
## Session formats
dbt Summit offers multiple formats designed for every role, learning style, and level of technical depth.
### Keynote
The main stage, the big announcements, the moments everyone talks about after.
### 30-minute breakouts
Real problems, patterns, and wins from teams building on dbt every day. Each breakout falls into a content track, so you can build an agenda around the topics that matter most to you.
### Lightning talks
Live from the Discovery Hall 20-minute sessions and live demos from partners, users, and the dbt team, the fastest way to learn more without leaving the floor.
### Product breakouts and roundtables
Find out what's new and what's coming soon to dbt.
### Peer exchanges
Interactive discussion sessions that foster community building and knowledge sharing on topics of specific interest to the dbt community.
### Hands-on labs
Learn by doing. In these 90-minute sessions delivered by dbt Labs employees or one of our partners. Hands-on labs are available to anyone with a standard ticket.
### Training
Upgrade your analytics skills with in-person training courses tailored for today's data world. You can join a 2-4 hour training session led by a member of the dbt Labs training team.
### Certification
Get certified! Choose from one of two certifications: dbt Engineering and dbt Architect. This session includes one in-person exam attempt.
[View training and certification](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/training-and-certification)
## Breakout tracks
From AI-ready data and analytics engineering to enterprise scale and emerging architectures, each track is designed to help teams solve real problems and deliver measurable impact.
### Product breakouts and roundtables
Find out what's new and what's coming soon to dbt. Hear directly from our product managers in dedicated breakout sessions.
### Analytics engineering best practices
Explore proven methodologies that help data teams operate more efficiently, create measurable business impact, and establish robust, durable analytics processes that drive value across organizations.
### dbt at scale
See how companies are maturing their data processes, enhancing collaboration, and leveraging advanced dbt platform features to accelerate data delivery and improve business outcomes at enterprise scale.
### Winning with dbt v2
Learn how to apply dbt v2's foundational patterns and workflows to empower your data teams, optimize costs, and deliver business impact.
### Powering AI-ready data
Discover how to structure and govern your data to power safe, trusted, cost-efficient AI, and learn how to leverage that foundation for use cases like conversational analytics and beyond.
### Building agentic data workflows
Learn how to use dbt's MCP tools to design, build, and safely operate AI agents on top of your dbt project—from local developer copilots in VS Code to production-grade agentic data development that reuses governed models, metrics, and lineage.
### Delivering business outcomes
See how data and AI are delivering real business value across industries, with leaders sharing the use cases, strategies, and outcomes that are driving top line results.
### Data modernization & emerging architectures
Hear real-world stories of how teams are tackling complex migrations to achieve business outcomes and future-proof their stack, including new architectures like mesh and Apache Iceberg.
## Built for every team
### Data practitioners
Level up your developer experience with training and certifications, and get hands-on experience with the newest features in the dbt platform. Connect and learn from your peers.
### Data leaders
See how data leaders are standardizing quality, reduce incidents, and control spend by powering their teams with the dbt platform. Learn rollout patterns that scale.
### Business leaders and executives
Translate data work into measurable outcomes. Hear ROI stories and see governance in action that enables trustworthy AI at scale.
### Ready to join us?
Join data leaders and practitioners at dbt Summit for three days of ideas, skills, and shared progress.
[Register now](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/registration)
---
---
title: "Grow your business with dbt | dbt Summit Partner Day"
description: "Partners will hear from dbt Labs executives and leaders from the partner, product, and sales teams. Learn what’s next for dbt Labs and how you can build your business with dbt."
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/partner-day"
---
# Partner Day
Grow your business with dbt Partner Day is reserved for Fivetran + dbt Labs Partners only. You can register for Partner Day by selecting the Partner ticket during registration, then adding the Partner Day session add-on when prompted.
[Register now](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/registration/start)
### Insights, discussions, and networking
Join us on Tuesday, September 15, from 12:00 PM - 4:00 PM for Partner Day at dbt Summit. Partners will hear from Fivetran + dbt Labs executives and leaders from the partner, product, and sales teams. Learn what's next for Fivetran + dbt Labs and how you can build your business with Fivetran + dbt. All Partner Day attendees must be registered for dbt Summit.
[Register now](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/registration/start)
## Agenda
## Topics
### Unlock growth through partnership
Hear an overview of Fivetran + dbt's partner strategy and learn how strategic investments and programs will position our partners for long-term success.
### Get the inside track
Be the first to hear the latest Fivetran + dbt company and product updates, and get an exclusive sneak peek at the week's biggest announcements. Discover the priority go-to-market strategies shaping our next phase of growth and how partners are at the core of our success story.
### Success showcase and recognition
Hear from customer and partner guest speakers, celebrate award winners, and more!
## Speakers
> dbt Summit brings together the kind of data leaders you want to meet; ready to learn something new and move the needle on AI at their companies.
---
---
title: "dbt Summit in Las Vegas | Register now"
description: "dbt Summit is the world’s largest gathering of dbt community members. Join data leaders, and practitioners to shape the future of data & AI."
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/registration"
---
# Registration
Three days of real-world talks, hands-on learning, and connection with the dbt community.
### What's included in your dbt Summit experience
- Three days of in-person programming
- Keynotes and breakout sessions
- Hands-on Discovery Hall experiences
- Access to dbt Labs Expert Lounge
- Live Q&A with industry leaders
- Product announcements and platform updates
- Welcome reception and closing celebration
- Training and certification opportunities
- Digital and on-demand access
## Online
dbt Summit online is the most accessible way to experience the world’s largest gathering of dbt users shaping the future of data and AI. The best part: it’s free to join from wherever you are!
[Register now](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/registration/online)
## Need help making the case?
Get a personalized letter for your manager in under a minute. Copy it or email it.
## Registration FAQs
### What does the cost of the dbt Summit ticket include?
The cost of this ticket includes access to all keynotes, general sessions, breakouts, meals, and social activities such as the after party and more!
### Is group pricing available?
Groups of 3 or more automatically receive 25% off standard pricing at checkout, bringing each ticket to $1,421. Group pricing cannot be applied retroactively or combined with other discounts (such as Government, Student, or Nonprofit rates).
### How do I transfer my registration?
Use the "View/Modify" link in your confirmation email or the "Already Registered?" link on the dbt Summit website. You'll have the option to transfer your registration. To complete a transfer, you'll need the name and email address for the new attendee.
Please note, transferring a registration transfers the entire registration, including sessions, purchased add-ons, and payment. Payment methods cannot be modified during a transfer. If this option is not available, please contact [dbtsummit@getdbt.com](mailto:dbtsummit@getdbt.com).
You can transfer your registration through the platform until September 15, 2026.
### Is there special pricing available?
Discounted rates are available for students and bootstrappers ($595) and for government, education, and nonprofit attendees ($795). If you have additional questions about pricing, please reach out to the team at [dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com](mailto:dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com).
### Where is dbt Summit being held and how do I book my hotel room?
This year dbt Summit will be held at the Cosmopolitan hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Cosmopolitan is located on the Las Vegas strip and is easily accessible by rideshare or taxi. The dbt Summit team has secured a discounted hotel room rate - but space is limited. [Follow the link here](https://book.passkey.com/event/51197798/owner/3623455/home) to book your hotel room today!
### How do I cancel my registration?
Use the "View/Modify" link in your confirmation email or the "Already Registered?" link on the dbt Summit website, and you'll find the option to cancel your registration.
Please note our cancellation policy:
- 100% refunds on cancellations until 11:59 PM PDT August 15, 2026
- After August 15, 2026, no refunds or cancellations.
- After August 15, 2026 you are still able to transfer your registration if needed.
### Be part of what's next
Join data leaders and practitioners at dbt Summit for three days of ideas, skills, and shared progress.
[Get tickets](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/registration/start)
---
---
title: "dbt Summit in Las Vegas | Register now"
description: "dbt Summit is the world’s largest gathering of dbt community members. Join data leaders, and practitioners to shape the future of data & AI."
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/registration/start"
---
# Register for dbt Summit
Join the data community for three days of real-world talks, hands-on learning, and connection.
---
---
title: "Agenda | dbt Summit"
description: "Full session schedule for dbt Summit 2026."
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions"
---
# Agenda
Four days. Dozens of sessions. One place to learn, build, and connect. Explore the sessions and level up your Summit experience.
## Keynotes
## Agenda FAQs
### What does the cost of the dbt Summit ticket include?
The cost of this ticket includes access to all keynotes, general sessions, breakouts, meals, and social activities such as the after party and more!
### How do I cancel my registration?
Use the 'View/Modify' link in your confirmation email or the 'Already Registered?' link on the dbt Summit website, and you'll find the option to cancel your registration.
Please note our cancellation policy:
- 100% refunds on cancellations until 11:59 PM PDT August 15, 2026
- After August 15, 2026, no refunds or cancellations.
- After August 15, 2026 you are still able to transfer your registration if needed.
### Is there special pricing available?
Discounted rates are available for students and bootstrappers ($595) and for government, education, and nonprofit attendees ($795). If you have additional questions about pricing, please reach out to the team at [dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com](mailto:dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com).
### Is group pricing available?
Groups of 3 or more automatically receive 25% off standard pricing, bringing each ticket to $1,421.
While this discount is applied at checkout, please note that group pricing cannot be applied retroactively or combined with other discounts (such as Government, Student, or Nonprofit rates).
### How do I transfer my registration?
Use the 'View/Modify' link in your confirmation email or the 'Already Registered?' link on the dbt Summit website. You'll have the option to transfer your registration. To complete a transfer, you'll need the name and email address for the new attendee.
Please note, transferring a registration transfers the entire registration, including sessions, purchased add-ons, and payment. Payment methods cannot be modified during a transfer. If this option is not available, please contact [dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com](mailto:dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com).
You can transfer your registration through the platform until September 15, 2026.
### Ready to join us?
Join data leaders and practitioners at dbt Summit for three days of ideas, skills, and shared progress.
[Register now](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/registration)
---
---
title: "Speakers | dbt Summit"
description: "Meet the speakers at dbt Summit 2026."
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers"
---
# Speakers
Meet the builders, thinkers, and teams shaping the future of data.
### Ready to join us?
Join data leaders and practitioners at dbt Summit for three days of ideas, skills, and shared progress.
[Register now](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/registration)
---
---
title: "Sponsors | dbt Summit"
description: "Meet the sponsors of dbt Summit 2026."
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sponsors"
---
# Sponsors
Discover the partners supporting innovation across analytics, AI, and engineering.
### Ready to join us?
Join data leaders and practitioners at dbt Summit for three days of ideas, skills, and shared progress.
[Register now](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/registration)
---
---
title: "Terms and Conditions | dbt Summit 2026"
description: "Read the terms and conditions for dbt Summit 2026, including health and safety guidelines, participation terms, refunds, and transfers."
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/terms-and-conditions"
---
## dbt Summit 2026 Terms & Conditions
- I understand and agree that dbt Labs has an interest and obligation in protecting the health and well-being of dbt Labs staff, venue staff, and other attendees.
- Any in-person gathering or meeting holds inherent risks, including exposure to COVID-19, and other serious, easily-transmittable viruses or diseases (an "Illness").
- I agree to not attend any dbt Labs event if I know or suspect I have an illness, have a positive test or diagnosis of an Illness, or had recent exposure to an individual who is/may be infected with an Illness.
- When attending in person, I will take necessary precautions in accordance with local and national health guidelines and regulations.
- The building or venue may have public health-related requirements in place, and I agree to abide by those requirements when disclosed by the venue.
### Terms of Participation
- My attendance at this event is my consent to the terms of this Health and Safety Policy and Terms of Participation and my agreement to abide by them.
- I agree to learn more about dbt Labs and dbt Labs-related services, products, news, updates and events. I consent to the information I submit here being used for such purposes by dbt Labs, and my company name may be shared with select partners. To later opt-out or ask privacy/information questions, I will contact either the contact in the last bullet point (for privacy questions) or [strategicevents@dbtlabs.com](mailto:strategicevents@dbtlabs.com) (for all other questions related to the event).
- dbt Labs does not sell, share or disclose registrant personal information to third parties except to the extent dbt Labs uses or shares registrant personal information with dbt Labs affiliates and/or trusted business partners, including (without limitation) event agents and providers for purposes of planning, hosting, and administering the Event, communicating about Event partner products, services, news, and events, and marketing by dbt Labs and/or its Event partners.
- By registering and/or attending, I consent to dbt Labs' sharing records of my image, voice, and participation in discussions/talks/networking (for the purpose of facilitating remote attendance, website accuracy, participation, marketing, and education for participants with health, travel or other constraints).
- I agree that dbt Labs, by hosting an event, has not undertaken any obligation to provide an environment free of any Illness, cannot reasonably enforce public health-related requirements, relies on attendees' compliance, and cannot assume liability for the behavior of attendees, venue staff, or third parties.
- I agree that I will review and conform my behavior to all applicable laws and the dbt Labs Community Code of Conduct at the event found at [https://www.getdbt.com/community/code-of-conduct/](https://www.getdbt.com/community/code-of-conduct/) (the law and Code of Conduct, collectively the "Code") and, without prior permission, will refrain from recording, photographing, and/or publishing the likenesses, opinions, personal data, and slides/content of other attendees, speakers and staff.
- To the extent I use the internet service provided for the event by either dbt Labs, the venue or their contractor, I agree to follow these Acceptable Internet Use Guidelines:
- I will use the service responsibly;
- I will comply with industry standards and all applicable laws and regulations; and
- I acknowledge and understand that I am strictly prohibited from intrusive, illegal, unethical, or disruptive activities including but not limited to unauthorized access to systems, distribution of harmful, malicious or intrusive software, interference with another attendee's use of the network, surveillance, recording or tracking of users, reverse engineering the security features, and accessing, uploading or sharing illegal content.
- dbt Labs reserves the right to monitor and record network activity.
- I understand and agree that badge sharing is not allowed. I will not permit my badge to be used by any other individual other than myself.
- I understand and agree that this is a professional event, and I will be professional at all times. I acknowledge that my failure to comply with the Code and these Terms and Conditions, as determined by dbt Labs in its sole discretion, may result in certain lawful actions deemed necessary by dbt Labs and depending on the circumstances. I agree to comply with any requested actions that may include, but not be limited to, request(s) to conform my behavior, requirement(s) that I leave the premises for part or the remainder of the Event, report(s) to security and/or law enforcement, and/or bans from future dbt Labs events. I also understand and agree that dbt Labs may share the violation, circumstances, and decision taken with authorities, venue personnel, security, sponsors, trusted partners, affiliates, my employer, and any other person as dbt Labs determines in its sole discretion. I understand and agree to fully cooperate with any action taken by dbt Labs, and I understand that dbt Labs will not provide a refund if my behavior results in missing part or all of the remaining Event.
- While we actively support the broader ecosystem around dbt Labs, it is not the right business decision for us to allow directly competitive companies to market to or sell to our users and customers at events that we invest very significant company resources into hosting. We reserve the right in our sole discretion at any time to prohibit certain competitive behavior and/or the attendance or sponsoring of dbt Labs events by directly competitive companies.
- To maintain a fair and professional environment for our sponsors and attendees, dbt Labs reserves the right to prohibit any non-sponsoring company or individual from distributing flyers, leaflets, marketing materials, conducting product demonstrations, or otherwise publicly promoting their products or services within the Event venue.
- dbt Labs agrees to refund the full price paid for tickets ("Refund") if a registrant cancels in the attendee portal prior to August 15, 2026. Any refund will be returned to the original card used for payment. Other than a request for Refund received prior to such date, no cancellations after August 15, 2026, are eligible for any full or partial refunds. For Refunds prior to August 15, 2026,
- Log back into your attendee portal to cancel (or make changes) to your ticket order.
- Non-attendance does not constitute cancellation.
- Cancellations after August 15, 2026 cannot be accepted, and no Refunds will be provided thereafter, regardless of attendee portal submission.
- Please remember that canceling or changing your registration has no effect on hotel or other travel arrangements. Aside from the costs of attendance, dbt Labs is not responsible for participants' hotel expenses, meals, and other travel arrangements, and these expenses cannot be refunded under any circumstances.
- You may transfer your registration up until September 15, 2026, including your ticket, trainings or certifications by:
- Inputting the change in the attendee portal; or
- in written request to [dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com](mailto:dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com) by providing us the following accurate and complete information:
- A request to transfer from you to your colleague;
- Original registrant's name, email address, company and title; and
- Colleague's name, email address, company and title.
- Transfers are further subject to the limitations that follow. Once the transfer is completed, no more transfers may be completed for that registration, even if the original registrant wants to undo the transfer. A maximum of one (1) substitution per original registrant is allowed (if more than 1 week prior to the event), and no substitutions may be made after that date or to additional registrants beyond the original transfer. In the event the request to transfer registration is not properly completed by one of the foregoing methods prior to September 15, 2026, dbt Labs is under no obligation to allow the transfer, and will not provide refunds after August 15, 2026. Only the registration may be transferred between colleagues but dbt Labs has no liability for hotel reservations. New registrants, if any, will be required to log into the attendee portal and book their own reservations at one of our event hotels. We do not guarantee that hotel rooms can be cancelled or used by a person other than the person who originally booked the room.
- A registration confirmation email will be sent to the registrant (including a new registrant pursuant to a transfer, if applicable) once registration is confirmed.
- I understand that by registering for this event I will automatically be entered for the dbt Labs, LLC DBT SUMMIT SUPER EARLY BIRD SWAG PROMOTION RAFFLE. More details on the official rules [here](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/raffle-terms-and-conditions). If I'd like to opt out of being entered into the raffle, I will need to email the organizers directly at [dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com](mailto:dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com).
- I agree that hosting an event does not give rise to dbt Labs being liable for any damages whatsoever in any form, including but not limited to consequential, indirect, or special damages. I agree to voluntarily assume all risk related to attending the event, including, but not limited to, exposure to Illness and agree to not hold dbt Labs, its staff or its venues liable for any Illness or harms aside from those resulting from dbt Labs' gross negligence or willful misconduct.
- I understand that if I have privacy-related questions or concerns, want to request deletion of my personal information, or exercise any other privacy rights, I may contact dbt Labs at [privacy@dbtlabs.com](mailto:privacy@dbtlabs.com).
- Please direct any questions or concerns (including about attendee portal functioning) to [dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com](mailto:dbtsummit@dbtlabs.com).
---
---
title: "Training and certification | dbt Summit"
description: "Level up your skills at dbt Summit with hands-on training and industry-recognized certifications for data engineers, analytics engineers, and platform leaders."
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/training-and-certification"
---
# Level up your skills
Register for dbt Summit and get free access to training and certification sessions.
## Training
Hands-on learning designed to help you build real skills, deepen your dbt expertise, and apply modern data workflows with confidence.
## Certifications
Validate your expertise through industry-recognized dbt certification exams designed for modern data practitioners and platform leaders.
### Ready to join us?
Join data leaders and practitioners at dbt Summit for three days of ideas, skills, and shared progress.
[Register now](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/registration/start)
---
---
title: "{SOLD OUT} Becoming a dbt Architect"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-becoming-a-dbt-architect"
sessionType: "Training add-on"
---
# {SOLD OUT} Becoming a dbt Architect
**When:** Tuesday, September 15, 2026, 8:30 AM PDT – 12:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Brera 5
**Type:** Training add-on
Doors open 30 minutes before each session. If you're not seated by the published start time, your seat is released to the waitlist.
This course is designed for platform leaders and technical owners responsible for scaling dbt across teams. You’ll learn practical architecture patterns for secure, maintainable dbt implementations—covering environments, permissions, project structure, and operational workflows that support many contributors. This course aligns to skills assessed in the dbt Architect certification.
After this course, you will be able to:
- Explain how dbt integrates with your data platform and git provider
- Design environment strategies that support safe promotion to production
- Apply best practices for structuring projects and accounts for scaleIdentify key security and governance controls to support collaboration (access, approvals, and change management)
Prerequisites:
- dbt Fundamentals (or equivalent experience)
What to bring:
- You must bring your own laptop to complete the hands-on exercises
- We will provide any required sandbox environments for dbt and the data platform
Duration: 4 hours
- A valid dbt Summit pass is required to register for trainings and certifications
- Trainings and certifications will take place in-person at dbt Summit only
## Speakers
- Akash Trivedi — Lead Technical Instructor, dbt Labs
- Will Weld — Senior Resident Architect, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "{SOLD OUT} Mastering data quality with dbt"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-mastering-data-quality-with-dbt"
sessionType: "Training add-on"
---
# {SOLD OUT} Mastering data quality with dbt
**When:** Tuesday, September 15, 2026, 9:30 AM PDT – 11:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 6
**Type:** Training add-on
Doors open 30 minutes before each session. If you're not seated by the published start time, your seat is released to the waitlist.
Build a durable data quality practice in dbt—beyond “a few tests.” This course focuses on choosing the right type of test for the job, keeping tests maintainable as a project grows, and adding quality gates (like CI) that prevent bad changes from reaching production. You’ll leave with a practical, reusable approach to testing strategy and enforcement.
After this course, you will be able to:
- Identify which quality technique fits the problem (schema tests, data tests, unit tests, and CI checks)
- Implement a maintainable testing strategy (what to test, where to place tests, and how to avoid brittle patterns)
- Understand CI workflows to catch quality regressions before merge and deploy
Prerequisites:
- dbt Fundamentals
What to bring:
- You must bring your own laptop to complete the hands-on exercises
- We will provide any required sandbox environments for dbt and the data platform.
Duration: 2 hours
- A valid dbt Summit pass is required to register for trainings and certifications
- Trainings and certifications will take place in-person at dbt Summit only
## Speakers
- Carol Ohms — Senior Resident Architect, dbt Labs
- Stephen Thibeault — Senior Resident Architect, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "{SOLD OUT} Operationalize cost visibility in dbt"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-operationalize-cost-visibility-in-dbt"
sessionType: "Training add-on"
---
# {SOLD OUT} Operationalize cost visibility in dbt
**When:** Tuesday, September 15, 2026, 9:30 AM PDT – 11:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Brera 6
**Type:** Training add-on
Doors open 30 minutes before each session. If you're not seated by the published start time, your seat is released to the waitlist.
Learn a practical, repeatable approach to managing analytics costs with dbt. This course focuses on the real-world workflow teams use to control spend: understanding cost drivers, identifying hotspots, establishing team standards, and turning cost signals into an actionable optimization backlog.
After this course, you will be able to:
- Explain common cost drivers in analytics workloads (over-refreshing, inefficient transformations, poorly designed rebuild patterns)
- Apply job design and project patterns that reduce avoidable spend
- Create an operating rhythm for cost management (visibility → prioritization → optimization → measurement)
- Define team agreements that prevent cost regressions (standards, review checks, and ownership)
Prerequisites:
- dbt Fundamentals
What to bring:
- You must bring your own laptop to complete the hands-on exercises
- We will provide any required sandbox environments for dbt and the data platform.
Duration: 2 hours
- A valid dbt Summit pass is required to register for trainings and certifications
- Trainings and certifications will take place in-person at dbt Summit only
## Speakers
- Jessica Stayton — Resident Architect, dbt Labs
- Lucas Silbernagel — Resident Architect, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "{SOLD OUT} Getting started with dbt"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-getting-started-with-dbt"
sessionType: "Training add-on"
---
# {SOLD OUT} Getting started with dbt
**When:** Tuesday, September 15, 2026, 12:30 PM PDT – 4:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Brera 6
**Type:** Training add-on
Doors open 30 minutes before each session. If you're not seated by the published start time, your seat is released to the waitlist.
This is the foundational, hands-on course for practitioners who are new to dbt (or want a structured refresher). You’ll build a small dbt project end-to-end while learning core concepts: modeling, sources, testing, documentation, and deployment.
After this course, you will be able to:
- Explain key dbt concepts (projects, models, DAG, sources, tests, documentation)
- Build a set of models and understand dependencies using the DAG
- Add tests and documentation so others can trust and reuse your work
- Run and deploy dbt workflows on a schedule (and interpret run results)
Prerequisites:
- Intermediate SQL knowledge
What to bring:
- You must bring your own laptop to complete the hands-on exercises
- We will provide any required sandbox environments for dbt and the data platform
Duration: 4 hours
- A valid dbt Summit pass is required to register for trainings and certifications
- Trainings and certifications will take place in-person at dbt Summit only
## Speakers
- Shania Thomas — Senior Technical Instructor, dbt Labs
- David Elliott — Senior Technical Instructor, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "{SOLD OUT} Governed & scalable AI-assisted analytics with dbt"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-governed-and-scalable-ai-assisted-analytics-with-dbt"
sessionType: "Training add-on"
---
# {SOLD OUT} Governed & scalable AI-assisted analytics with dbt
**When:** Tuesday, September 15, 2026, 1:30 PM PDT – 3:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 6
**Type:** Training add-on
Doors open 30 minutes before each session. If you're not seated by the published start time, your seat is released to the waitlist.
AI can accelerate analytics work—but only if it’s governed and reviewable. In this course, you’ll learn practical patterns for enabling AI-assisted workflows in and around dbt without creating new risk. We’ll cover what guardrails to set, how to structure review, and how to keep your analytics codebase and definitions trustworthy as AI usage scales.
After this course, you will be able to:
- Describe where AI helps most in analytics engineering (and where it can introduce risk)
- Apply a review framework for AI-assisted changes (correctness, performance, maintainability, documentation)
- Identify governance decisions needed before scaling AI usage (who can access what context, what outputs are acceptable, how changes get approved)
- Establish team norms that prevent “AI drift” in definitions, naming, and documentation
Prerequisites:
- dbt Fundamentals
- Comfort reviewing SQL changes (even if you’re not writing complex SQL from scratch)
What to bring:
- You must bring your own laptop to complete the hands-on exercises
- We will provide any required sandbox environments for dbt and the data platform
Duration: 2 hours
- A valid dbt Summit pass is required to register for trainings and certifications
- Trainings and certifications will take place in-person at dbt Summit only
## Speakers
- Jessica Stayton — Resident Architect, dbt Labs
- Raini Laughlin — Technical Instructor, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "{SOLD OUT} Certification"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-certification"
sessionType: "Certification add-on"
---
# {SOLD OUT} Certification
**When:** Tuesday, September 15, 2026, 1:30 PM PDT – 4:00 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Brera 4
**Type:** Certification add-on
Doors close at the published start time. Late arrivals cannot be admitted, even if registered.
Get certified at dbt Summit! Choose from two certification exams:
The dbt Analytics Engineering Certification Exam is designed to evaluate your ability to:
- Build, test, and maintain models to make data accessible to others
- Use dbt to apply engineering principles to analytics infrastructure
We recommend that you have at least SQL proficiency and have had 6+ months of experience working in dbt (dbt Core or the dbt platform) before attempting the exam.
The dbt Architect Certification Exam assesses your ability to:
- Design secure, scalable dbt implementations, with a focus on environment orchestration
- Role-based access control
- Integrations with other tools
- Collaborative development workflows aligned with best practices
What to expect with either exam:
- You will be sitting for one attempt at one of the two in-person exams at dbt Summit. You will let the proctor know which certification you are sitting for
- Please arrive on time, this is a closed-door certification, and attendees will not be let in after the doors are closed
What to bring:
- You will need to bring your own laptop to take the exam
Duration: 2 Hours
A valid dbt Summit pass is required to register for trainings and certifications.
Trainings and certifications will take place in-person at dbt Summit only.
---
---
title: "{SOLD OUT} Upgrade to dbt v2"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-upgrade-to-dbt-v2"
sessionType: "Training add-on"
---
# {SOLD OUT} Upgrade to dbt v2
**When:** Tuesday, September 15, 2026, 1:30 PM PDT – 3:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Brera 5
**Type:** Training add-on
Doors open 30 minutes before each session. If you're not seated by the published start time, your seat is released to the waitlist.
dbt v2.0 is here and ready for your projects! Get hands-on training on how you can standardize your projects on the new, more powerful engine that brings richer capabilities for modern development workflows. Enjoy SQL comprehension, column-level lineage, and instant feedback while you work, as well as a more capable foundation for AI-assisted development. In this session, you’ll follow a guided conformance workflow to improve structure, naming, configurations, documentation, and testing—ending with a repeatable checklist you can apply to your own projects to get them ready for dbt v2.
After this lab, you will be able to:
- Identify common project anti-patterns that slow teams down as they scale
- Apply a structured conformance workflow to standardize conventions and reduce friction
- Leave with a conformance checklist your team can adopt for ongoing governance
Prerequisites:
- dbt Fundamentals
What to bring: You must bring your own laptop to complete the exercises. We will provide all other sandbox environments for dbt and a data platform.
Duration: 2 hours
A valid dbt Summit pass is required to register for trainings and certifications. Trainings and certifications will take place in-person at dbt Summit only.
## Speakers
- Tyler Rouze — Senior Resident Architect, dbt Labs
- Ben Butler — Customer Solutions Architect, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "Summit Springboard"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/summit-springboard"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
---
# Summit Springboard
**When:** Tuesday, September 15, 2026, 4:30 PM PDT – 5:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 4
**Type:** Breakout session
New to in-person or just want to get oriented? Start here for an orientationon how to make the most of your dbt Summit. We'll walk through a quick overview, take a tour of the venue, and wrap up in Discovery Hall for the Welcome Reception and the official kickoff the week at dbt Summit.
## Speakers
- Elisha Feliciano — Strategic Events Manager, dbt Labs
- Anikei Allen — Senior Community Manager, dbt Labs
- Anders Swanson — Senior DX Advocate, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "Welcome reception"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/welcome-reception"
sessionType: "Networking"
beyondTheSessions: ["Evening Event"]
---
# Welcome reception
**When:** Tuesday, September 15, 2026, 5:30 PM PDT – 7:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall
**Type:** Networking
**Beyond the sessions:** Evening Event
Join us for the official kickoff of dbt Summit! You'll have the chance to explore the Discovery Hall, check out our amazing network of partners and their activations. Take time to meet new data friends, check things off your passport, and stop by the swag shop. The welcome reception includes beverages & light snacks.
---
---
title: "Everyone's a winner - Welcome Party After Party with Prefect"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/everyones-a-winner-welcome-party-after-party-with-prefect"
sessionType: "Networking"
beyondTheSessions: ["Partner Hosted Event", "Evening Event"]
---
# Everyone's a winner - Welcome Party After Party with Prefect
**When:** Tuesday, September 15, 2026, 8:00 PM PDT – 11:00 PM PDT
**Where:** Alexxa's at Paris Las Vegas
**Type:** Networking
**Beyond the sessions:** Partner Hosted Event, Evening Event
We’ve reached capacity, and the waitlist is growing. If your plans have changed and you can no longer make it, please update your RSVP and select “No” under Attending. That will free your spot for someone on the waitlist.
Prefect is taking over Alexxa's at Paris Las Vegas for night one of dbt Summit 2026. Drinks, food, and nobody is going to walk you through an architecture diagram. Unless you ask. Come enjoy a fun night with Prefect on the Vegas strip!
[Register here](https://luma.com/f3p0etpc)
---
---
title: "Fun run and walk with Sigma"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/fun-run-and-walk-with-sigma"
sessionType: "Networking"
beyondTheSessions: ["Partner Hosted Event"]
---
# Fun run and walk with Sigma
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 6:00 AM PDT – 7:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, dbt Summit registration desk
**Type:** Networking
**Beyond the sessions:** Partner Hosted Event
Start your Wednesday morning at dbt Summit with a fun run/walk along the iconic Las Vegas Strip with a stop at The Sphere — all paces welcome! This is a no-drop event, meaning you’ll have people to run or walk with, no matter your speed. Kickstart your day with good vibes, old and new friends, and fun giveaways from our sponsor, Sigma!
- Run/Walk Registration: 6:00am–6:30am
- Run/Walk: 6:30am–7:30am
Sign the participant waiver prior to run/walk registration [here](https://na2.docusign.net/Member/PowerFormSigning.aspx?PowerFormId=1ee381b6-f552-4ae9-b435-bafa034cc5a6&env=na2&acct=858db9e4-4a6d-48df-954f-84ece3303aac&v=2).
---
---
title: "Breakfast"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/breakfast"
sessionType: "Meals"
beyondTheSessions: ["Meals"]
---
# Breakfast
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 7:30 AM PDT – 8:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall
**Type:** Meals
**Beyond the sessions:** Meals
---
---
title: "Keynote: Level Up"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/keynote-level-up"
sessionType: "Keynote"
---
# Keynote: Level Up
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 9:00 AM PDT – 10:15 AM PDT
**Where:** Chelsea Theater
**Type:** Keynote
Everything starts here. At our opening keynote, you’ll hear how dbt and our users are leveling up to tackle the AI era. Here’s what’s on deck:
- President and co-founder Tristan Handy will share his perspective on how AI is reshaping our industry and why the community that propelled the modern data stack era forward is well-positioned to level up for what comes next
- dbt's product and technical leaders will take the stage to showcase what's next — from purpose-built agentic workflows and trusted AI context to the biggest advancements to the dbt standard in a decade.
- dbt customers and partners will join us to connect the dots between dbt’s vision and product roadmap with real-world customer outcomes
## Speakers
- Tristan Handy — President & Co-founder, Fivetran + dbt Labs
- George Fraser — CEO & Co-founder, Fivetran + dbt Labs
- Dipti Borkar — Vice President, Microsoft IQ & OneLake, Microsoft
- Elias DeFaria — Director, Product Management, dbt Labs
- Jordan Tigani — CEO, MotherDuck
- Pooja Crahen — Senior Manager, Analytics Engineering, Okta
- Russell Spitzer — Principal Software Engineer, Snowflake
- Sam Ferguson — Staff Product Designer, dbt Labs
- Timothy Leonard — Senior Insights Manager, Spotify
- Tyler Pugliese — Staff Solutions Architect, dbt Labs
- Tyson Doberneck — Senior Data Engineer, Obie Insurance
---
---
title: "{SOLD OUT} Certification"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-certification-57fa3bc5"
sessionType: "Certification add-on"
---
# {SOLD OUT} Certification
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 10:45 AM PDT – 1:00 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Brera 4
**Type:** Certification add-on
Doors close at the published start time. Late arrivals cannot be admitted, even if registered.
Get certified at dbt Summit! Choose from two certification exams:
The dbt Analytics Engineering Certification Exam is designed to evaluate your ability to:
- Build, test, and maintain models to make data accessible to others
- Use dbt to apply engineering principles to analytics infrastructure
We recommend that you have at least SQL proficiency and have had 6+ months of experience working in dbt (dbt Core or the dbt platform) before attempting the exam.
The dbt Architect Certification Exam assesses your ability to:
- Design secure, scalable dbt implementations, with a focus on environment orchestration
- Role-based access control
- Integrations with other tools
- Collaborative development workflows aligned with best practices
What to expect with either exam:
- You are sitting for one attempt at one of the two in-person exams at dbt Summit. You will let the proctor know which certification you are sitting for
- Please arrive on time, this is a closed-door certification, and attendees will not be let in after the doors are closed
What to bring:
- You will need to bring your own laptop to take the exam
Duration: 2 Hours
A valid dbt Summit pass is required to register for trainings and certifications.
Trainings and certifications will take place in-person at dbt Summit only.
---
---
title: "From 72 minutes to 5: how one environment variable powers two dbt pipelines"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-72-minutes-to-5-how-one-environment-variable-powers-two-dbt-pipelines"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Analytics engineering best practices"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# From 72 minutes to 5: how one environment variable powers two dbt pipelines
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 11:00 AM PDT – 11:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 3
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Analytics engineering best practices
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
This session walks through a single dbt environment variable that controls two completely different pipelines from one codebase: a "live" mode that filters to only active records and runs every five minutes for real-time dashboards, and a "historical" mode for full analytical workloads. Same model, two outputs.
The pattern is industry-agnostic. If your team needs both real-time operations and historical analytics from the same business logic, whether in e-commerce, fintech, SaaS, or logistics, this applies to you.
We built it for a health network running near real-time operational dashboards across nine hospitals on fragmented legacy systems. The results: a 93.6% runtime reduction and 95%+ less data processed per run on the same warehouse size, design beating brute force rather than a bigger bill, along with a measurable improvement in median operational response times and a single source of truth for the teams that depend on it.
You'll see the actual code, the two DAG propagation strategies, and the dbt platform job configuration that make it work.
## Speakers
- Maksim Romanchuk — Data Analytics Engineer, WMCHealth
- Paul Pedrozo — Data Analytics Engineer, Westchester Medical Center
---
---
title: "From hard lessons to AI-ready analytics: Fanatics’ journey with dbt and Snowflake"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-hard-lessons-to-ai-ready-analytics-fanatics-journey-with-dbt-and-snowflake"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Powering AI-ready data"]
---
# From hard lessons to AI-ready analytics: Fanatics’ journey with dbt and Snowflake
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 11:00 AM PDT – 11:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 7
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Powering AI-ready data
Building a modern data platform rarely goes exactly as planned the first time. In this session, Luke Kranz from Fanatics will share practical lessons from Fanatics’ journey with dbt and Snowflake—from early challenges around warehouse architecture, permissions, and platform setup to the patterns the team uses today.
Luke will also explore how Fanatics is taking its dbt-powered data foundation a step further by feeding trusted data and business context into Snowflake Cortex and Snowflake Intelligence/Copilot-style experiences for executives, helping bring governed analytics closer to business decision-makers.
Attendees will leave with a candid look at the architectural decisions, mistakes, and lessons that shaped Fanatics’ environment, along with practical considerations for teams looking to build a scalable data foundation that can support both traditional analytics and emerging AI use cases."
## Speakers
- Luke Kranz — Senior Staff AI Engineer, Fanatics Betting & Gaming
---
---
title: "No drift allowed: LangChain's context playbook with Hex"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/no-drift-allowed-langchains-context-playbook-with-hex"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Analytics engineering best practices"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["Technology"]
---
# No drift allowed: LangChain's context playbook with Hex
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 11:00 AM PDT – 11:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 2
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Analytics engineering best practices
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** Technology
LangChain layered dbt, semantic models, guides into a context stack that turned their Hex agent into a reliable source of truth for the entire org.
In this session, they'll walk through how analytics engineers can own context without owning every question:
- How context flows from dbt → BigQuery → Hex's semantic model and workspace guides
- Using endorsements to signal trust and guard against ungoverned data
- Building a feedback loop with Context Studio to surface gaps and continuously improve context
## Speakers
- Emily Hawkins — Analytics Engineering Manager, LangChain
- Logan Cochran — Analytics Engineer, LangChain
---
---
title: "YAML doesn't know why: building the business context your agents are missing"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/yaml-doesnt-know-why-building-the-business-context-your-agents-are-missing"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Building agentic data workflows"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Basic", "Intermediate", "Expert"]
persona: ["Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# YAML doesn't know why: building the business context your agents are missing
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 11:00 AM PDT – 11:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 8
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Building agentic data workflows
**Knowledge Level:** Basic, Intermediate, Expert
**Persona:** Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
In agentic data workflows, most failures come down to lack of context. The dbt MCP server and skills make agents genuinely capable, YAML files and the dbt Semantic Layer give them fluency in your data model, but sessions still depend on constant prompting, and agents keep getting things wrong in ways that look right. The context they are missing is organizational: business rules that evolve, campaign decisions that shift acquisition patterns, product changes that alter user behavior. Knowledge that lives in the engineer's spec, the meeting notes, the Slack thread, but never reaches the agent session that needs it.
The talk covers an attempt to capture that context through a living knowledge base distilled from organizational artifacts. We'll cover what went wrong, and what it takes to build a context layer that multiple agents can use and contribute to, that stays structured, complete, and current as the business evolves, making context compound in your favor instead of against you.
## Speakers
- Pedro Heyerdahl — Head of Data & Analytics, Kilo Code
---
---
title: "The semantic layer is dead. Long live the semantic layer!"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-semantic-layer-is-dead-long-live-the-semantic-layer"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["dbt Product"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
---
# The semantic layer is dead. Long live the semantic layer!
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 11:00 AM PDT – 11:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 4
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** dbt Product
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
Semantic layers used to be boring. A solved problem. The thing you built years ago for your dashboards. Then agents showed up.
Suddenly everyone is trying to design what an AI system knows, how it reasons, and what it can trust. They're calling this context engineering, and it's what you've already been doing for years without a name. You weren't just defining metrics. You were building the ERD of your business.
In this session, we’ll cover why your semantic layer is now the most load-bearing piece of your AI strategy. We'll show where MetricFlow and the dbt Semantic Layer are heading, and how the dbt MCP server turns your governed metrics into context your agents can actually use. We’ll also share what teams are actually unlocking when they centralize context at the transformation layer: fewer AI hallucinations, lower token costs, and BI that doesn't contradict itself.
## Speakers
- Zach Mandell — Staff Product Manager, dbt Labs
- Toby Mao — Director, Engineering, Fivetran
---
---
title: "Data for everyone 360: Building empathy and alignment across the data stack"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/data-for-everyone-360-building-empathy-and-alignment-across-the-data-stack"
sessionType: "Roundtable"
track: ["dbt at scale"]
---
# Data for everyone 360: Building empathy and alignment across the data stack
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 11:15 AM PDT – 12:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 1
**Type:** Roundtable
**Track:** dbt at scale
Step into a dynamic, interactive session where you'll experience the data transformation journey from multiple angles: Data Engineer, Manager, Analytics VP, and Chief Data Officer. This immersive tabletop exercise isn’t your typical panel or demo—it’s a high-empathy, scenario-driven experience designed to build cross-role understanding and alignment across the modern data stack. Each scene drops you into a real-world challenge—whether it's data trust issues, managing cost pressures, or preparing for an AI initiative—and forces a go/no-go decision with your peers. You’ll explore how your choices impact others across the org, from the technical trenches to the boardroom. Whether you're a practitioner, leader, or executive, this session will help you see data not just as pipelines and dashboards, but as a 360-degree opportunity to drive business change. Walk away with a clear picture of the capabilities your team needs (without naming products) and a roadmap for building champions across your organization.
## Speakers
- Joe Dabrowski — Vice President, Productivity, dbt Labs
- Britton Stamper — Field AI Enablement Director, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "Accelerating and optimizing your deployment with dbt v2 and dbt State"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/accelerating-and-optimizing-your-deployment-with-dbt-v2-and-dbt-state"
sessionType: "Hands-on lab"
---
# Accelerating and optimizing your deployment with dbt v2 and dbt State
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 11:15 AM PDT – 12:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Nolita
**Type:** Hands-on lab
Learn how dbt is evolving with the next-generation engine powered by Rust. In this hands-on session, you'll explore how dbt v2 has better performance, enables richer SQL parsing, and sets the stage for future enhancements like better refactoring tools and faster development workflows.
After this lab, you will be able to:
- Describe what dbt v2 changes (and what stays the same) in day-to-day dbt development.
- Solve analytics engineering problems in a dbt v2-enabled environment and interpret results.
- Predict how changes in your model code and source data will influence runs when dbt State is enabled.
Prerequisites:
- dbt Fundamentals
What to bring:
- You must bring your own laptop to complete the hands-on exercises.
- We will provide any required sandbox environments for dbt and the data platform.
Duration: 90 minutes
## Speakers
- Faith McKenna — Manger, Technical Instruction, dbt Labs
- Lucas Silbernagel — Resident Architect, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "How to build a successful data career"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/how-to-build-a-successful-data-career"
sessionType: "Peer exchange"
track: ["Analytics engineering best practices"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Basic"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# How to build a successful data career
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 11:15 AM PDT – 12:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 6
**Type:** Peer exchange
**Track:** Analytics engineering best practices
**Knowledge Level:** Basic
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
Data careers are among the fastest-growing roles across global industries. With expectations shifting due to AI and cost pressure, staying career-ready can be more challenging than ever.
In this peer exchange, we will draw on our collective experience in competency matrices, cross-industry transitions, and personal branding to offer a practical roadmap for building a lasting career. Through group activities and conversation, we will explore questions like “Which data skills feel most durable as AI changes expectations for the role?”, “What interview question helped you avoid a bad fit?”, and “How do you make your impact visible and transferable across teams or companies?” This peer exchange is a practical, story-driven pattern swap for building career momentum without defaulting to “just become a manager.”
## Speakers
- Millie Symns — Senior Business Intelligence Analyst, Justworks
- Bruno Lima — Lead Data Engineer, phData
- Silja Märdla — Head of Analytics Engineering, Bolt
---
---
title: "Your dbt models deserve better data"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/your-dbt-models-deserve-better-data"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["Analytics engineering best practices"]
---
# Your dbt models deserve better data
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 11:30 AM PDT – 11:45 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** Analytics engineering best practices
Modern data teams shouldn't have to choose between open architecture and operational simplicity.In this lightning session, we'll explore how Fivetran is helping teams move beyond pipeline maintenance toward an open, AI-ready data foundation. See how automated data movement, Open Data Infrastructure, and Fivetran's Managed Data Lake Service can make reliable data available in open architectures, while dbt transforms that data into trusted, business-ready data products.The result: less time managing infrastructure, more architectural flexibility, and a data foundation built for analytics and AI.
## Speakers
- Niraj Vora — Principal Sales Engineer, Enterprise, Fivetran
- Ana Zapata — Senior Sales Engineer, Enterprise, Fivetran
---
---
title: "Lunch"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/lunch"
sessionType: "Meals"
beyondTheSessions: ["Meals"]
---
# Lunch
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 11:30 AM PDT – 1:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall
**Type:** Meals
**Beyond the sessions:** Meals
---
---
title: "A practitioner's guide to federated dbt Mesh at scale with Data Project Factory"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/a-practitioners-guide-to-federated-dbt-mesh-at-scale-with-data-project-factory"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["dbt at scale"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate", "Expert"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# A practitioner's guide to federated dbt Mesh at scale with Data Project Factory
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 12:00 PM PDT – 12:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 2
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** dbt at scale
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate, Expert
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
Scaling data analytics at Kramp was once severely bottlenecked by a traditional, centralized Enterprise Data Warehouse model where a central Data Office owned all infrastructure and end-to-end business logic. This capacity deficit led to endless queues, massive technical debt, and a chaotic "Wild West" of custom BigQuery Scheduled Queries running under personal user credentials.
Learn how Kramp’s data team removed bottlenecks, reduced domain provisioning from five working days to one, and drove governed scale with federated dbt Mesh across 25+ data projects and 50+ developers. We’ll show you how we built a "Data Project Factory”, an internal, automated GitOps engine that provisions a fully isolated, secure, and production-ready dbt stack, so you can roll out data quality gates and workflows at scale.
## Speakers
- Trang Trinh — Senior Data Engineer, Kramp
---
---
title: "The next wave of data infrastructure is in the Lake"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-next-wave-of-data-infrastructure-is-in-the-lake"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["dbt Product"]
persona: ["Data leaders"]
---
# The next wave of data infrastructure is in the Lake
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 12:00 PM PDT – 12:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 4
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** dbt Product
**Persona:** Data leaders
The modern data stack got you here. It won't get you to where AI agents need to operate.
Vendor lock-in caps what your data can do: AI agents can only see what one platform exposes, adding new tools means another integration project your team doesn’t have time for, and switching compute vendors means tearing out the floor. Open Data Infrastructure (ODI) is the next evolution: not a rip-and-replace, but a leveling-up for the age of AI.
The ODI foundation starts with landing data in open formats like Iceberg, in object storage you control, so you own your data outright. No closed architecture can hold it hostage. That ownership is what makes everything downstream flexible: the right compute engine for any job, tools you can swap without rebuilding pipelines, one source of truth every team and agent can trust.
You'll leave this session with a framework for building open, portable, and AI-ready infrastructure with Fivetran + dbt.
## Speakers
- Russell Christopher — Sr. Director, Product Management, dbt Labs
- Casey Karst — Principal Product Manager, Fivetran
---
---
title: "Ship AI agents like tables: dbt materializations for Snowflake CoWork"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/ship-ai-agents-like-tables-dbt-materializations-for-snowflake-cowork"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Building agentic data workflows"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries", "Retail", "Technology"]
---
# Ship AI agents like tables: dbt materializations for Snowflake CoWork
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 12:00 PM PDT – 12:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 3
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Building agentic data workflows
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries, Retail, Technology
At Under Armour, we deploy Snowflake Intelligence agents Cortex Agents, Semantic Views, and Cortex Search Services entirely through dbt Cloud. We wrote custom dbt materializations that let us ship AI objects the same way we ship tables: through pull requests, code review, and environment promotion.
Every agent has a PR history. RBAC grants run through post-hooks. dbt's DAG traces lineage from raw data through transformed models to the agents sitting on top. When a semantic view changes, we know which agents are affected before we merge. This talk covers how we built the custom materializations, the create-or-alter deployment logic, and how our data team owns the full AI layer without a separate deployment process. You'll leave with a practical pattern for making AI deployments reproducible, auditable, and CI/CD-native using dbt.
## Speakers
- Stanley Bathina — Sr Data Platform Engineer, Under Armour
- Ryan Ballman — Senior Lead, Data Platform Engineer, Under Armour
---
---
title: "How to build governed agentic analytics on Amazon Redshift with the dbt Semantic Layer"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/how-to-build-governed-agentic-analytics-on-amazon-redshift-with-the-dbt-semantic-layer"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Powering AI-ready data"]
---
# How to build governed agentic analytics on Amazon Redshift with the dbt Semantic Layer
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 12:00 PM PDT – 12:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 8
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Powering AI-ready data
Every data team has seen it: an agent confidently reports a metric, having joined the wrong tables and invented a definition no one in the business would recognize. The problem isn't the model. It's that the agent had no governed context to work from.
This session wires the dbt MCP server and the Amazon Redshift MCP Server into one architecture. Metric definitions live in the dbt Semantic Layer. MetricFlow compiles them into governed SQL. The Redshift MCP Server executes it read-only, discovering the cluster for you — so the agent never authors a query, it resolves one.
We'll demo this live: one business question in, one answer out, with a citation that traces back to the dbt model that produced it and the tests that passed on it.
Built for teams running dbt on the dbt platform against Redshift. You'll leave with three things: the reference architecture, working code you can deploy on AWS, and a clear read on which parts of your stack have to be governed before an agent touches them.
## Speakers
- Neela Kulkarni — AWS Solutions Architect, Amazon
- Venkatesh Aravamudan — Senior Partner Solutions Architect, Amazon
---
---
title: "Testing, 1, 2, 3: Catching silent data failures beyond dbt tests"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/testing-1-2-3-catching-silent-data-failures-beyond-dbt-tests"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["Analytics engineering best practices"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# Testing, 1, 2, 3: Catching silent data failures beyond dbt tests
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 12:00 PM PDT – 12:20 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** Analytics engineering best practices
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
Your dbt tests are all green. Your data is wrong anyway.
dbt tests are great at catching failures you already know how to describe: uniqueness issues, unexpected nulls, referential integrity problems, and other explicit assertions. But some of the most painful production failures are the ones no rule anticipated: a row count that quietly halves, data that is stale but still “valid,” or a metric that drifts enough to mislead a dashboard while passing every test.
I’ll share a practical framework for drawing the line between dbt tests and production monitoring: which checks belong in the transformation layer, which signals need observability outside it, and how the two work together. We’ll look at examples such as freshness, row-count anomalies, coverage shifts, and drift detection.
You’ll leave knowing how to decide what to test, what to monitor, and how to catch silent failures without turning every edge case into a brittle pass/fail rule.
## Speakers
- Divyakumar Savla — Research Data Analyst, Datadog
---
---
title: "Dismantling the vault: scaling to a data mesh during a 5x merger"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dismantling-the-vault-scaling-to-a-data-mesh-during-a-5x-merger"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Data modernization & emerging architectures"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate", "Expert"]
persona: ["Data leaders"]
relevantIndustry: ["Technology"]
---
# Dismantling the vault: scaling to a data mesh during a 5x merger
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 12:00 PM PDT – 12:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 7
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Data modernization & emerging architectures
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate, Expert
**Persona:** Data leaders
**Relevant Industry:** Technology
What happens when a rock-solid data architecture becomes your biggest bottleneck? Axway's data services team relied on a centralized Data Vault on dbt Core to manage 15+ SaaS applications, a highly auditable foundation. Then Axway merged with SBS, scaling from 1,000 to 5,000+ employees overnight. Simultaneously, domains like Marketing and R&D demanded autonomy to build AI-driven data products. The centralized team couldn't keep up.
The solution: a pivot to data mesh and a migration from dbt Core to the dbt platform to safely decentralize ownership. This session gives you the practical playbook: recognizing when a centralized model holds back business speed, the steps to migrate from dbt Core to the dbt platform under merger pressure, and how to govern a mesh by leveraging the dbt platform's cross-project references and data contracts to empower 5,000+ employees without creating data chaos.
## Speakers
- Zhen Xing — Data Architect / Data Engineer, 74software
---
---
title: "Teaching dbt Wizard to write code like your team"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/teaching-dbt-wizard-to-write-code-like-your-team"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["AI and agentic analytics"]
---
# Teaching dbt Wizard to write code like your team
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 12:30 PM PDT – 12:50 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** AI and agentic analytics
Everyone's answer to inconsistent AI output is a better prompt. Prompts are the wrong layer — they're per-person, per-session, and they disappear the moment the conversation ends. Every team already has conventions: naming standards, testing and logic rules, and style guides. The fix for output that doesn't look like yours was never a better AI model, it was writing your standards down somewhere they get used, which is exactly what Agent Skills are, and what dbt Wizard reads before it writes a line of your code.
## Speakers
- Sara Gawlinski — Technical Product Marketing Manager, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "dbt+Fabric: analytics engineering at enterprise scale"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dbtfabric-analytics-engineering-at-enterprise-scale"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["Delivering business outcomes"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Basic"]
persona: ["Data leaders"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# dbt+Fabric: analytics engineering at enterprise scale
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 1:00 PM PDT – 1:20 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** Delivering business outcomes
**Knowledge Level:** Basic
**Persona:** Data leaders
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
Join Microsoft and dbt for a fireside chat on how leading enterprises are scaling analytics engineering with the combined power of dbt and Microsoft Fabric. Learn how organizations are modernizing their data estates, building trusted data products, and enabling self-service analytics through a unified, AI-ready data platform.
We'll explore real-world strategies for data modeling, governance, data quality, and operational efficiency, along with lessons learned from teams running analytics at enterprise scale. Whether you're just starting your analytics engineering journey or looking to optimize an existing practice, you'll leave with practical insights on how dbt and Fabric can help your organization deliver trusted data faster and drive greater business impact.
## Speakers
- Rakesh Krishnan — Principal PM Lead, Microsoft Fabric, Microsoft
- Nina Anderson — Senior Manager, Partner Solutions Architecture, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "Open source tea leaves: Reading Iceberg’s proposed future"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/open-source-tea-leaves-reading-icebergs-proposed-future"
sessionType: "Peer exchange"
track: ["Data modernization & emerging architectures"]
---
# Open source tea leaves: Reading Iceberg’s proposed future
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 1:15 PM PDT – 2:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 6
**Type:** Peer exchange
**Track:** Data modernization & emerging architectures
Apache Iceberg is a paradox: when it’s working best, you might not even know you’re using it, let alone how it works. It’s been declared the winner of the table format wars, yet questions about its future and mainstream adoption persist. How do you make sense of both?
In this peer discussion session, we’ll look for clues in the proposals shaping Iceberg’s possible futures. You’ll join a small group to read a proposal, unpack the problem it aims to solve, and debate its trade-offs. What do these changes reveal about where Iceberg works well today—and where new demands are pushing its limits?
Together, we’ll use those concrete design choices to examine a bigger question: how might Iceberg evolve to support the workloads, expectations, and pressures of the AI era?
## Speakers
- Anders Swanson — Senior DX Advocate, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "How to have ideas"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/how-to-have-ideas"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Building agentic data workflows"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
---
# How to have ideas
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 1:15 PM PDT – 1:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 4
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Building agentic data workflows
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
I have been reading
some poems
that were on
wikipedia
even though
I should've been
writing
an abstract
Forgive me
they were affecting
and now
I have an idea
## Speakers
- Benn Stancil — Cofounder and Chief Analytics Officer, Mode
---
---
title: "Sweetwater's proactive data observability playbook with Datadog"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sweetwaters-proactive-data-observability-playbook-with-datadog"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Analytics engineering best practices"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["Other"]
---
# Sweetwater's proactive data observability playbook with Datadog
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 1:15 PM PDT – 1:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 8
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Analytics engineering best practices
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** Other
How do you convince an entire organization to trust your process for consolidating disjointed, siloed data? The harder question is: what happens when trust starts to erode because of the consequences of that same disjointed data? On the surface, everything seems functional, but our analytics team at Sweetwater was dealing with issues like stale data in reports and no way to know until it escalated.
We'll share how we paired dbt with Datadog to build proactive observability into our pipeline and catch problems before stakeholders do. You'll hear how we caught a long-running script delaying order updates before anyone noticed, and how adopting dbt Mesh gave departments enough ownership to ease the cultural transition. You'll leave with an honest look at the organizational and technical tradeoffs that come with centralization, and a practical model for building trust through observability.
## Speakers
- Daniel Gonzalez — Analytics Engineer Tech Lead, Sweetwater Sound
- Derek Andres — Analytics Engineering Tech Lead, Sweetwater
---
---
title: "A nonprofit's journey: we walked so dbt could run"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/a-nonprofits-journey-we-walked-so-dbt-could-run"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Data modernization & emerging architectures"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Basic"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["Other"]
---
# A nonprofit's journey: we walked so dbt could run
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 1:15 PM PDT – 1:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 7
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Data modernization & emerging architectures
**Knowledge Level:** Basic
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** Other
What happens when a scrappy, tactical SQL warehouse meets its ceiling? For our nonprofit, it meant rethinking everything: from a monolithic, waterfall SQL setup where adding a single new table was a major undertaking, to a dbt-powered data platform built for scale.
This session traces the journey: what we learned, what we're still figuring out, and why the modularity and reusability of dbt is already changing how we ask questions of our data. If your organization is still in the walking phase, this one is for you.
## Speakers
- Kensly Alexander — Director Data Stewardship & Architecture, Planned Parenthood Federation of America
- Ariel Kaplan — Data Architect, Planned Parenthood
---
---
title: "Before the agents: what self-serve analytics actually needs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/before-the-agents-what-self-serve-analytics-actually-needs"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Powering AI-ready data"]
persona: ["Business leaders and executives", "Data leaders"]
---
# Before the agents: what self-serve analytics actually needs
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 1:15 PM PDT – 1:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 3
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Powering AI-ready data
**Persona:** Business leaders and executives, Data leaders
Self-serve analytics tools built with AI look identical from the outside — the agents, the eval harness, the querying workflow all copy easily. What sits underneath does not. In this session, KOHO walks through how sustainable self-serve rests on a business context layer built from real questions and the analytics engineering practice in dbt that makes a metric definition trustworthy in the first place — plus measured results comparing analyst-authored context against AI-generated context on an identical benchmark.
## Speakers
- Célia Bru — Senior Director Data & Analytics, Koho Financial
- Gabriel Gambacorta — Product Manager, AI/ML Engineering, KOHO Financial
---
---
title: "Standardizing insights with the dbt Semantic Layer"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/standardizing-insights-with-the-dbt-semantic-layer"
sessionType: "Hands-on lab"
---
# Standardizing insights with the dbt Semantic Layer
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 1:15 PM PDT – 2:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Nolita
**Type:** Hands-on lab
Learn how to build and consume governed metrics using the dbt Semantic Layer. You’ll start with a dbt project, define semantic models and metrics, validate logic and grain, and then confirm that metrics can be consumed consistently downstream to support a single source of truth.
After this lab, you will be able to:
- Explain how semantic models and metrics support consistent measurement across teams
- Define a metric and validate its underlying logic and grain
- Demonstrate consumption of a governed metric in a downstream workflow (tooling-dependent)
Prerequisites:
- dbt Fundamentals, specifically data modeling and model configurations
What to bring: You must bring your own laptop to complete the hands-on exercises. We will provide any required sandbox environments for dbt and the data platform.
Duration: 90 minutes
## Speakers
- Shania Thomas — Senior Technical Instructor, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "How WHOOP bridges dbt models and Snowflake semantic views"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/how-whoop-bridges-dbt-models-and-snowflake-semantic-views"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Powering AI-ready data"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# How WHOOP bridges dbt models and Snowflake semantic views
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 1:15 PM PDT – 1:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 2
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Powering AI-ready data
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
Analytics teams struggle with business logic scattered across tools. Meanwhile, AI accelerates analysis but can amplify inconsistencies without a governed semantic layer. Defining semantics in YAML enables metrics and relationships to live in version control.
At WHOOP, we wanted semantics defined in YAML alongside our dbt models and deployed directly as Snowflake Semantic Views. No tools existed for this workflow, so we built one using dbt and AI code assistants, without dedicated software engineering resources. The result is snowflake-semantic-tools (SST), an open-source Python package that converts version-controlled YAML into Snowflake Semantic Views.
This session covers why semantic consistency matters, how SST works, and how a small analytics team built a production-grade solution that keeps metric definitions aligned across every tool that touches the data.
## Speakers
- William Tsu — Staff Analytics Engineer, Whoop
- Madhura Pharande — Analytics Engineer, WHOOP
- Sophia Scaglioni Melegari — Senior Data Analyst, WHOOP
---
---
title: "Your dbt tests passed. Why did the metric still move? Making semantic stability a platform guarantee"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/your-dbt-tests-passed-why-did-the-metric-still-move-making-semantic-stability-a-platform-guarantee"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["Building agentic data workflows"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# Your dbt tests passed. Why did the metric still move? Making semantic stability a platform guarantee
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 1:30 PM PDT – 1:50 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** Building agentic data workflows
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
Every test was green — freshness, schema, not_null, accepted_values — and the retention number was still wrong, three separate ways.
None of them were bugs. Each was a decision that looked correct in review: what "retained" means, when a cohort is old enough to score, and which records belong in the cohort at all. Tests validate the structure of an answer. They say nothing about whether it answers the right question — and an agent writing your SQL can't tell the difference either.
Three decisions, what each did to the number, what shipped to fix them, and the gap that's left: those decisions now live somewhere reviewable, but nothing fails the build when meaning changes.
What attendees will learn:
- Why a metric can be confidently wrong while every test passes
- The three semantic decisions in any cohort metric: definition, denominator, membership
- Fixing them in dbt: lifecycle-based definitions, right-censoring flags, identity joins with deterministic dedup
- Why a date-proximity join is a hypothesis, and the one check that exposes it
- What has to be true before you let a generated model define a metric
## Speakers
- Bao Nguyen — Senior Analytics Engineer, Adobe
---
---
title: "Beyond vibe governance: keeping sensitive data out of your agent's context window"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/beyond-vibe-governance-keeping-sensitive-data-out-of-your-agents-context-window"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["Practitioners at the edge"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# Beyond vibe governance: keeping sensitive data out of your agent's context window
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 2:00 PM PDT – 2:20 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** Practitioners at the edge
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
The moment an agent calls a tool — say, running a query through the dbt MCP server — whatever comes back (customer emails, health records, account numbers) lands in the model's context window, and there's no taking it back. Every test, contract, and grant you've written sits upstream of that moment. I've worked with multiple customers who hit this wall: they wanted conversational access to systems full of sensitive data without polluting the context window.
Most teams improvise their way through this: a "don't reveal PII" line in the system prompt, a regex scrubber, hope. We call it vibe governance: relying on prompts to control agents that execute at machine speed, without the judgment a human would apply. The fix isn't a better prompt or skill. It's enforcement between tool output and model context.
This talk is based on my experience with multiple teams: what they tried first, where they stumbled, and where they settled — and how the same pattern turns the dbt MCP server into a governed resource, driven by the sensitivity metadata already living in your dbt project. You've governed your data at rest. The context window is where governance leaks now.
## Speakers
- Wayne Grigsby — Lead Sales Engineer, Prefect
---
---
title: "SQL-first AI: bringing BigQuery AI into your dbt project"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sql-first-ai-bringing-bigquery-ai-into-your-dbt-project"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Powering AI-ready data"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# SQL-first AI: bringing BigQuery AI into your dbt project
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 2:15 PM PDT – 2:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 7
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Powering AI-ready data
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
Join us to learn how to add AI capabilities to your dbt projects using BigQuery AI functions, directly within your SQL workflow. We’ll dive into the practicalities of using AI.GENERATE, AI.CLASSIFY, and AI.SCORE to transform raw logs into structured insights without leaving your SQL workflow. Beyond the syntax, we will cover the operational realities of AI at scale, including optimizing costs with incremental materialization, ensuring data quality with dbt tests, and managing LLM latency. See how pairing BigQuery’s AI power and dbt’s orchestration creates a robust, production-ready framework for the next generation of analytics engineering.
## Speakers
- Alicia Williams — Developer Advocate, Google
- Jobin George — Partner Engineering Lead, Data Cloud, Google
---
---
title: "Open Data Infrastructure in practice: unlock your dbt projects with Apache Iceberg and mesh"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/open-data-infrastructure-in-practice-unlock-your-dbt-projects-with-apache-iceberg-and-mesh"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["dbt Product"]
persona: ["Data leaders"]
---
# Open Data Infrastructure in practice: unlock your dbt projects with Apache Iceberg and mesh
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 2:15 PM PDT – 2:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 4
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** dbt Product
**Persona:** Data leaders
Most dbt projects are "locked into" a single remote data warehouse for three primary reasons:
• Data storage
• SQL dialect
• Difficulty of self-hosting a query engine
With dbt + Apache Iceberg, it's never been easier to "unlock" your project: with data in open table formats (Iceberg), dbt v2's multi-dialect support, and innovations with DuckDB, organizations have a flexible foundation to run their dbt projects across platforms and engines. Join this session to get an overview and demo of how these components come together to deliver Open Data Infrastructure for improved choice, better collaboration, and optimized costs.
## Speakers
- Jack Lowery — Lead Sales Engineer Specialist- Data Lakes and Transformations, Fivetran
- Anna Lee — Software Engineer, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "{SOLD OUT} Certification"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-certification-4be63d2d"
sessionType: "Certification add-on"
---
# {SOLD OUT} Certification
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 2:15 PM PDT – 4:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Brera 4
**Type:** Certification add-on
Doors close at the published start time. Late arrivals cannot be admitted, even if registered.
Get certified at dbt Summit! Choose from two certification exams:
The dbt Analytics Engineering Certification Exam is designed to evaluate your ability to:
- Build, test, and maintain models to make data accessible to others
- Use dbt to apply engineering principles to analytics infrastructure
We recommend that you have at least SQL proficiency and have had 6+ months of experience working in dbt (dbt Core or the dbt platform) before attempting the exam.
The dbt Architect Certification Exam assesses your ability to:
- Design secure, scalable dbt implementations, with a focus on environment orchestration
- Role-based access control
- Integrations with other tools
- Collaborative development workflows aligned with best practices
What to expect with either exam:
- You will be sitting for one attempt at one of the two in-person exams at dbt Summit. You will let the proctor know which certification you are sitting for
- Please arrive on time, this is a closed-door certification, and attendees will not be let in after the doors are closed
What to bring:
- You will need to bring your own laptop to take the exam
Duration: 2 Hours
A valid dbt Summit pass is required to register for trainings and certifications.
Trainings and certifications will take place in-person at dbt Summit only.
---
---
title: "How Fanatics manages dbt metrics with Snowflake CoCo for natural language analytics"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/how-fanatics-manages-dbt-metrics-with-snowflake-coco-for-natural-language-analytics"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Powering AI-ready data"]
persona: ["Data leaders"]
---
# How Fanatics manages dbt metrics with Snowflake CoCo for natural language analytics
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 2:15 PM PDT – 2:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 8
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Powering AI-ready data
**Persona:** Data leaders
In this session, we’ll share how we used dbt to define and govern our metric source of truth using scalable, metadata-driven models (YAML-based definitions, testing, and documentation). We’ll walk through how those curated models power Snowflake Semantic Views, Snowflake Intelligence and Coco, enabling business users to ask trusted, governed questions in natural language.
## Speakers
- Christine Kwon — Senior Director, Data, Fanatics Betting & Gaming
- Brett Pendleton — Analytics Engineering Manager, Fanatics
---
---
title: "AI-powered data development: How agentic SDLC & dbt-MCP transformed our data engineering workflow"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/ai-powered-data-development-how-agentic-sdlc-and-dbt-mcp-transformed-our-data-engineering-workflow"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Building agentic data workflows"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
---
# AI-powered data development: How agentic SDLC & dbt-MCP transformed our data engineering workflow
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 2:15 PM PDT – 2:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 3
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Building agentic data workflows
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
At Zendesk, moving a dbt model between data layers used to require significant manual effort and take hours. Slow model promotion caused teams to build duplicate logic, delayed time to business value, and created reconciliation challenges. We used Agentic SDLC and dbt-MCP to improve this process and significantly increase the productivity of our data engineering team. We will share the process, tools, and lessons learned along the way.
## Speakers
- Suhas Jangoan — Senior Data Engineer, Zendesk
- Ayan Putatunda — Staff Data Engineer, Zendesk
---
---
title: "From dbt Core to Fusion: How CarGurus unlocked dbt State and AI at scale"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-dbt-core-to-fusion-how-cargurus-unlocked-dbt-state-and-ai-at-scale"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Winning with dbt v2"]
persona: ["Data leaders"]
---
# From dbt Core to Fusion: How CarGurus unlocked dbt State and AI at scale
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 2:15 PM PDT – 2:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 2
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Winning with dbt v2
**Persona:** Data leaders
Migrating from dbt Core to the dbt platform was the central element of a complete reimagining of CarGurus' Data Engineering stack. This session covers how we led our 80-person developer team through the full migration: moving from GitHub Server to GitHub Enterprise Cloud, replacing Airflow with dbt platform orchestration, and upgrading our codebase to the dbt Fusion engine—the foundation that made everything else possible. Fusion unlocked cost optimization and AI workflows at scale. dbt State alone cut Snowflake compute costs by 25% and delivered ROI in under 5 months by reprocessing only impacted models. Self-service enablement reclaimed 24,000 working hours in a year. We'll also cover governed AI tooling: the dbt MCP server, agent skills for PR reviews and data triage, and workflows spanning Snowflake, Atlassian, Omni, Glean, and Slack. Attendees will leave with a step-by-step migration playbook and a framework for layering AI on a modern dbt foundation.
## Speakers
- Jordan Morgan — Principal Data Analytics Engineer, CarGurus
- Stephen Thibeault — Senior Resident Architect, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "In the weeds of dbt State"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/in-the-weeds-of-dbt-state"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["dbt product"]
---
# In the weeds of dbt State
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 2:30 PM PDT – 2:50 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** dbt product
dbt State saves you time and money by preventing unnecessary warehouse compute. This lightning talk will help you build a mental model for how it makes its decisions, based on real-world scenarios.
## Speakers
- Joel Labes — Staff DX Advocate, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "Chart clinic: live dashboard teardowns & rebuilds"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/chart-clinic-live-dashboard-teardowns-and-rebuilds"
sessionType: "Roundtable"
track: ["Analytics engineering best practices"]
---
# Chart clinic: live dashboard teardowns & rebuilds
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 2:30 PM PDT – 3:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 1
**Type:** Roundtable
**Track:** Analytics engineering best practices
Put a real dashboard on the screen and we diagnose exactly what’s wrong with it and why, then rebuild it in front of you. Common ailments include the wrong visual metaphor (that should be a line graph, not a bar chart!), a chart with no “so what,” and confusing colors. Bring yours on a laptop or a phone and we'll take it from the floor. No slides, no roadmap, no product pitch. Just the reasoning, out loud, on the charts that actually run your business.
## Speakers
- Dave Fowler — General Manager, Fivetran
- RJ Andrews — Data Scientist, Fivetran
---
---
title: "Agents, MCPs and buzzword fatigue: what AI actually changes for analytics engineers"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/agents-mcps-and-buzzword-fatigue-what-ai-actually-changes-for-analytics-engineers-f3bc39cb"
sessionType: "Peer exchange"
track: ["AI and agentic analytics"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Basic", "Intermediate", "Expert"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# Agents, MCPs and buzzword fatigue: what AI actually changes for analytics engineers
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 2:45 PM PDT – 3:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 6
**Type:** Peer exchange
**Track:** AI and agentic analytics
**Knowledge Level:** Basic, Intermediate, Expert
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
New AI tooling launches weekly. Terminology multiplies faster than the problems being solved. This peer exchange cuts through the noise with honest practitioner experience.
Tool overload - How many AI tools has your team adopted? How many have stuck? What is the cost of context switching?
What actually changed - Has AI genuinely improved your daily workflow, or did it just move the bottleneck somewhere else? When AI generates your dbt models, who owns the logic?
The skill shift - If AI handles more SQL and boilerplate, what skills should analytics engineers invest in instead? Data modelling intuition, business context, communication, governance? What does career growth look like when entry-level tasks get automated? Has AI changed your recruitment process?
AI-ready data - Is this a meaningful goal your team is working toward, or a category invented to sell platforms? What does your organisation actually need to benefit from AI?
Bring your honest experiences. This is a hype-free zone.
## Speakers
- XiaoHan Li — Analytics Engineer & Consultant, Xebia
---
---
title: "What AI agents get wrong, and how semantics fixes it"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/what-ai-agents-get-wrong-and-how-semantics-fixes-it"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["Building agentic data workflows"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Basic"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# What AI agents get wrong, and how semantics fixes it
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 3:00 PM PDT – 3:20 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** Building agentic data workflows
**Knowledge Level:** Basic
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
The debate over whether to build a semantic layer is past us—the real questions are now "What does good actually look like?" and "Why do so many production setups only work on paper?" This session unpacks what separates living infrastructure from slide-deck architecture. We will explore three practical signals of high-maturity deployments: defining semantics directly in the gold context layer alongside warehouse governance, leveraging open portability standards like Apache Ossie, and building live feedback loops that capture usage in real time to prevent drift.
We will then stress-test these signals against the ultimate litmus test: AI agents, which instantly expose fragile semantic foundations. You will walk away with a practical, vendor-neutral diagnostic framework to assess the true resilience and agent-readiness of your own stack, as well as a reference to how Fabuwood, a luxury cabinet manufacturer, experienced exponential growth after adopting an AI-ready context layer.
## Speakers
- Sonny Rivera — Principal Data and AI Strategist, ThoughtSpot
---
---
title: "From AI experiment to production: how Okta governs context for agents at scale"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-ai-experiment-to-production-how-okta-governs-context-for-agents-at-scale"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Building agentic data workflows"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
---
# From AI experiment to production: how Okta governs context for agents at scale
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 3:15 PM PDT – 3:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 3
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Building agentic data workflows
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
Most AI pilots stall before they ship. The model works fine. The data underneath isn’t ready. At Okta, scaling from a proof-of-concept to something production-grade exposed a structural gap: agents built in silos, context fragmented, no shared foundation for meaning.
The missing piece wasn’t a better model. It was a governed, discoverable semantic layer that any agent could reason over from day one, built on dbt as the source of truth for definitions and Snowflake as the execution and discovery engine on top. Together, they turn a fragile demo into a system you’d trust in production.
We’ll walk through the architecture, our decisions around portability and interoperability, and where we drew the line between production-ready and experimental. You’ll leave with a reusable pattern for making your data AI-ready at scale, and an honest look at what works today, what doesn’t, and where we’re going next.
## Speakers
- Pooja Crahen — Senior Manager, Analytics Engineering, Okta
---
---
title: "Most of your dbt models aren't in a hurry: How to stop paying for the whole DAG"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/most-of-your-dbt-models-arent-in-a-hurry-how-to-stop-paying-for-the-whole-dag"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Analytics engineering best practices"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# Most of your dbt models aren't in a hurry: How to stop paying for the whole DAG
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 3:15 PM PDT – 3:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 8
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Analytics engineering best practices
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
Every dbt run has a critical path: the small chain of dependent models that determines when the run finishes. It's usually a fraction of the DAG, so why does the whole run cost as if every model were on it? In this session, Espresso AI CEO Ben Lerner is joined by Saravana Kumar of Authentic to unpack how data teams find and close the gap between the compute they pay for and the compute their jobs actually need. Expect real production numbers, what worked and what didn't, and three checks you can run on your own project next week.
## Speakers
- Ben Lerner — CEO, Espresso AI
- Saravana Kumar — CEO, Authentic
---
---
title: "Real-time analytics at Bilt: architecture and approach"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/real-time-analytics-at-bilt-architecture-and-approach"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Delivering business outcomes"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Expert"]
persona: ["Business leaders and executives", "Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries", "Financial Services", "Technology"]
---
# Real-time analytics at Bilt: architecture and approach
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 3:15 PM PDT – 3:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 2
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Delivering business outcomes
**Knowledge Level:** Expert
**Persona:** Business leaders and executives, Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries, Financial Services, Technology
Bilt's merchant partnerships depend on real-time audience segmentation and offer execution across Property Management and Hospitality verticals. That requires data that's current, tested, and reliable, not batch-processed hours later.
This session covers how Bilt's data team implemented real-time analytics using dbt Core and Materialize to power an audience and offer execution engine at the core of the business. You'll see how analytics engineering best practices apply to streaming data, the architecture behind serving real-time offers to merchant partners, and the practical tradeoffs of running production analytics on a streaming foundation.
## Speakers
- James Dorado — VP of Data, Bilt
- Marat Biyashev — Senior Analytics Engineer, Bilt
- Nick Heron — Director, Data Analytics, Bilt
---
---
title: "What changes when 300 dbt users at Virgin Media O2 move to Fusion and dbt State"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/what-changes-when-300-dbt-users-at-virgin-media-o2-move-to-fusion-and-dbt-state"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Winning with dbt v2"]
---
# What changes when 300 dbt users at Virgin Media O2 move to Fusion and dbt State
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 3:15 PM PDT – 3:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 7
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Winning with dbt v2
Virgin Media O2 has 42 million customers, 300 dbt users, 100 dbt projects, and spends millions of dollars in compute annually. At that scale, inefficiency isn't a nuisance. It's a cost.
This session shows what happened when we adopted the dbt Fusion engine across our single-tenant environment. Wait times fell. Compute spend dropped. And we broke our reliance on slow CI/CD cycles. We'll show the before-and-after with real numbers, quantifying the measurable gains we achieved in both cost and speed. We'll also cover how implementing static analysis raised quality, consistency, and trust across 100 dbt projects.
We'll close with what we're building on this optimized foundation: AI, dbt skills, and agentic workflows. This is about more than tooling. It's about unlocking speed, efficiency, and intelligence at scale.
## Speakers
- Melissa Simpson — Lead Analytics Engineer, Virgin Media O2
- Gordon Curzon — Head Of Analytics Engineering, Virgin Media O2
---
---
title: "dbt Wizard: your AI teammate for data development"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dbt-wizard-your-ai-teammate-for-data-development"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["dbt Product"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
---
# dbt Wizard: your AI teammate for data development
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 3:15 PM PDT – 3:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 4
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** dbt Product
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
dbt Wizard is the coding agent built for data, not software. This session introduces three use cases: development (writing and testing dbt models), analyzing (answering business questions with your data), and discover (surfacing what's already in your project).
We'll walk through the agent skills framework that makes Wizard extensible and what's coming next. Plus, dbt's own data engineer will join to demo how we've built custom agentic workflows for analytics engineering, including fully autonomous analytics engineering.
## Speakers
- Ryan Eakman — Senior Staff Software Engineer, Fivetran
- Sam Ferguson — Staff Product Designer, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "Beyond the basics: Running dbt at scale on Microsoft Fabric"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/beyond-the-basics-running-dbt-at-scale-on-microsoft-fabric"
sessionType: "Hands-on lab"
---
# Beyond the basics: Running dbt at scale on Microsoft Fabric
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 3:30 PM PDT – 5:00 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Nolita
**Type:** Hands-on lab
This session walks through building a production-grade medallion architecture (bronze → silver → gold) on Microsoft Fabric, orchestrated end-to-end through a dbt job. We'll cover how to structure dbt models for each layer — raw ingestion and cleansing in bronze, conformed and deduplicated data in silver, and governed, BI-ready tables in gold — and how to scale that structure as data volume, model count, and team size grow.
You'll see how to design dbt jobs that sequence bronze, silver, and gold builds with correct dependency ordering, enforce testing and freshness checks at each stage, and scale cleanly from a handful of models to hundreds without becoming unmanageable. We'll also cover incremental models and snapshots for handling growing data volumes efficiently, contract testing at layer boundaries to catch quality issues early, and CI/CD practices for keeping the whole pipeline reliable as it scales.
Beyond the dbt job itself, we'll cover how to operationalize the entire pattern using Microsoft Fabric Data Pipelines — triggering and monitoring dbt runs, handling retries and alerting, and integrating dbt execution into broader orchestration alongside ingestion and downstream refresh tasks. We'll show how to make this operationalization metadata-driven, using a config-based approach (e.g., a control table or metadata file describing sources, layers, dependencies, and schedules) so that new models, sources, or layers can be onboarded by updating metadata rather than hand-authoring new pipeline logic — keeping the orchestration layer scalable and maintainable as the project grows.
You'll leave with:
- A reference medallion architecture pattern built for scale on Microsoft Fabric
- A dbt job design that orchestrates bronze → silver → gold with clear dependencies
- Incremental modeling and testing strategies that hold up as data and model count grow
- CI/CD practices for scaling a multi-layer dbt pipeline with confidence
- A pattern for operationalizing dbt with Fabric Pipelines, driven by metadata for scalable, low-maintenance orchestration
## Speakers
- Abhishek Narain — Principal PM Manager, Microsoft
- Pradeep Srikakolapu — Senior Product Manager, Microsoft
---
---
title: "What’s new in dbt v2"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/whats-new-in-dbt-v2"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["Winning with dbt v2"]
---
# What’s new in dbt v2
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 3:30 PM PDT – 3:50 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** Winning with dbt v2
The dbt v2 engine represents a fundamental evolution in how dbt understands and executes data work. Built on a Rust-based runtime with native SQL comprehension, it creates a faster, more intelligent foundation for developers, data platforms, and AI agents alike. Get a quick look at what’s changing, how to get started, and where dbt is headed next.
## Speakers
- Aika Zikibayeva — Senior Product Marketing Manager, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "The limits of DIY: how an S&P 500 Company escaped the data context trap"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-limits-of-diy-how-an-sandp-500-company-escaped-the-data-context-trap"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# The limits of DIY: how an S&P 500 Company escaped the data context trap
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 4:00 PM PDT – 4:20 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
Like many technical teams, Gen Digital's data team set out to build their own AI analyst first and quickly spun up a custom GPT on handcrafted business context. It demoed well but then effectiveness stalled as context went stale and knowledge maintenance needs grew exponentially. Gen Digital (Fortune 500 parent of brands including MoneyLion, Norton, Avast, AVG) found themselves falling into the "Data Context Trap.”
We'll walk through what came next: partnering with Delphina to build a context layer they treat like a codebase, 30 “knowledge captains” approving automated updates to their domains, and fast growing expansion of AI analytics across the team.
In this session, you will learn how next generation data teams adopt Delphina on top of popular tools like dbt, Snowflake, and Databricks to build, validate, and maintain data context. The result: elevating the data team’s impact, influence, and reach.
## Speakers
- Duncan Gilchrist — Co-Founder, Delphina
- Mark Goodwin — Head of Analytics and Decisioning, Gen Digital
---
---
title: "Black in Data: Building connections and community during career growth"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/black-in-data-building-connections-and-community-during-career-growth"
sessionType: "Peer exchange"
track: ["Analytics engineering best practices"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# Black in Data: Building connections and community during career growth
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 4:00 PM PDT – 5:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 6
**Type:** Peer exchange
**Track:** Analytics engineering best practices
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
Building a career in data takes more than technical skill. It also means navigating identity, community, and growth in spaces where you may not always see yourself reflected.
Sponsored by Black at dbt, this session centers the experiences of Black data practitioners across individual contributor and management paths. A practitioner-led panel will explore career progression, mentorship and sponsorship, and how to stay authentic at work.
Through guided reflection and small-group conversation, attendees will connect with peers in an intentionally low-pressure environment that prioritizes belonging over transactional networking. Participants will leave with practical next steps for their careers, a stronger sense of community, and relationships they can continue building beyond dbt Summit.
## Speakers
- Aaron Mardis — Customer Solutions Engineer, dbt Labs
- Shania Thomas — Senior Technical Instructor, dbt Labs
- Millie Symns — Senior Business Intelligence Analyst, Justworks
- Jerrie Kenney — Manager, Professional Services, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "Product roundtable: The semantic layer is dead. Long live the semantic layer!"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/product-roundtable-the-semantic-layer-is-dead-long-live-the-semantic-layer"
sessionType: "Roundtable"
track: ["dbt Product"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
---
# Product roundtable: The semantic layer is dead. Long live the semantic layer!
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 4:00 PM PDT – 5:00 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 1
**Type:** Roundtable
**Track:** dbt Product
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
Join us for a roundtable discussion where we’ll go deeper into the ideas shared in the breakout: The semantic layer is dead. Long live the semantic layer! Bring your questions, share your take, and connect with peers and presenters. Note attendance in the breakout session is not required, but encouraged.
## Speakers
- Zach Mandell — Staff Product Manager, dbt Labs
- Toby Mao — Director, Engineering, Fivetran
---
---
title: "With great context comes great autonomy: leveling up your agent context"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/with-great-context-comes-great-autonomy-leveling-up-your-agent-context"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["dbt Product"]
---
# With great context comes great autonomy: leveling up your agent context
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 4:15 PM PDT – 4:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 4
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** dbt Product
An agent is about to query your warehouse to answer a question, with total confidence and zero doubt. Thanks to dbt structured context — governed models, tested metrics, the dbt Semantic Layer — it's not guessing anymore. It knows what "active" means, which revenue table to trust, what the business logic says. dbt structured context hands your agent a map, and every road on it leads somewhere real.
But a map only shows the roads someone has already built. Leveling up means giving agents the freedom to reason beyond fixed definitions, pulling in whatever structured or unstructured context actually answers the question at hand. In this session, we'll show a live demo of the dbt structured context and Fivetran context layer turning raw metadata, governed semantic models, and real usage into the agent schema that powers accurate results, using the tools you already run: Fivetran and dbt.
## Speakers
- Ben Moser — Senior Product Manager, dbt Labs
- Kevin Kim — Staff Product Manager, Fivetran
---
---
title: "From first models to AI-powered maturity: scaling data engineering with dbt at Verisk Underwriting"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-first-models-to-ai-powered-maturity-scaling-data-engineering-with-dbt-at-verisk-underwriting"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Data modernization & emerging architectures"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["Financial Services"]
---
# From first models to AI-powered maturity: scaling data engineering with dbt at Verisk Underwriting
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 4:15 PM PDT – 4:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 7
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Data modernization & emerging architectures
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** Financial Services
How do you evolve from early dbt adoption to a mature, automated, AI-augmented data platform?
dbt started at Verisk Underwriting as a lightweight modeling tool. It's now a full data engineering platform, with AI accelerating development, lineage driving faster impact analysis, and intelligent orchestration replacing schedule-based rebuilds.
We'll walk through how we scaled dbt adoption across teams, used lineage to improve trust and speed up root-cause analysis, chose between dbt jobs and Snowflake Tasks for orchestration, and applied dbt Copilot to model development, YAML generation, and documentation.
We'll share the tradeoffs we made, the patterns that held up at scale, and how AI is shifting data engineers toward higher-value design work, letting teams move faster with greater confidence and less manual overhead.
## Speakers
- Mateusz Geca — Data Engineer, Verisk
- Vijay Singh — Lead, Data Science and Business Intelligence, Verisk
- Casey Schwegel — Lead Data Engineer, Verisk
---
---
title: "From prompt to PR: sandbox-validated dbt changes before human review"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-prompt-to-pr-sandbox-validated-dbt-changes-before-human-review"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Building agentic data workflows"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Basic", "Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# From prompt to PR: sandbox-validated dbt changes before human review
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 4:15 PM PDT – 4:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 3
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Building agentic data workflows
**Knowledge Level:** Basic, Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
A five-person data warehouse team. 100+ concurrent requests. 5,000+ active ETLs. We tried the shortcut: let Claude generate SQL, have engineers review it. It failed: code generation without validation just shifts the burden. Engineers still had to mentally execute every model.
The real answer was full-stack sandbox validation. From prompt to PR, every AI-generated model clears four layers before a human sees it: SQL compilation, dbt tests (uniqueness, range, relationships), orchestration via auto-generated Airflow DAG, and lineage integrity in OpenMetadata. All four must pass. Failures loop back to the agent, not the engineer.
Guardrails are structural: read-only prod service account, macro-enforced dev schema isolation, ephemeral Kyuubi compute per run. In production, 45% of new models carry the "ai-generated" tag.
You'll leave with the full-stack sandbox architecture, the four-layer validation blueprint, structural guardrails, and a model for governed AI promotion via explicit PR reviews.
## Speakers
- Niyazulla Khan Pathan — Data Platform Engineering Manager, Careem
- Akash Srivastava — Lead Software Engineer, Careem
---
---
title: "Reliable by design: Lower cost, better delivery, trusted AI"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/reliable-by-design-lower-cost-better-delivery-trusted-ai"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Powering AI-ready data"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Business leaders and executives"]
relevantIndustry: ["Retail", "Financial Services", "Public Sector", "Pharma", "Manufacturing"]
---
# Reliable by design: Lower cost, better delivery, trusted AI
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 4:15 PM PDT – 4:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 8
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Powering AI-ready data
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Business leaders and executives
**Relevant Industry:** Retail, Financial Services, Public Sector, Pharma, Manufacturing
Every data team is under pressure to cut warehouse spend, ship faster, and get ready for AI, often all at once. The teams that pull it off aren't the ones with the most tools. They're the ones who built reliability in from the start.
Guitar Center's VP of Data shares how a lean enterprise team built a data foundation on dbt and Airflow that holds up at scale. Real practices, real tradeoffs, and what actually moved the needle.
Three pillars anchor the talk. Reliable costs, through guardrails and observability that keep warehouse spend predictable. Reliable delivery, through orchestration and engineering practices that cut fires and operational drag. Reliable, trusted data, the foundation that makes AI and self-service analytics work rather than amplify bad data.
You'll leave knowing how to prioritize foundations over tool sprawl, and how a lean team punches above its weight.
## Speakers
- Mike Doll — VP of Data, Guitar Center
---
---
title: "From 14-hour batches and poor documentation to AI-ready data: Mitti's dbt rebuild"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-14-hour-batches-and-poor-documentation-to-ai-ready-data-mittis-dbt-rebuild"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Powering AI-ready data"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Basic", "Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# From 14-hour batches and poor documentation to AI-ready data: Mitti's dbt rebuild
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 4:15 PM PDT – 4:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 2
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Powering AI-ready data
**Knowledge Level:** Basic, Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
Mitti has used dbt since 2020. But the project that grew up during that time had real problems: 14-hour daily batch execution, poor documentation, and questionable data quality, none of which are compatible with AI-powered BI.
We rebuilt the data model from the ground up, focused on quality, performance, and AI readiness. Results: 90% reduction in execution time, AI BI adoption exceeding 50% across the business, and over US$140K in infrastructure cost savings.
This session covers how we approached the rebuild, the decisions that drove the performance gains, and what it actually took to make dbt-powered AI BI work at scale inside a product company.
## Speakers
- Yuna (Yunnan) Tang — Senior Analytics Engineer, Data, Mitti
- Thiago Baldim — Director of Engineering, Data, Mitti
---
---
title: "Friends of Data with Hex"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/friends-of-data-with-hex"
sessionType: "Networking"
beyondTheSessions: ["Partner Hosted Event", "Evening Event"]
---
# Friends of Data with Hex
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 5:00 PM PDT – 8:00 PM PDT
**Where:** The Barbershop, Cosmopolitan
**Type:** Networking
**Beyond the sessions:** Partner Hosted Event, Evening Event
Friends of Data is back at dbt Summit. Some of the best conversations at conferences don’t happen in sessions. They happen after the talks, away from the booth traffic, with people who are actually building the future of data.
That’s the idea behind Friends of Data.
Join Hex on September 16 at The Barbershop after your first day at dbt Summit for a fireside chat on all things data with Tristan Handy, co-founder and CEO of dbt Labs, and Barry McCardel, CEO of Hex.
[Reserve your spot.](https://app.sequel.io/hex/friends-of-data-dbt-summit)
---
---
title: "Financial Services & Insurance industry reception"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/financial-services-and-insurance-industry-reception"
sessionType: "Networking"
beyondTheSessions: ["Partner Hosted Event", "Evening Event"]
---
# Financial Services & Insurance industry reception
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 5:30 PM PDT – 8:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Momofuku
**Type:** Networking
**Beyond the sessions:** Partner Hosted Event, Evening Event
Join data leaders and practitioners across financial services & insurance for an evening built around real conversation — no slides, no pitches, just the people who get what it's like to do data work in a regulated environment.
Sponsored by: AWS, Information Lab
Register here: [https://www.getdbt.com/events/dbt-summit-financial-services-industry-reception](https://www.getdbt.com/events/dbt-summit-financial-services-industry-reception)
---
---
title: "Healthcare & life sciences industry reception"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/healthcare-and-life-sciences-industry-reception"
sessionType: "Networking"
beyondTheSessions: ["Partner Hosted Event", "Evening Event"]
---
# Healthcare & life sciences industry reception
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 5:30 PM PDT – 8:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Clique Bar & Lounge
**Type:** Networking
**Beyond the sessions:** Partner Hosted Event, Evening Event
Join data leaders and practitioners across healthcare & life sciences for an evening built around real conversation — no slides, no pitches, just the people who get what it's like to do data work in a regulated environment.
Sponsored by: Infinite Lambda, GCP
Register here: [https://www.getdbt.com/events/dbt-summit-healthcare-and-life-sciences-industry-reception](https://www.getdbt.com/events/dbt-summit-healthcare-and-life-sciences-industry-reception)
---
---
title: "Retail & consumer industry reception"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/retail-and-consumer-industry-reception"
sessionType: "Networking"
beyondTheSessions: ["Partner Hosted Event", "Evening Event"]
---
# Retail & consumer industry reception
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 5:30 PM PDT – 8:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Amaya
**Type:** Networking
**Beyond the sessions:** Partner Hosted Event, Evening Event
Join data leaders and practitioners across retail & consumer for an evening built around real conversation with the people who get what it's like to do data work in a regulated environment.
Sponsored by: Microsoft, Spaulding Ridge
Register here: [https://www.getdbt.com/events/dbt-summit-retail-and-consumer-industry-reception](https://www.getdbt.com/events/dbt-summit-retail-and-consumer-industry-reception)
---
---
title: "Data leaders behind the bar: Learn to create cocktails with Analytics8 & ThoughtSpot"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/data-leaders-behind-the-bar-learn-to-create-cocktails-with-analytics8-and-thoughtspot"
sessionType: "Networking"
beyondTheSessions: ["Partner Hosted Event"]
---
# Data leaders behind the bar: Learn to create cocktails with Analytics8 & ThoughtSpot
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 5:30 PM PDT – 8:00 PM PDT
**Where:** The Lock Speakeasy at Horseshoe Las Vegas
**Type:** Networking
**Beyond the sessions:** Partner Hosted Event
Step away from the usual conference happy hour and join Analytics8 and ThoughtSpot for a hands-on mixology class at The Cabinet of Curiosities and The Lock, a hidden speakeasy inside Horseshoe Las Vegas.
Connect with fellow data and analytics leaders while a professional mixologist guides you through crafting three cocktails. Drinks, charcuterie, sandwiches, and other light bites will be provided.
Space is limited, [advance registration is required](https://luma.com/1wi45ojf), and registrations will be; reviewed to ensure the event brings together the right data leaders.
---
---
title: "Queeries Social"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/queeries-social"
sessionType: "Networking"
---
# Queeries Social
**When:** Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 5:30 PM PDT – 7:00 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, dbt full refresh room, Brera 1-3
**Type:** Networking
Take a break from the hustle and bustle to come hang out with the LGBTQIA+ data nerds. dbt Labs’ Queeries ERG is hosting a casual, alcohol-free hangout with snacks, games, and good vibes waiting for you in the cozy Full Refresh Room (Brera 1-3, Level 3). All are welcome.
---
---
title: "Sound healing meditation with Euno"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sound-healing-meditation-with-euno"
sessionType: "Networking"
beyondTheSessions: ["Partner Hosted Event"]
---
# Sound healing meditation with Euno
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 6:45 AM PDT – 7:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, dbt full refresh room, Brera 1-3
**Type:** Networking
**Beyond the sessions:** Partner Hosted Event
Your calendar is about to fill up. Your brain doesn't have to.
Start your morning with a guided meditation and a moment of calm before diving into the conference buzz. With Vegas' best sound healing practitioners, use this time to clear your mind and give yourself the right context for the day ahead.
[Manifested by Euno](https://euno.ai/) ♡
---
---
title: "Breakfast"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/breakfast-094b4043"
sessionType: "Meals"
beyondTheSessions: ["Meals"]
---
# Breakfast
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 7:30 AM PDT – 8:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall
**Type:** Meals
**Beyond the sessions:** Meals
---
---
title: "Keynote: Community Keynote"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/keynote-community-keynote"
sessionType: "Keynote"
---
# Keynote: Community Keynote
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 9:00 AM PDT – 10:00 AM PDT
**Where:** Chelsea Theater
**Type:** Keynote
Let’s return to where it all began—with the practitioners, contributors, and builders who have made dbt what it is—and look ahead to where we're going together. We’ll take the new dbt v2 engine out for a test drive and speak with industry leaders about how adopting and contributing to open standards can elevate the whole community. We'll celebrate the exceptional community contributors who shaped this year's level up, and close with a look at what's on the horizon.
## Speakers
- Jeremy Cohen — Principal Product Manager, dbt Labs
- Bolaji Oyejide — Senior Community Manager, dbt Labs
- Chris Merrick — Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Omni
- Grace Goheen — Product Manager, dbt Labs
- Hannes Mühleisen — Co-Founder and CEO, DuckLabs
- Matt Topol — Co-founder, Columnar
---
---
title: "Governed by default: how data teams at Nordstrom turn dbt governance into an AI advantage"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/governed-by-default-how-data-teams-at-nordstrom-turn-dbt-governance-into-an-ai-advantage"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Powering AI-ready data"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Basic", "Intermediate", "Expert"]
persona: ["Business leaders and executives", "Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["Retail", "Technology"]
---
# Governed by default: how data teams at Nordstrom turn dbt governance into an AI advantage
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 10:30 AM PDT – 11:00 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 8
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Powering AI-ready data
**Knowledge Level:** Basic, Intermediate, Expert
**Persona:** Business leaders and executives, Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** Retail, Technology
One question reframed how Nordstrom thinks about dbt: "What would it take for our data to answer questions on its own, and hold up under interrogation?"
That shift turned dbt from pipeline plumbing into the control surface for reliable AI. This session covers how Nordstrom's retail data teams are using dbt governance and semantics to build an AI-ready analytics foundation at scale: treating freshness as an AI SLA, using tests, contracts, and lineage as guardrails, and designing a "Data Concierge" conversational agent that answers merchants' questions in plain English against governed data.
You'll get a realistic view of the challenges, tradeoffs, and patterns a large enterprise is using to make its analytics platform ready for LLMs, not as slides, but as production decisions made by a team doing this work right now.
## Speakers
- Priya Tanwar — Principal Engineer, Nordstrom
- Nadine Bruxel — Senior Director, Nordstrom
---
---
title: "Picking the best compute engine for any task"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/picking-the-best-compute-engine-for-any-task"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["Data modernization & emerging architectures"]
---
# Picking the best compute engine for any task
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 10:30 AM PDT – 10:45 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** Data modernization & emerging architectures
With Open Data Infrastructure and Iceberg, we are now in a world where end to end data transformation doesn’t need to be tied to a single compute engine.
In this session we will talk about the future of data platforms, showcase a demo of what works today with cross compute pipelines in dbt and dig into the current state of Iceberg catalogs.
## Speakers
- Benoit Perigaud — Staff DX Advocate, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "Reduce, reuse, recycle: how dbt State cut rebuilds by 92% at RxBenefits"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/reduce-reuse-recycle-how-dbt-state-cut-rebuilds-by-92percent-at-rxbenefits"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Delivering business outcomes"]
---
# Reduce, reuse, recycle: how dbt State cut rebuilds by 92% at RxBenefits
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 10:30 AM PDT – 11:00 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 3
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Delivering business outcomes
RxBenefits is a pharmacy benefits optimizer serving self-insured employers since 1995. Even after investing in Snowflake warehouse optimization and the dbt Fusion engine, every job triggered in dbt still executed every model — CI time and cost scaled with project size, not the size of the change.
This session covers how we rolled out dbt State to stop paying for builds we didn't need. Across all our environments, 92% of model builds in a single month were reused instead of rebuilt, cutting our Snowflake compute costs by 57% in production. We'll share what it took to get there, and a practical framework you can use to build your own business case.
## Speakers
- Chris Shepherd — Principal Data Engineer, RX Benefits
- Andrew Coleman — Staff Analytics Engineer, RX Benefits
---
---
title: "Revolutionizing the staging layer: automating dbt generation for 700+ sources"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/revolutionizing-the-staging-layer-automating-dbt-generation-for-700-sources"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["dbt at scale"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# Revolutionizing the staging layer: automating dbt generation for 700+ sources
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 10:30 AM PDT – 11:00 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 2
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** dbt at scale
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
Migrating a large enterprise data warehouse from SQL Server to dbt meant confronting an uncomfortable truth early: manually building staging models, source YAMLs, and SQL files for hundreds of sources wasn't going to work. To make the migration feasible, we built an automation framework that generates dbt staging assets at scale across 700+ enterprise sources.
We'll walk through how we automated source definitions, model SQL, YAML configuration, and documentation, plus how we used that framework to embed standards and governance into the migration itself, not bolt them on afterward. The result was a path through a large legacy warehouse that was faster and more consistent than we expected, and one other teams can learn from.
## Speakers
- Cathy Huang — Senior BI Engineer, Webstaurantstore
---
---
title: "We said I do. Now, we’re joined at the DAG"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/we-said-i-do-now-were-joined-at-the-dag"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["dbt Product"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
---
# We said I do. Now, we’re joined at the DAG
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 10:30 AM PDT – 11:00 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 4
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** dbt Product
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
Where did this data come from? What happened to it? Who's using it? Those three questions map to three parts of your stack — ingestion, transformation, and consumption. Data world's newest couple, Fivetran and dbt, are bringing all three into a single place for your humans and agents.
And here's what makes it different: Fivetran and dbt don't observe your pipeline from the outside. We run it. So it isn't scraped or pieced together after the fact; it falls out of the systems doing the work, which is what makes it timely, complete, trustworthy, and rich with context.
In this session, we’ll show you what a unified lineage graph looks like, from source connector to model to consumption. With this unified graph, new use cases become possible: real cost visibility tied to actual usage, PII that stays governed as it travels downstream, impact analysis past the dbt boundary, and agents that reason with the full picture. You’ll get a sneak peak into what’s possible, see real examples, and tell us what matters most.
## Speakers
- Roxi Pourzand — Product manager, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "How Sigma manages the semantic layer with dbt and Dagster"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/how-sigma-manages-the-semantic-layer-with-dbt-and-dagster"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Powering AI-ready data"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Expert"]
persona: ["Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# How Sigma manages the semantic layer with dbt and Dagster
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 10:30 AM PDT – 11:00 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 7
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Powering AI-ready data
**Knowledge Level:** Expert
**Persona:** Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
Sigma's internal data platform team manages every semantic asset—Snowflake semantic views, Cortex Agents, Cortex Search Services, and Sigma Data Models—inside a single dbt project. In this session, we'll walk through the Dagster job that continuously deploys these assets whenever they change: building modified dbt nodes, persisting dbt state, updating the Sigma connection, and refreshing Sigma Data Models. We'll also preview an open-source contribution to OSI/Ossie: a Sigma converter that lets any team convert between semantic formats within a Dagster job, making it easier to adopt a unified, orchestrated semantic layer across tools.
## Speakers
- Matt Senick — Senior Analytics Engineer, Sigma Computing
---
---
title: "{SOLD OUT} Certification"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-certification-d8e1242f"
sessionType: "Certification add-on"
---
# {SOLD OUT} Certification
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 10:30 AM PDT – 1:00 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Brera 4
**Type:** Certification add-on
Doors close at the published start time. Late arrivals cannot be admitted, even if registered.
Get certified at dbt Summit! Choose from two certification exams:
The dbt Analytics Engineering Certification Exam is designed to evaluate your ability to:
- Build, test, and maintain models to make data accessible to others
- Use dbt to apply engineering principles to analytics infrastructure
We recommend that you have at least SQL proficiency and have had 6+ months of experience working in dbt (dbt Core or the dbt platform) before attempting the exam.
The dbt Architect Certification Exam assesses your ability to:
- Design secure, scalable dbt implementations, with a focus on environment orchestration
- Role-based access control
- Integrations with other tools
- Collaborative development workflows aligned with best practices
What to expect with either exam:
- You will be sitting for one attempt at one of the two in-person exams at dbt Summit. You will let the proctor know which certification you are sitting for
- Please arrive on time, this is a closed-door certification, and attendees will not be let in after the doors are closed
What to bring:
- You will need to bring your own laptop to take the exam
Duration: 2 Hours
A valid dbt Summit pass is required to register for trainings and certifications.
Trainings and certifications will take place in-person at dbt Summit only.
---
---
title: "AI in the analyst toolkit: What's actually working (and what isn't)"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/ai-in-the-analyst-toolkit-whats-actually-working-and-what-isnt"
sessionType: "Peer exchange"
track: ["AI and agentic analytics"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate", "Expert"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# AI in the analyst toolkit: What's actually working (and what isn't)
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 10:45 AM PDT – 11:45 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 6
**Type:** Peer exchange
**Track:** AI and agentic analytics
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate, Expert
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
When leadership said "use AI in your daily data work," a lot of us nodded... and then quietly Googled, "how do analysts actually use AI agents?" This peer exchange is for everyone who had that moment.
This is a facilitated conversation for data practitioners who are integrating AI into their workflows, whether you're just getting started, experimenting with agents, or have built something you're proud of.
Topics we'll explore together:
- Where AI has genuinely changed how we work, and where it hasn't earned trust yet
- Real examples of agentic workflows in analytics, from data exploration to documentation
- The "aha moment" that shifted our thinking
- How to help teammates get started when they don't know where to begin
Come ready to share the story of your journey. No polished case studies required.
## Speakers
- Paige Berry — Lead Data Analyst, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "Accelerating analytics with AI"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/accelerating-analytics-with-ai"
sessionType: "Hands-on lab"
---
# Accelerating analytics with AI
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 10:45 AM PDT – 12:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Nolita
**Type:** Hands-on lab
Use an AI-assisted workflow to implement a small dbt feature end-to-end, then create a simple custom dbt agent skill to reinforce the workflow. You’ll draft a change (model + tests + docs), review it with a structured checklist for correctness, efficiency, and maintainability, and turn the key best practices into a reusable skill. The goal is safe acceleration: moving faster without lowering engineering quality.
After this lab, you will be able to:
- Use AI assistance to draft a dbt change (model + tests + docs) and iterate with intent
- Apply a practical review checklist to validate correctness, performance, and maintainability
- Produce a ready-to-merge change that meets team standards for naming, documentation, and testing
- Create a simple custom dbt agent skill that captures and reinforces core best practices for future work
- Comfortable reading SQL
Prerequisites:
- dbt Fundamentals
- Comfortable reading SQL
What to bring: You must bring your own laptop to complete the hands-on exercises. We will provide any required sandbox environments for dbt and the data platform.
Duration: 90 minutes
## Speakers
- Faith McKenna — Manger, Technical Instruction, dbt Labs
- Lucas Silbernagel — Resident Architect, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "Product roundtable: dbt Wizard: your AI teammate for data development"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/product-roundtable-dbt-wizard-your-ai-teammate-for-data-development"
sessionType: "Roundtable"
track: ["dbt Product"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
---
# Product roundtable: dbt Wizard: your AI teammate for data development
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 10:45 AM PDT – 11:45 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 1
**Type:** Roundtable
**Track:** dbt Product
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
Join us for a roundtable discussion where we’ll go deeper into the ideas shared in the breakout: dbt Wizard: your AI teammate for data development. Bring your questions, share your take, and connect with peers and presenters. Note attendance in the breakout session is not required, but encouraged.
## Speakers
- Ryan Eakman — Senior Staff Software Engineer, Fivetran
---
---
title: "Chart Slop: Your BI Tool Shipped the Mess"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/chart-slop-your-bi-tool-shipped-the-mess"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["Analytics engineering best practices"]
---
# Chart Slop: Your BI Tool Shipped the Mess
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 11:00 AM PDT – 11:15 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** Analytics engineering best practices
For decades, BI tools have shipped with bad defaults. They sometimes made the wrong call and, worse, often made no call at all: How many ticks are correct (surely not “as many as can fit”)? When do labels go in a legend or on the mark? How should charts convey zero, null, and missing values? We will dissect the haphazard "BI default" collection of panels and show how to build a cohesive and dynamic dashboard system.
## Speakers
- RJ Andrews — Data Scientist, Fivetran
---
---
title: "With great context comes great autonomy: leveling up your agent context"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/with-great-context-comes-great-autonomy-leveling-up-your-agent-context-09111662"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["dbt product"]
---
# With great context comes great autonomy: leveling up your agent context
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 11:30 AM PDT – 11:45 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** dbt product
Context engineering today is hand-assembled per agent, and stale the moment a source changes. dbt describes the models your analytics team built. Fivetran Context Layer describes the systems your questions actually live in, and maintains both as they drift.
## Speakers
- Ben Moser — Senior Product Manager, dbt Labs
- Kevin Kim — Staff Product Manager, Fivetran
---
---
title: "From prototype to production: How DoorDash built a scalable analytics SDLC with dbt and ThoughtSpot"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-prototype-to-production-how-doordash-built-a-scalable-analytics-sdlc-with-dbt-and-thoughtspot"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Data modernization & emerging architectures"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["Retail"]
---
# From prototype to production: How DoorDash built a scalable analytics SDLC with dbt and ThoughtSpot
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 11:30 AM PDT – 12:00 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 8
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Data modernization & emerging architectures
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** Retail
In this fireside chat, Harsha Venkat Annapa Reddy, Senior Engineering Manager at DoorDash, discusses how he led the modernization of the company's analytics stack — consolidating a large, multi-team organization onto dbt and ThoughtSpot — and where he's taking a platform that already serves more than 10,000 users.
## Speakers
- Harsha Reddy — Senior Engineering Leader, DoorDash
- Sonny Rivera — Principal Data and AI Strategist, ThoughtSpot
---
---
title: "Is context engineering the new analytics engineering?"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/is-context-engineering-the-new-analytics-engineering"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Powering AI-ready data"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# Is context engineering the new analytics engineering?
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 11:30 AM PDT – 12:00 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 3
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Powering AI-ready data
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
Analytics engineers built transformations to define metrics and share them in the data warehouse. But AI agents need more than definitions. They need context.
At Checkr, the analytics engineering team treats context engineering as the next evolution of their practice. This session covers what it looks like to engineer context, organizational knowledge, and governance into AI systems — including what semantic layers usually miss. It dives into how Checkr uses dbt + Omni to build guardrails and context for AI, accelerates this process with LLM-assisted tooling, and builds a feedback loop that makes AI smarter over time. You’ll learn why this discipline is becoming core to the analytics engineering role, not a side project.
## Speakers
- Chris Merrick — Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Omni
- Sarah Fischbach — Staff Analytics Engineer, Checkr
---
---
title: "dbt-building a more pet friendly world"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dbt-building-a-more-pet-friendly-world"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Delivering business outcomes"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["Retail", "Manufacturing", "Other"]
---
# dbt-building a more pet friendly world
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 11:30 AM PDT – 12:00 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 2
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Delivering business outcomes
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** Retail, Manufacturing, Other
At PetScreening, data isn't just about building analytical dashboards, it's an operational engine that helps enable business processes. We will explore how our data team leverages the dbt platform to democratize data, unlocking both deep insights and complex operations across multiple business domains.
Then we'll dive deep into a real-world physical application: tag manufacturing for our FidoAlert system. You will see how we use dbt to power the physical manufacturing of free pet tags, a service that helps lost pets find their way home. By transforming raw order data into tested, sequential waves, dbt acts as the bridge between customer demand and the physical factory floor. Join us to learn how treating data as an operational enabler allows us to rapidly turn scrappy ideas into robust, production-grade workflows that make a difference.
## Speakers
- Nick Fernandez — Manager of Data Analytics, PetScreening
- William Guicheney — Principal Analytics Engineer, Aimpoint Digital
---
---
title: "Lunch"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/lunch-98cfceb5"
sessionType: "Meals"
beyondTheSessions: ["Meals"]
---
# Lunch
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 11:30 AM PDT – 1:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall
**Type:** Meals
**Beyond the sessions:** Meals
---
---
title: "Optimizing your runs for lower compute, fresher data, and faster iteration with dbt State"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/optimizing-your-runs-for-lower-compute-fresher-data-and-faster-iteration-with-dbt-state"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["dbt Product"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
---
# Optimizing your runs for lower compute, fresher data, and faster iteration with dbt State
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 11:30 AM PDT – 12:00 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 4
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** dbt Product
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
Most dbt projects rebuild the same models every run, whether anything changed or not. dbt State changes that.
On every run, dbt State checks warehouse metadata and model SQL, semantically understands whether the result would change, and decides whether to build, skip, clone, or auto-defer to production. The result: 30% average compute savings, fresher data without rebuild waste, and dev cycles that move at the speed of your thinking instead of your scheduler.
In this product breakout, we'll show how dbt State works, how it resolves upstream changes, how freshness SLAs like let you rebuild on the business's terms instead of the schedule's, and how auto-cloning from prod accelerates local iteration without the cost.
You'll leave knowing how to turn dbt State on, the freshness configurations worth setting first, and the orchestration logic you can finally retire — whether you run on dbt Core, the dbt platform, or somewhere in between.
## Speakers
- Reuben McCreanor — Product Manager, dbt Labs
- Iaroslav Zeigerman — Principal Software Engineer, Fivetran
---
---
title: "From selection to scale: how ING is operationalizing dbt across a global bank"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-selection-to-scale-how-ing-is-operationalizing-dbt-across-a-global-bank"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["dbt at scale"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# From selection to scale: how ING is operationalizing dbt across a global bank
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 11:30 AM PDT – 12:00 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 7
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** dbt at scale
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
ING is operationalizing dbt at global scale across one of the world's most complex and highly regulated financial institutions. That journey is now intersecting with an AI and agentic automation strategy.
In this talk, we'll share what worked, what didn't, and how we took dbt from validation to governed enterprise adoption. That means DataOps enablement, compliance by design, and how we balance global consistency with local autonomy across domains.
We'll also show how dbt Semantic Layer and the dbt MCP server are opening new ground: natural-language analytics, AI-assisted model development, and agentic workflows that operate within regulatory constraints.
## Speakers
- Jarno Boeijink — IT Area Lead Global Data Processing, ING Bank N.V.
---
---
title: "Genius.AI: Hex ate our legacy BI stack"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/geniusai-hex-ate-our-legacy-bi-stack"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["Powering AI-ready data"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["Technology"]
---
# Genius.AI: Hex ate our legacy BI stack
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 12:00 PM PDT – 12:20 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** Powering AI-ready data
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** Technology
Genius.ai converted its legacy YAML files into semantic models, then built a context setup and workflow that gave them the confidence to make everyone a data person.
In this session, they'll walk through:
- Migrating a legacy config repo into a version-controlled semantic layer
- How a semantic layer replaced config files without losing precision
- Building the context workflow that made trusting the agent possible
- Workflows that were augmented with increased access to data and polyglot notebooks
## Speakers
- Drew Barlage — Analytics Engineer, Genius.AI
---
---
title: "Live debate: Should you stop using introspection in your models?"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/live-debate-should-you-stop-using-introspection-in-your-models"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["Analytics engineering best practices"]
---
# Live debate: Should you stop using introspection in your models?
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 12:30 PM PDT – 12:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** Analytics engineering best practices
Introspective queries are one of the great blessings of the world, replacing screeds of boilerplate with an elegant abstraction.
Introspective queries are a scourge, preventing analytics engineers from building stable high-performance infrastructure.
Join Joel and Anders as they debate the pros and cons of a cheeky get_column_values() call.
## Speakers
- Joel Labes — Staff DX Advocate, dbt Labs
- Anders Swanson — Senior DX Advocate, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "The principals' framework for consistent dbt at scale"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-principals-framework-for-consistent-dbt-at-scale"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["dbt at scale"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate", "Expert"]
persona: ["Data leaders"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# The principals' framework for consistent dbt at scale
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 12:45 PM PDT – 1:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 7
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** dbt at scale
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate, Expert
**Persona:** Data leaders
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
At Kaizen Gaming, analytics engineering grew to around 50 engineers across six domain teams, each with different levels of dbt adoption and their own ways of solving similar problems. As principal analytics engineers, we needed to improve consistency without turning central governance into a bottleneck.
This talk shares three patterns that helped us get there. We moved company-wide foundational models into a centrally owned core repository. We packaged shared macros and tests into a custom internal package with automation to propagate standards downstream. And we managed dbt platform configuration through Terraform with CI guardrails scoped to affected projects only. Together, these changes improved developer experience, reduced duplicated effort, and gave domain teams more autonomy by making the right defaults easy to reach for.
If you're managing dbt at scale across multiple teams, you'll leave with patterns you can adapt directly.
## Speakers
- Thomas Antonakis — Principal Analytics Engineer, Kaizen Gaming
- Stefanos Nikolaou — Principal Analytics Engineer, Kaizen Gaming
- Akis Zervas — Senior Analytics Engineer, Kaizen Gaming
---
---
title: "Conversational analytics: building AI-powered analytics people can actually trust"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/conversational-analytics-building-ai-powered-analytics-people-can-actually-trust"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["dbt product"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
---
# Conversational analytics: building AI-powered analytics people can actually trust
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 12:45 PM PDT – 1:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 4
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** dbt product
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
For decades, data teams have chased the dream of true self-service analytics: where stakeholders can get their own answers from curated datasets. With today's AI systems, that dream is finally becoming possible but turning a prototype into a trusted production system is harder than it looks.
This talk will distill what leading data teams are doing as they build conversational analytics in the real world. We'll look at the two features doing the real work under the hood: the semantic layer and vector indexes, and how together they turn a database into something you can actually have a conversation with. We'll cover practical, available techniques including how teams can use dbt to manage the semantic layer and vector index capabilities built into platforms like Snowflake and BigQuery. As well as the foundational work that doesn't go away: clean models, clear documentation, strong data quality, observability, and semantic consistency.
We'll also dig into why trust depends on more than model accuracy alone, evals, auditing, public feedback loops, and the changing role of data teams as conversational interfaces become a core part of the analytics stack.
If you want to understand where conversational analytics is today, what separates demos from durable systems, and how to prepare your data team for this shift this session will give you a practical foundation.
## Speakers
- Alex Noonan — Senior Developer Experience Advocate, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "Agents, MCPs and buzzword fatigue: what AI actually changes for analytics engineers"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/agents-mcps-and-buzzword-fatigue-what-ai-actually-changes-for-analytics-engineers"
sessionType: "Peer exchange"
track: ["AI and agentic analytics"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Basic", "Intermediate", "Expert"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# Agents, MCPs and buzzword fatigue: what AI actually changes for analytics engineers
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 12:45 PM PDT – 1:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 6
**Type:** Peer exchange
**Track:** AI and agentic analytics
**Knowledge Level:** Basic, Intermediate, Expert
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
New AI tooling launches weekly. Terminology multiplies faster than the problems being solved. This peer exchange cuts through the noise with honest practitioner experience.
Tool overload - How many AI tools has your team adopted? How many have stuck? What is the cost of context switching?
What actually changed - Has AI genuinely improved your daily workflow, or did it just move the bottleneck somewhere else? When AI generates your dbt models, who owns the logic?
The skill shift - If AI handles more SQL and boilerplate, what skills should analytics engineers invest in instead? Data modelling intuition, business context, communication, governance? What does career growth look like when entry-level tasks get automated? Has AI changed your recruitment process?
AI-ready data - Is this a meaningful goal your team is working toward, or a category invented to sell platforms? What does your organisation actually need to benefit from AI?
Bring your honest experiences. This is a hype-free zone.
## Speakers
- XiaoHan Li — Analytics Engineer & Consultant, Xebia
---
---
title: "Scaling dbt on Amazon Redshift: how KOHO cut transformation runtime 70% without rewriting a single model"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/scaling-dbt-on-amazon-redshift-how-koho-cut-transformation-runtime-70percent-without-rewriting-a-single-model"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["dbt at scale"]
---
# Scaling dbt on Amazon Redshift: how KOHO cut transformation runtime 70% without rewriting a single model
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 12:45 PM PDT – 1:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 8
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** dbt at scale
KOHO, a Canadian challenger bank serving 2.5 million customers, ran its entire analytics estate — BI, ML, and dbt transformations — on a single Amazon Redshift cluster. As data volume grew to 200 TB, 15,000 datasets, and 30 million events per day, the nightly dbt job stretched past 6.5 hours, spilling into business hours and putting data mart SLAs at risk from workload contention on shared compute.
In this session, KOHO's Principal Data Architect shares how the team re-architected from a centralized warehouse to a Hub & Spoke model and, ultimately, a data mesh — using Amazon Redshift Serverless, Amazon Redshift data sharing, and the new datashare-aware dbt-redshift adapter. By moving dbt onto its own right-sized Redshift Serverless workgroup while preserving a single source of truth, KOHO cut its daily dbt runtime by ~70% (6.5h → 2h) in a config-only migration — with no changes to dbt models and no downtime. Not one analyst had to rewrite a line of SQL.
Attendees will learn how to decompose a Redshift transformation monolith, when to apply data sharing versus consolidation, and how the dbt Redshift adapter's data sharing support turns cross-warehouse reads from a workaround into a simple configuration — unlocking intra-day data freshness, independent per-team scaling, and the resiliency headroom to grow into a regulated bank.
## Speakers
- Manikandan Paramasivan — Principal Architect for Data, ML & AI, KOHO Financial
- Raza Hafeez — Senior Product Manager, Amazon
---
---
title: "Migrate stored procs with dbt Wizard"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/migrate-stored-procs-with-dbt-wizard"
sessionType: "Hands-on lab"
---
# Migrate stored procs with dbt Wizard
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 12:45 PM PDT – 2:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Nolita
**Type:** Hands-on lab
Turn a legacy stored procedure into a dbt project you can maintain, test, and build on. Use dbt Wizard to generate model layers, then validate parity with audit_helper so you can trust the migration results. Wrap up by defining a Semantic Layer metric using dbt Wizard to make the new logic consumable across tools.
Learning objectives: After this lab, you will be able to:
- Migrate a stored procedure into dbt using dbt Wizard
- Validate legacy vs. dbt outputs with audit_helper
- Define a Semantic model on top of the migrated models
Prerequisites:
- dbt Fundamentals
- SQL experience
What to bring: You must bring your own laptop to complete the exercises. We will provide all other sandbox environments for dbt and a data platform.
Duration: 90 minutes
## Speakers
- Raini Laughlin — Technical Instructor, dbt Labs
- Steven Nguyen — Customer Solutions Architect, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "Ramp's internal AI stack: agents, sandboxes, and an AI-first BI tool"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/ramps-internal-ai-stack-agents-sandboxes-and-an-ai-first-bi-tool"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Building agentic data workflows"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# Ramp's internal AI stack: agents, sandboxes, and an AI-first BI tool
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 12:45 PM PDT – 1:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 2
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Building agentic data workflows
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
Ramp's data team has been deeply involved in building a stack of internal AI tools which have reshaped the way work gets done across the company. Every tool builds on primitives from the others, and they all integrate with internal data systems.
In this session, we'll explain what we've built, why, and how it's changed our work:
- Tools like Ramp Research, Inspect, Glass and a new dashboarding application
- The context layers and our approach to explanatory prose
- Adoption of these tools across the org, and what every new employee has on their first day of work.
## Speakers
- Jay Sobel — Data Platform Engineer, Ramp
---
---
title: "Beyond layers and medallions: An explicit data modeling framework"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/beyond-layers-and-medallions-an-explicit-data-modeling-framework"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Analytics engineering best practices"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate", "Expert"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
---
# Beyond layers and medallions: An explicit data modeling framework
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 12:45 PM PDT – 1:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 3
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Analytics engineering best practices
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate, Expert
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
Using dbt as a tool does not guarantee a good data model. A clear vision of the necessary pieces does.
This is a story of standard data layering failing our growing analytics engineering team, leading to different implementations between domains, discouraged contributors and slow progress. We had data modeling rules, yet too many use cases did not have obvious implementation paths.
The cure is not more ad hoc support. The solution is going deeper into the patterns and explaining them better. What exactly should an intermediate model contain, how it should be named and how does it relate to other int models. Which tables do we need in the mart layer, how users are expected to interact with them, which columns do they need and how do we prepare them. Where do we use automation to ensure consistency. What exactly guarantees that the mart layer remains maintainable at scale, across business lines and horizontal support teams. Come learn from our mistakes instead of making your own.
## Speakers
- Silja Märdla — Head of Analytics Engineering, Bolt
---
---
title: "Product roundtable: With great context comes great autonomy: leveling up your agent context"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/product-roundtable-with-great-context-comes-great-autonomy-leveling-up-your-agent-context"
sessionType: "Roundtable"
track: ["dbt Product"]
---
# Product roundtable: With great context comes great autonomy: leveling up your agent context
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 12:45 PM PDT – 1:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 1
**Type:** Roundtable
**Track:** dbt Product
Join us for a roundtable discussion where we’ll go deeper into the ideas shared in the breakout: With great context comes great autonomy: leveling up your agent context. Bring your questions, share your take, and connect with peers and presenters. Note attendance in the breakout session is not required, but encouraged.
## Speakers
- Ben Moser — Senior Product Manager, dbt Labs
- Kevin Kim — Staff Product Manager, Fivetran
---
---
title: "Build, test, evaluate, deploy: Coding plugins for Connector SDK"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/build-test-evaluate-deploy-coding-plugins-for-connector-sdk"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["AI and agentic analytics"]
---
# Build, test, evaluate, deploy: Coding plugins for Connector SDK
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 1:00 PM PDT – 1:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** AI and agentic analytics
A 15-minute lightning talk on using coding plugins across the full Connector SDK workflow: building connectors, local testing, evaluating code quality, and deploying with less friction. I’ll show how plugins save real time, how they improve consistency, and where engineers still need to make the hard calls.
## Speakers
- Kirk Van Arkel — Lead Solution Architect, Enterprise, Fivetran
- Cheril Lin Abeel — Lead Solution Architect, Enterprise, Fivetran
---
---
title: "Dashboards as Code with dbt Charts"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dashboards-as-code-with-dbt-charts"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["Building agentic data workflows"]
---
# Dashboards as Code with dbt Charts
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 1:30 PM PDT – 1:50 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** Building agentic data workflows
Everything below the semantic layer got version control, tests, review and CI. The dashboard didn't. Learn what happens when it does: board files next to your models, authored by you or by an agent, reviewed in a pull request like anything else, and validated before anyone sees them. We'll take one dashboard from nothing to shipped, while understanding the intricacies of model brakes, new builds, and updates along the way.
## Speakers
- Dave Fowler — General Manager, Fivetran
---
---
title: "Warming up to Iceberg: 2026 makes Iceberg easier"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/warming-up-to-iceberg-2026-makes-iceberg-easier"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Practitioners at the edge"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# Warming up to Iceberg: 2026 makes Iceberg easier
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 1:45 PM PDT – 2:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 3
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Practitioners at the edge
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
What if you can run dbt without a Warehouse? In this talk we'll cover how you can load data to Snowflake managed (Horizon) Iceberg tables, transform the data using dbt-duckdb, all without turning on a Snowflake Virtual Warehouse. If you've been hesitant about Iceberg because of the setup complexity, we're going to cover recent improvements to DuckDB, dbt Fusion, and Snowflake's catalog that make this process easier than you think. And the best part: the moment your data lands, it's fully governed by Snowflake. RBAC, masking, lineage, all included.
Stub Snowflake for Databricks, etc. The examples in this talk focus on Snowflake but the ideas are cross-platform.
We'll also touch on the most up and coming Iceberg alternative, DuckLake, and when to reach for each tool.
## Speakers
- Jeff Skoldberg — Founding Consultant, Green Mountain Data Solutions
---
---
title: "An AlphaSense case study: scaling AI on enterprise data with dbt-first governance and context from Euno"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/an-alphasense-case-study-scaling-ai-on-enterprise-data-with-dbt-first-governance-and-context-from-euno"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Powering AI-ready data"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# An AlphaSense case study: scaling AI on enterprise data with dbt-first governance and context from Euno
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 1:45 PM PDT – 2:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 2
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Powering AI-ready data
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
AlphaSense's objective for 2026: deploy AI on top of core data to drive faster decisions across data and business teams. Plugging agents into complex systems as-is didn't work. Hallucinations, inconsistencies, and a manual governance burden couldn't keep pace. Every AI outcome needed to trace back to it source. This session shows how AlphaSense paired dbt with Euno's governance automations to unify lineage, ownership, and semantic context across Snowflake, dbt, Fivetran, Tableau, and more, then surfaced that trusted context directly into the agents its teams run, including Claude and Cursor. Walk away with a pattern for grounding your own AI agents in governed, explainable data.
## Speakers
- Sarah Levy — Co-Founder & CEO, Euno
- Brad Levy — Director of Analytics, AlphaSense
---
---
title: "All aboard: Rebuilding dbt in the open"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/all-aboard-rebuilding-dbt-in-the-open"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["dbt Product"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
---
# All aboard: Rebuilding dbt in the open
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 1:45 PM PDT – 2:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 4
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** dbt Product
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
Rewriting a 9 year old code base is hard. Rewriting it in the open over ~1 billion dbt installs later? Harder. Why did we do it? For faster runtimes, SQL comprehension, shared adapters, better docs, and a modernized developer experience.
We'll be rooting our session in a metaphor from a similar engineering problem, but for trains back in the 1800s: the break of gauge. I'll teach you how we aren't going to pay the cost of transfer as we modernize onto OSS v2.
This session will be demo packed:
- v1 → v2 conversion using autofix, and the v2 parser already running inside v1.12
- Side by side parse times in v1 and v2
- The power of one binary shipped with every adapter
- Docs v2 because we both know your `manifest.json` is too big
- Time allowing: how the distributions differ at catching an error (spoiler: it's 1.68s vs. 0.04s — wouldn't you like to know how to catch an error 42x faster?)
By the end of this session you should know:
1. Why you would want to upgrade to v2 and how to use the flagship v2 upgrades
2. How to upgrade to v2 — a project upgrade will be shown
3. How to choose the right distribution for you
4. More of the v2 mechanics and how it works under the hood
I hope to see you there!
## Speakers
- Hope Watson — Product Manager, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "One engine to rule them all: why Obie left the shire"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/one-engine-to-rule-them-all-why-obie-left-the-shire"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Winning with dbt v2"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# One engine to rule them all: why Obie left the shire
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 1:45 PM PDT – 2:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 7
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Winning with dbt v2
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
Obie Insurance tore out their ELT infrastructure and rebuilt it from the ground up, using Apache Iceberg, the dbt Fusion engine, the dbt Semantic Layer, and AI tooling.
This session walks through the rebuild decision, the architecture we ultimately landed on, and the lessons from running in production. Also: the story happens to be told through a fantasy / Lord of the Rings lens. But the problems we solved with our modernized architecture were very real.
## Speakers
- Tyson Doberneck — Senior Data Engineer, Obie Insurance
- Matt Karan — Senior Data Engineer, Obie Insurance
---
---
title: "From data to AI: why Microsoft Fabric and dbt are better together"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-data-to-ai-why-microsoft-fabric-and-dbt-are-better-together"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Analytics engineering best practices"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# From data to AI: why Microsoft Fabric and dbt are better together
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 1:45 PM PDT – 2:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 8
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Analytics engineering best practices
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
As organizations modernize their data estate, they face growing complexity across storage, transformation, governance, analytics, and AI. Microsoft Fabric and dbt together offer a compelling alternative: an open, governed, and unified analytics platform.
Learn how OneLake, serverless architecture, unified security, OneLake Catalog, and AI-powered experiences work alongside dbt's analytics engineering capabilities, including testing, lineage, documentation, and SQL-driven development. Discover how this combination helps organizations reduce fragmentation, accelerate innovation, and build trusted data foundations for analytics, AI, and agentic workloads.
## Speakers
- Roy Hasson — Senior Director of Product Management, Microsoft
- Pradeep Srikakolapu — Senior Product Manager, Microsoft
- Abhishek Narain — Principal PM Manager, Microsoft
---
---
title: "AI didn't change our dbt project, just who cared about it."
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/ai-didnt-change-our-dbt-project-just-who-cared-about-it"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["Powering AI-ready data"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# AI didn't change our dbt project, just who cared about it.
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 2:00 PM PDT – 2:20 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** Powering AI-ready data
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
The day after Starburst announced our in-product AI analytics agent internally, our executive team challenged us to point it at our own data, as soon as possible. Our agent hit production and 45 days later, we shipped our first internal phase to the entire leadership team. Our secret? Our bronze and silver layers were already curated in a dbt project we used daily, so we spent our time tuning with subject matter experts and connecting our dbt descriptions downstream to the agent.
I'll cover the guardrails we imposed once executives cared what lived in our dbt repo (including the one that saved us: no build starts until the business unit commits), how dogfooding shipped changes for all customers, like extending persist_docs in dbt-trino, and how we're scaling as more teams onboard. You'll leave with the rules we'd keep, the mistakes we'd skip, and how we're making this easier for others today. It turns out the best sponsor our dbt repo ever had turned out to be an AI project.
## Speakers
- Monica Miller — Senior Product Manager, Starburst
---
---
title: "Product roundtable: Open Data Infrastructure in practice: unlock your dbt projects with Apache Iceberg and mesh"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/product-roundtable-open-data-infrastructure-in-practice-unlock-your-dbt-projects-with-apache-iceberg-and-mesh"
sessionType: "Roundtable"
track: ["dbt Product"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
---
# Product roundtable: Open Data Infrastructure in practice: unlock your dbt projects with Apache Iceberg and mesh
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 2:15 PM PDT – 3:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 1
**Type:** Roundtable
**Track:** dbt Product
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
Most dbt projects are "locked into" a single remote data warehouse for three primary reasons:
• Data storage
• SQL dialect
• Difficulty of self-hosting a query engine
With dbt + Apache Iceberg, it's never been easier to "unlock" your project: with data in open table formats (Iceberg), Fusion's multi-dialect support, and innovations with DuckDB, organizations have a flexible foundation to run their dbt projects across platforms and engines. Join this session to get an overview and demo of how these components come together to deliver Open Data Infrastructure for improved choice, better collaboration, and optimized costs.
## Speakers
- Jack Lowery — Lead Sales Engineer Specialist- Data Lakes and Transformations, Fivetran
- Anna Lee — Software Engineer, dbt Labs
- Casey Karst — Principal Product Manager, Fivetran
- Russell Christopher — Sr. Director, Product Management, dbt Labs
- Jeremy Cohen — Principal Product Manager, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "{SOLD OUT} Certification"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-certification-869201e5"
sessionType: "Certification add-on"
---
# {SOLD OUT} Certification
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 2:15 PM PDT – 4:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Brera 4
**Type:** Certification add-on
Doors close at the published start time. Late arrivals cannot be admitted, even if registered.
Get certified at dbt Summit! Choose from two certification exams:
The dbt Analytics Engineering Certification Exam is designed to evaluate your ability to:
- Build, test, and maintain models to make data accessible to others
- Use dbt to apply engineering principles to analytics infrastructure
We recommend that you have at least SQL proficiency and have had 6+ months of experience working in dbt (dbt Core or the dbt platform) before attempting the exam.
The dbt Architect Certification Exam assesses your ability to:
- Design secure, scalable dbt implementations, with a focus on environment orchestration
- Role-based access control
- Integrations with other tools
- Collaborative development workflows aligned with best practices
What to expect with either exam:
- You will be sitting for one attempt at one of the two in-person exams at dbt Summit. You will let the proctor know which certification you are sitting for
- Please arrive on time, this is a closed-door certification, and attendees will not be let in after the doors are closed
What to bring:
- You will need to bring your own laptop to take the exam
Duration: 2 Hours
A valid dbt Summit pass is required to register for trainings and certifications.
Trainings and certifications will take place in-person at dbt Summit only.
---
---
title: "We have been overthinking context engineering"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/we-have-been-overthinking-context-engineering"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["Powering AI-ready data"]
---
# We have been overthinking context engineering
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 2:30 PM PDT – 2:50 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** Powering AI-ready data
Context and "context engineering" are the industry's hottest topics, but most of the marketing is vague on the what and the how. All we're told is that it matters and that agents need it.
Strip away the mystique and context is mostly unstructured data: text, images, audio. LLMs are already very good at turning that into semi-structured data, and then into a structured, queryable index an agent can navigate. Individually, each of those steps is a problem the data world has largely figured out. What's missing isn't a new primitive; it's composition and governance.
Analytics engineering is data engineering, which is software engineering — and, it turns out, context engineering.
## Speakers
- Alex Noonan — Senior Developer Experience Advocate, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "From dashboards to data products: how dbt transforms analytics teams"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-dashboards-to-data-products-how-dbt-transforms-analytics-teams"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Analytics engineering best practices"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# From dashboards to data products: how dbt transforms analytics teams
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 2:45 PM PDT – 3:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 3
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Analytics engineering best practices
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
Many analytics teams start the same way: as reporting factories. SQL logic gets duplicated, metrics drift apart, and trust in data erodes. As AI enters the analytics stack, the stakes are even higher: AI is only as reliable as the data it's built on.
Over seven years, I've worked with dbt across three organizations at different stages of maturity: discovering dbt as an analyst and transitioning into analytics engineering; scaling it through multi-repo and data mesh architectures; and now leading a full team transformation toward data as a product at Compare The Market.
I'll share practical lessons from all three stages: building a testing culture, scaling ownership across domains, and shifting from dashboards as outputs to reliable data models as products. Because that foundation is what AI and agentic workflows actually need to work.
## Speakers
- Emanuela Ciotti — Head of Enterprise Analytics, Compare the Market
---
---
title: "Getting instant feedback: The new dbt powered developer experience"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/getting-instant-feedback-the-new-dbt-powered-developer-experience"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["dbt Product"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
---
# Getting instant feedback: The new dbt powered developer experience
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 2:45 PM PDT – 3:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 4
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** dbt Product
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
dbt v1 workflows still rely on a slow feedback loop: write SQL, kick off a run, wait for failures, then dig through logs to understand what broke. With dbt v2, that changes. The same Rust-based engine behind v2 now powers a development experience that understands your project as you work – catching issues in real-time, generating parquet artifacts for fast metadata exploration, and giving you an updated model and column lineage as you or your agent develops in your dbt project.
In this session, we’ll follow an analytics engineer through a full local development loop: authoring a model with SQL comprehension and inline diagnostics, exploring column‑level lineage and catalog to understand your project, using local Compare Changes to validate impact against your production models without waiting for CI, and using a high‑performance, SQLFluff‑compatible linter to enforce consistency and standards.
You’ll leave with a clear picture of what dbt v2 unlocks in terms of development speed and practical guidance on how to introduce these capabilities to your team without disrupting existing projects.
## Speakers
- Alexander Bogdanowicz — Senior Manager, Software Engineering, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "From DML soup to dbt structure: Ecolab's migration story"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-dml-soup-to-dbt-structure-ecolabs-migration-story"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Data modernization & emerging architectures"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# From DML soup to dbt structure: Ecolab's migration story
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 2:45 PM PDT – 3:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 8
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Data modernization & emerging architectures
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
Ecolab's legacy data pipelines were a constant headache: tangled, unknown lineage meant small changes took weeks to implement and test. Silent errors like uncaptured source deletes crept into production, and stream-based processing made failures painful to recover from. The team wanted to migrate to dbt for clear lineage, readable code, and idempotent runs, but that meant translating over 2,000 DML statements by hand. To tackle this migration, Ecolab partnered with Datafold, whose AI process converts natural language requirements into automated checks, translates legacy logic into dbt, and validates the result against the original pipeline before sign-off. Migrations don't have to choose between fast and trustworthy. In this session, you'll see how to achieve both.
## Speakers
- Tomasz Kaczmarek — Lead IT Developer, Ecolab
- Chiel Fernhout — Migration Delivery Engineering Lead, Datafold
---
---
title: "Beyond semantic models: \"Domain context as code\" for high-accuracy text-to-SQL"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/beyond-semantic-models-domain-context-as-code-for-high-accuracy-text-to-sql"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Powering AI-ready data"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Expert"]
persona: ["Data leaders"]
relevantIndustry: ["Retail", "Media"]
---
# Beyond semantic models: "Domain context as code" for high-accuracy text-to-SQL
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 2:45 PM PDT – 3:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 2
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Powering AI-ready data
**Knowledge Level:** Expert
**Persona:** Data leaders
**Relevant Industry:** Retail, Media
Text-to-SQL promises self-serve analytics, but accuracy remains a bottleneck. While dbt semantic models excellently encode business logic—metrics, dimensions, and relationships—many teams find that accuracy still plateaus when questions involve specific user actions on the frontend (e.g., "UUCVR after recommend modal"). The LLM lacks the context of the Web site itself.
This talk explores what lies beyond the Data Warehouse context. We will share our approach to building "Domain Context as Code" by structuring web access log measurement designs (YAML) and integrating QA automation scenarios. By combining dbt's rich metadata with this frontend ontology, we show how to turn vague natural language questions into highly accurate Semantic Layer queries, improving both Text-to-SQL performance and overall data quality.
## Speakers
- Junya Morita — Group Manager, Tech Lead, Recruit Co.,ltd.
---
---
title: "From cost center to profit center: how Mitratech built a data platform on dbt"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-cost-center-to-profit-center-how-mitratech-built-a-data-platform-on-dbt"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Delivering business outcomes"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Expert"]
persona: ["Business leaders and executives", "Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["Technology"]
---
# From cost center to profit center: how Mitratech built a data platform on dbt
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 2:45 PM PDT – 3:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 7
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Delivering business outcomes
**Knowledge Level:** Expert
**Persona:** Business leaders and executives, Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** Technology
Mitratech's original DataShare solution was built for one product, heavily customized, and impossible to scale. When the need arose to extend data sharing across a broader product portfolio, a complete rearchitecture was the only answer.
This session covers how Mitratech rebuilt DataShare as a standardized, generalized framework that any product in the platform can adopt with minimal engineering effort. Product teams onboard without custom work. Clients get immediate, flexible data access through BI tools of their choice or via Snowflake-to-Snowflake sharing. And the data engineering team is freed from repetitive bespoke builds.
We'll walk through the phased approach: refactoring the original framework, validating with a lead product, scaling across additional products. Leave with a reusable model for consistent, reliable data sharing across a multi-product ecosystem.
## Speakers
- Abhra Gupta — Lead Analytics Engineer, Mitratech
- Brian Kasen — Director, Data Engineering and Analytics, Mitratech
---
---
title: "From Lakehouse to agents: scaling analytics with dbt and Google Cloud"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-lakehouse-to-agents-scaling-analytics-with-dbt-and-google-cloud"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["Powering AI-ready data"]
---
# From Lakehouse to agents: scaling analytics with dbt and Google Cloud
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 3:00 PM PDT – 3:20 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** Powering AI-ready data
As the boundaries between data engineering, analytics, and generative AI blur, combining a robust data foundation with cutting-edge AI capabilities is essential for modern data teams. Join us to discover how dbt and Google Cloud are building the intelligence layer for the AI-driven enterprise.
See how Gemini Enterprise leverages dbt’s hosted Model Context Protocol (MCP) to enable real-time natural language interaction with your metadata, models, and lineage. From scaling Python workflows with BigQuery DataFrames to unifying data management across the Google Cloud Lakehouse, this session is packed! Plus, get a forward-looking preview of autonomous analytics using Google’s Antigravity framework and next-generation Gemini Enterprise agents for dbt.
## Speakers
- Jobin George — Partner Engineering Lead, Data Cloud, Google
- Stephen Robb — Partner Solutions Architect, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "Creating context with dbt MCP Server"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/creating-context-with-dbt-mcp-server"
sessionType: "Hands-on lab"
---
# Creating context with dbt MCP Server
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 3:15 PM PDT – 4:45 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Nolita
**Type:** Hands-on lab
Learn how to use the dbt MCP Server to connect to your external AI tool of choice to governed dbt context and actions. In this lab, you’ll configure MCP access, verify connectivity, and then complete a guided workflow where the AI tool pulls project metadata/context via MCP to complete a task (for example: understanding project lineage, querying the semantic layer, triaging production issues, or getting up-to-date docs) more accurately than prompting alone.
After this lab, you will be able to:
- Explain what MCP is and when it’s useful compared to “chat-only” AI workflows
- Configure a working MCP connection to dbt and verify the toolchain is functioning
- Use MCP-enabled context to complete a guided workflow (impact analysis / plan / draft output)
- Apply basic troubleshooting steps for common MCP setup failures (auth, connectivity, permissions)
Prerequisites:
- Basic familiarity with dbt concepts (projects, models, environments)
- Comfort following setup instructions (no coding required beyond copy/paste)
- Access to an AI client (such as Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Codex, ChatGPT, Gemini, dbt Wizard)
What to bring: You must bring your own laptop and AI client to complete the exercises. We will provide all other sandbox environments and any required credentials.
Duration: 90 minutes
## Speakers
- Stephen Thibeault — Senior Resident Architect, dbt Labs
- Jairus Martinez — Resident Architect, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "The View on Data: Live from dbt Summit"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-view-on-data-live-from-dbt-summit"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
persona: ["Business leaders and executives"]
---
# The View on Data: Live from dbt Summit
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 3:30 PM PDT – 5:00 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Mont-Royal
**Type:** Breakout session
**Persona:** Business leaders and executives
At dbt Summit, we're bringing The View on Data to life in the room with you. The View on Data is dbt Labs' monthly roundtable podcast where women in data share unfiltered stories, career lessons, and honest takes on what it takes to thrive in data and tech. This time, we're recording live — and you're part of it. This live recording brings together voices from across the data stack for a candid conversation about navigating technical roles in analytics, data, and AI. Expect real stories behind the titles, hard-won lessons, and the kind of honest talk that's rare to find at a conference. Bring your questions, connect with peers, and find your people. This session is open to everyone.
## Speakers
- Paige Berry — Lead Data Analyst, dbt Labs
- Grace Goheen — Product Manager, dbt Labs
- Jerrie Kenney — Manager, Professional Services, dbt Labs
- Erica Louie — Sr. Manager, Data Analytics & BI, dbt Labs
- Faith McKenna — Manger, Technical Instruction, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "Inside the agentic data stack at Bilt"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/inside-the-agentic-data-stack-at-bilt"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["Building agentic data workflows"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries", "Financial Services", "Technology"]
---
# Inside the agentic data stack at Bilt
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 3:30 PM PDT – 3:50 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** Building agentic data workflows
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries, Financial Services, Technology
The Bilt team has moved beyond just empowering business users to "talk to their data." Now, they're supporting agentic workflows that empower business users to "get things done with their data". Come to this session to learn how they've automated data engineering and analytics engineering workflows, empowered finance and accounting to automate their close process, and more!
## Speakers
- Ben Kramer — Senior Director, Data & Analytics, Bilt
- Sam Masling — AI Lead, Bilt
---
---
title: "How Figma builds a consistent experience with confidence"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/how-figma-builds-a-consistent-experience-with-confidence"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["dbt at scale"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Basic", "Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# How Figma builds a consistent experience with confidence
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 3:45 PM PDT – 4:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 8
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** dbt at scale
**Knowledge Level:** Basic, Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
At Figma, we built consistency checkers in-house: a testing tool that uses dbt, Snowflake, and Dagster to run rigorous verification across both development and production environments. As our systems have grown in complexity, the tool has built up a track record: catching bugs, surfacing edge cases, and flagging issues before they become incidents.
This session covers the architecture behind consistency checkers, the decisions we made while building them, and the gotchas we ran into along the way. We'll also share the specific moments where the tool caught something that would have otherwise slipped through.
## Speakers
- Madison Kohls — Data Scientist, Figma
---
---
title: "Beyond the dashboard: an MCP-connected AI agent that reads your dbt lineage"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/beyond-the-dashboard-an-mcp-connected-ai-agent-that-reads-your-dbt-lineage"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Building agentic data workflows"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# Beyond the dashboard: an MCP-connected AI agent that reads your dbt lineage
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 3:45 PM PDT – 4:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 2
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Building agentic data workflows
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
BI copilots can answer questions about what's on the screen: filters, dimensions, chart values. But ask "Why is this number wrong?" or "Where does this column come from?" and they hit a wall. They can't see past the dashboard.
We built an AI agent that goes deeper. Directly within the BI layer, it connects to your dbt project through MCP. The agent extracts context from the report, reads compiled SQL, traces column-level lineage from mart to source, explains the business logic in each transformation, and runs validation queries against the warehouse to confirm what the data shows.
For analysts, it eliminates hours spent following DAGs and reading model code. For business users, a persona switch delivers plain-English answers with no dbt jargon in sight.
We'll show how the dbt MCP server makes this possible and demo the agent live by investigating a data discrepancy from BI report to root cause to Jira ticket, all in one chat.
## Speakers
- Mars Dauer — Enterprise Data and AI Leader
---
---
title: "AI-augmented analytics engineering at DocuSign: from prompt to production with Fusion, dbt MCP, and agent skills"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/ai-augmented-analytics-engineering-at-docusign-from-prompt-to-production-with-fusion-dbt-mcp-and-agent-skills"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Winning with dbt v2"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["Technology"]
---
# AI-augmented analytics engineering at DocuSign: from prompt to production with Fusion, dbt MCP, and agent skills
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 3:45 PM PDT – 4:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 7
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Winning with dbt v2
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** Technology
AI can already write SQL. The harder question is whether you can trust what it ships. At Docusign, we've built an AI-augmented development workflow on Fusion, the dbt MCP server, dbt agent skills, and Claude Code, one where the agent understands the project it's working in, not just the file it's editing.
In this session, I'll walk through real examples: developing and testing models, modernizing legacy SQL, and running impact analysis before a change lands. Then the part that matters more: the engineering discipline that keeps AI-generated changes production-ready. Repository conventions, agent skills, human review, CI, and deployment controls.
You'll leave knowing where these workflows are delivering measurable productivity gains, where human judgment is still non-negotiable, and how to start adopting the patterns in a mature dbt project.
## Speakers
- Bishal Gupta — Lead Data Engineer, Docusign
---
---
title: "Fireside chat: What is Context Engineering and why does it matter for analytics practitioners"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/fireside-chat-what-is-context-engineering-and-why-does-it-matter-for-analytics-practitioners"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Building agentic data workflows"]
---
# Fireside chat: What is Context Engineering and why does it matter for analytics practitioners
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 3:45 PM PDT – 4:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 4
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Building agentic data workflows
Increasingly the bottleneck on adoption for agentic AI workflows isn't the intelligence of the models - it's delivering them the right context at the right time. That's where the emerging discipline of context engineering comes in. But what exactly is context engineering? And what does it mean for data practitions. In this fireside chat, Tristan Handy and Jason Ganz will discuss the increasing overlap between analytics engineering and context engineering - and how data practitioners can take practical steps today to begin implementing context engineering best practices in their organizations.
## Speakers
- Tristan Handy — President & Co-founder, Fivetran + dbt Labs
- Jason Ganz — Director, Developer Experience, Community and AI, dbt Labs
- Britton Stamper — Field AI Enablement Director, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "dbt Charts: Building a Viz Language that’s Easy on the I’s - AI, BI, CI, and ODI"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dbt-charts-building-a-viz-language-thats-easy-on-the-is-ai-bi-ci-and-odi"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Building agentic data workflows"]
---
# dbt Charts: Building a Viz Language that’s Easy on the I’s - AI, BI, CI, and ODI
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 3:45 PM PDT – 4:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 3
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Building agentic data workflows
Everything in your data stack has a diff except the thing your CEO reads. We'll demonstrate how moving dashboard definitions into version control alongside your dbt models unlocks the same rigor for analytics as you apply to your pipelines. We'll show how AI can author these files, how CI can validate them, and how an open declarative language (not a proprietary app) creates the durable artifact you need for production. We’ll walk you through how and why we built a declarative language for dashboards that’s more than easy on the eyes.
## Speakers
- Dave Fowler — General Manager, Fivetran
- RJ Andrews — Data Scientist, Fivetran
---
---
title: "In the weeds of dbt State"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/in-the-weeds-of-dbt-state-8e30083f"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["dbt product"]
---
# In the weeds of dbt State
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 4:00 PM PDT – 4:15 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** dbt product
dbt State saves you time and money by preventing unnecessary warehouse compute. This lightning talk will help you build a mental model for how it makes its decisions, based on real-world scenarios.
## Speakers
- Joel Labes — Staff DX Advocate, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "The View on Data: Networking mingle"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-view-on-data-networking-mingle"
sessionType: "Networking"
---
# The View on Data: Networking mingle
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 4:15 PM PDT – 5:00 PM PDT
**Type:** Networking
Join us for a networking mingle, immediately following The View on Data: Live from dbt Summit. Continue the conversation on the experiences on women in data, hard-won career lessons, and what it takes to thrive. Enjoy light refreshments and get to know likeminded dbt Summit attendees. All are welcome.
---
---
title: "dbt Summit Party"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dbt-summit-party"
sessionType: "Networking"
beyondTheSessions: ["Evening Event"]
---
# dbt Summit Party
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 7:00 PM PDT – 10:00 PM PDT
**Where:** Marquee, Level 2
**Type:** Networking
**Beyond the sessions:** Evening Event
Let's celebrate! Before the last day of dbt Summit follow the white rabbit to Marquee for the Official dbt Summit Party. Enjoy food and drinks and be ready to dance & party the night away. Come as you are or dress for the Mad Hatter's tea party. There will be a lot to see & discover this night, including a low stim area for those who may need to step away.
---
---
title: "dbt Summit After Party with ClickHouse & AWS"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dbt-summit-after-party-with-clickhouse-and-aws"
sessionType: "Networking"
beyondTheSessions: ["Partner Hosted Event", "Evening Event"]
---
# dbt Summit After Party with ClickHouse & AWS
**When:** Thursday, September 17, 2026, 10:00 PM PDT – 12:00 AM PDT
**Where:** Chandelier Bar, The Cosmopolitan
**Type:** Networking
**Beyond the sessions:** Partner Hosted Event, Evening Event
Some of the best conversations happen closer to midnight.
Join ClickHouse and AWS for an exclusive late-night gathering at the Chandelier Bar — vibe out inside of 2 million crystal beads floating above The Cosmopolitan floor. Good drinks, good bites, good people, zero pitch decks in sight.
A relaxed close to the night, for anyone who wants to keep the conversation going.
[RSVP here](https://luma.com/clickh-k5ud) - space is limited.
---
---
title: "Breakfast"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/breakfast-f622fff9"
sessionType: "Meals"
beyondTheSessions: ["Meals"]
---
# Breakfast
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 7:30 AM PDT – 9:00 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall
**Type:** Meals
**Beyond the sessions:** Meals
---
---
title: "{SOLD OUT} Governed & scalable AI-assisted analytics with dbt"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-governed-and-scalable-ai-assisted-analytics-with-dbt-8bebec40"
sessionType: "Training add-on"
---
# {SOLD OUT} Governed & scalable AI-assisted analytics with dbt
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 8:30 AM PDT – 10:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Brera 6
**Type:** Training add-on
Doors open 30 minutes before each session. If you're not seated by the published start time, your seat is released to the waitlist.
AI can accelerate analytics work—but only if it’s governed and reviewable. In this course, you’ll learn practical patterns for enabling AI-assisted workflows in and around dbt without creating new risk. We’ll cover what guardrails to set, how to structure review, and how to keep your analytics codebase and definitions trustworthy as AI usage scales.
Learning objectives: After this course, you will be able to:
- Describe where AI helps most in analytics engineering (and where it can introduce risk)
- Apply a review framework for AI-assisted changes (correctness, performance, maintainability, documentation)
- Identify governance decisions needed before scaling AI usage (who can access what context, what outputs are acceptable, how changes get approved)
- Establish team norms that prevent “AI drift” in definitions, naming, and documentation
Prerequisites:
- dbt Fundamentals
- Comfort reviewing SQL changes (even if you’re not writing complex SQL from scratch)
What to bring:
- You must bring your own laptop to complete the hands-on exercises
- We will provide any required sandbox environments for dbt and the data platform
Duration: 2 hours
- A valid dbt Summit pass is required to register for trainings and certifications
- Trainings and certifications will take place in-person at dbt Summit only
## Speakers
- Jessica Stayton — Resident Architect, dbt Labs
- Raini Laughlin — Technical Instructor, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "{SOLD OUT} Becoming a dbt Architect"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-becoming-a-dbt-architect-a4aa124e"
sessionType: "Training add-on"
---
# {SOLD OUT} Becoming a dbt Architect
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 8:30 AM PDT – 12:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Brera 5
**Type:** Training add-on
Doors open 30 minutes before each session. If you're not seated by the published start time, your seat is released to the waitlist.
Learn a practical, repeatable approach to managing analytics costs with dbt. This course focuses on the real-world workflow teams use to control spend: understanding cost drivers, identifying hotspots, establishing team standards, and turning cost signals into an actionable optimization backlog.
Learning objectives: After this course, you will be able to:
- Explain common cost drivers in analytics workloads (over-refreshing, inefficient transformations, poorly designed rebuild patterns)
- Apply job design and project patterns that reduce avoidable spend
- Create an operating rhythm for cost management (visibility → prioritization → optimization → measurement)
- Define team agreements that prevent cost regressions (standards, review checks, and ownership)
Prerequisites:
- dbt Fundamentals (or equivalent experience)
What to bring:
- You must bring your own laptop to complete the hands-on exercises
- We will provide a sandbox dbt + data platform environment for exercises.
Duration: 4 hours
- A valid dbt Summit pass is required to register for trainings and certifications
- Trainings and certifications will take place in-person at dbt Summit only
## Speakers
- Akash Trivedi — Lead Technical Instructor, dbt Labs
- Will Weld — Senior Resident Architect, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "{SOLD OUT} Certification"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-certification-cc1e54c7"
sessionType: "Certification add-on"
---
# {SOLD OUT} Certification
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 8:30 AM PDT – 11:00 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Brera 4
**Type:** Certification add-on
Doors close at the published start time. Late arrivals cannot be admitted, even if registered.
Get certified at dbt Summit! Choose from two certification exams:
The dbt Analytics Engineering Certification Exam is designed to evaluate your ability to:
- Build, test, and maintain models to make data accessible to others
- Use dbt to apply engineering principles to analytics infrastructure
We recommend that you have at least SQL proficiency and have had 6+ months of experience working in dbt (dbt Core or the dbt platform) before attempting the exam.
The dbt Architect Certification Exam assesses your ability to:
- Design secure, scalable dbt implementations, with a focus on environment orchestration
- Role-based access control
- Integrations with other tools
- Collaborative development workflows aligned with best practices
What to expect with either exam:
- You will be sitting for one attempt at one of the two in-person exams at dbt Summit. You will let the proctor know which certification you are sitting for
- Please arrive on time, this is a closed-door certification, and attendees will not be let in after the doors are closed
What to bring:
- You will need to bring your own laptop to take the exam
Duration: 2 Hours
A valid dbt Summit pass is required to register for trainings and certifications.
Trainings and certifications will take place in-person at dbt Summit only.
---
---
title: "The Platform Team Said No — dbt won with “Yes” - Story of Governance, Autonomy, and Scale"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-platform-team-said-no-dbt-won-with-yes-story-of-governance-autonomy-and-scale"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Data modernization & emerging architectures"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Basic", "Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders"]
---
# The Platform Team Said No — dbt won with “Yes” - Story of Governance, Autonomy, and Scale
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 9:00 AM PDT – 9:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 7
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Data modernization & emerging architectures
**Knowledge Level:** Basic, Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders
At Delivery Hero, one of the world's largest food delivery platforms, we run a decentralised data engineering org — 50+ teams, 70+ countries, 60+ PB data, 300k+ tables. Teams run pipelines autonomously, and domain engineers want to create data products rapidly to enable data driven business decisions. This is a complex setup, initially all without dbt!
This won’t be a talk, but rather a live dialogue between two practitioners from opposite sides of that negotiation to bring dbt into Delivery Hero. One sat on the "central data platform team", responsible for standardisation, quality and governance. The other sat in a "domain team" owning their pipelines. We'll recreate the real friction — the "you can't do that" moments — and show how dbt gave both sides a shared language to work with.
We'll cover how dbt enabled the platform team to empower domain teams: dbt's ease of use, small effort to migrate, and the suite of features like lineage and tests. We'll also talk about what's next for our teams, the features we're still exploring, and what we haven't solved yet.
## Speakers
- M. Waqas Shahid — Principal Data Platform Engineer, Delivery Hero
---
---
title: "Beyond the bottleneck: position your Analytics Engineering team as a strategic force"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/beyond-the-bottleneck-position-your-analytics-engineering-team-as-a-strategic-force"
sessionType: "Peer exchange"
track: ["Delivering business outcomes"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Basic"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# Beyond the bottleneck: position your Analytics Engineering team as a strategic force
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 9:00 AM PDT – 10:00 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 6
**Type:** Peer exchange
**Track:** Delivering business outcomes
**Knowledge Level:** Basic
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
Every AE team has been a bottleneck at some point. The backlog never shrinks. You get looped in after the decision is already made. But it does not have to stay that way.
The teams that have broken out of the queue did not do it by working faster or saying yes to everything. They did it by changing how they show up. They shifted from a reactive support function to a proactive strategic force.
In this peer exchange, we will have an honest conversation about what that shift looks like in practice. How do you earn a seat at the strategic table and keep it? How do you set boundaries without becoming a blocker? How do you build an internal brand that makes stakeholders bring you in early, instead of looping you in last?
## Speakers
- Kasey Mazza — Director, Data Science, HubSpot
---
---
title: "Product roundtable: Rebuilding dbt Core: Faster runtime, adapters, and docs v2"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/product-roundtable-rebuilding-dbt-core-faster-runtime-adapters-and-docs-v2"
sessionType: "Roundtable"
track: ["dbt Product"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
---
# Product roundtable: Rebuilding dbt Core: Faster runtime, adapters, and docs v2
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 9:00 AM PDT – 10:00 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 1
**Type:** Roundtable
**Track:** dbt Product
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
Join us for a roundtable discussion where we’ll go deeper into the ideas shared in both of the product breakouts: **Rebuilding dbt: Faster runtime, adapters, and docs v2**, and **Getting instant feedback: The new dbt powered developer experience**.
**What we’ll be discussing:**
- What v1 meant to you — looking back
- Where v2 is and where it's going — looking forward
- What you’d like to see built: Roadmap ranking — your chance to give input!
Note: attendance for breakout sessions is not required, but encouraged.
## Speakers
- Hope Watson — Product Manager, dbt Labs
- Alexander Bogdanowicz — Senior Manager, Software Engineering, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "We have been overthinking context engineering"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/we-have-been-overthinking-context-engineering-7a111180"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["Powering AI-ready data"]
---
# We have been overthinking context engineering
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 9:00 AM PDT – 9:15 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** Powering AI-ready data
Context and "context engineering" are the industry's hottest topics, but most of the marketing is vague on the what and the how. All we're told is that it matters and that agents need it.
Strip away the mystique and context is mostly unstructured data: text, images, audio. LLMs are already very good at turning that into semi-structured data, and then into a structured, queryable index an agent can navigate. Individually, each of those steps is a problem the data world has largely figured out. What's missing isn't a new primitive; it's composition and governance.
Analytics engineering is data engineering, which is software engineering — and, it turns out, context engineering.
## Speakers
- Alex Noonan — Senior Developer Experience Advocate, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "Open Data Infrastructure in practice: unlock your dbt projects with Apache Iceberg and mesh"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/open-data-infrastructure-in-practice-unlock-your-dbt-projects-with-apache-iceberg-and-mesh-7d7b5efe"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["dbt Product"]
persona: ["Data leaders"]
---
# Open Data Infrastructure in practice: unlock your dbt projects with Apache Iceberg and mesh
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 9:00 AM PDT – 9:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 4
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** dbt Product
**Persona:** Data leaders
Most dbt projects are "locked into" a single remote data warehouse for three primary reasons:
• Data storage
• SQL dialect
• Difficulty of self-hosting a query engine
With dbt + Apache Iceberg, it's never been easier to "unlock" your project: with data in open table formats (Iceberg), dbt v2's multi-dialect support, and innovations with DuckDB, organizations have a flexible foundation to run their dbt projects across platforms and engines. Join this session to get an overview and demo of how these components come together to deliver Open Data Infrastructure for improved choice, better collaboration, and optimized costs.
## Speakers
- Jack Lowery — Lead Sales Engineer Specialist- Data Lakes and Transformations, Fivetran
- Anna Lee — Software Engineer, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "Scaling trusted self-service for dbt stakeholders"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/scaling-trusted-self-service-for-dbt-stakeholders"
sessionType: "Hands-on lab"
---
# Scaling trusted self-service for dbt stakeholders
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 9:00 AM PDT – 10:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Nolita
**Type:** Hands-on lab
Scale dbt beyond the build team by enabling stakeholders to find, understand, and confidently reuse trusted data products—without requiring everyone to become a developer. This course covers what “trusted self-service” looks like in practice: documentation that answers stakeholder questions, ownership and support workflows, and trust signals that reduce back-and-forth and increase adoption.
After this lab, you will be able to:
- Define the components of trusted self-service (people, process, and platform signals)
- Implement stakeholder-friendly documentation patterns (definitions, intended use, grain, caveats)
- Establish ownership and support workflows for questions, requests, and change management
- Design a scalable stakeholder access model that expands governed consumption while protecting developer workflows
Prerequisites:
- Basic familiarity with dbt concepts (models, sources, tests, docs)
What to bring: You must bring your own laptop to complete the hands-on exercises. We will provide any required sandbox environments for dbt and the data platform.
Duration: 2 hours
## Speakers
- Kyle Tuft — Resident Architect, dbt Labs
- Matteo Dijoux — Customer Solutions Architect, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "$1B in transactions, 1 minute latency: dbt as production banking infrastructure"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dollar1b-in-transactions-1-minute-latency-dbt-as-production-banking-infrastructure"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Delivering business outcomes"]
persona: ["Data leaders"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries", "Financial Services"]
---
# $1B in transactions, 1 minute latency: dbt as production banking infrastructure
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 9:00 AM PDT – 9:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 2
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Delivering business outcomes
**Persona:** Data leaders
**Relevant Industry:** All industries, Financial Services
Keep is trusted by 5,000+ Canadian businesses processing $1B+ in card volume, and dbt sits underneath both its analytics and its live credit decisions. When a customer applies for credit, banking data streams into Snowflake, dbt models refresh on a one-minute lag, and an AI model scores the application and generates a credit recommendation for compliance review within minutes. With fresh data instead of stale batches, our system catches risk signals a slower pipeline would miss entirely, allowing us to confidently extend credit faster.
In this session, we'll cover the architecture behind Keep’s production AI system, including:
- Low-latency modeling patterns
- Safe model design for production workloads
- Cost, freshness, and reliability tradeoffs
We'll also show how dbt feeds financial data into accounting systems to keep a live view of the book of risk, and how snapshots and slowly changing dimensions let us time travel through those tables for audits and compliance.
You'll leave with a pattern for building dbt-powered systems fast enough for AI decisions, and durable enough to hold up under scrutiny.
## Speakers
- Scott Ziolko — Head of Data, Keep
---
---
title: "Getting the most out of dbt on Databricks"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/getting-the-most-out-of-dbt-on-databricks"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["dbt at scale"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# Getting the most out of dbt on Databricks
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 9:30 AM PDT – 9:50 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** dbt at scale
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
Customers often run dbt across a stack stitched together from multiple tools, and as dbt projects scale in production, pipelines get slower and more expensive, the same metric gets defined differently across teams, and governance ends up outside the dbt project.
This session shows how running dbt on the Databricks Lakehouse takes those on, an open platform where your whole dbt pipeline lives in one place. We'll cover building, orchestrating, optimizing, and governing dbt pipelines, plus what's new, including dbt Core v2 on Databricks. You'll leave knowing how to make your dbt pipelines faster, cheaper, and easier to run.
## Speakers
- Srilekha Dornadula — Product Manager, Databricks
- Shubham Dhal — Senior Software Engineer, Databricks
---
---
title: "ClickHouse + dbt: Building a GitOps workflow at Twilio"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/clickhouse-dbt-building-a-gitops-workflow-at-twilio"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Data modernization & emerging architectures"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["Technology"]
---
# ClickHouse + dbt: Building a GitOps workflow at Twilio
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 10:00 AM PDT – 10:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 2
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Data modernization & emerging architectures
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** Technology
To eliminate the infrastructure overhead and high storage and infrastructure costs of its legacy streaming stack, Twilio’s Voice Insights team successfully consolidated its massive real-time telemetry pipeline into ClickHouse. However, database consolidation introduced a critical operational challenge: how to safely manage, test, and orchestrate schema changes and SQL transformations across distributed development teams without risking production stability.
This session presents the practical architectural blueprint of how Twilio solved this by pairing ClickHouse with dbt to establish a modern GitOps developer workflow. By treating database schemas entirely as code, the team engineered a robust pipeline where developers can safely build and test transformations in isolated preview environments and automate validation in CI/CD dramatically accelerating development cycles.
## Speakers
- Pavan Kotikalapudi — Staff Software Engineer, Twilio Inc.
- Marek Radonsky — Engineering Leader, Twilio Inc.
---
---
title: "dbt without the warehouse (or the bill): DuckDB end to end"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dbt-without-the-warehouse-or-the-bill-duckdb-end-to-end"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Analytics engineering best practices"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Basic"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# dbt without the warehouse (or the bill): DuckDB end to end
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 10:00 AM PDT – 10:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 4
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Analytics engineering best practices
**Knowledge Level:** Basic
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
Somewhere along the way we all agreed that transforming a few gigabytes of data requires renting a distributed system by the second. Every dbt run becomes a round-trip you didn't need to take: slow, metered, and queued behind your colleagues' CI jobs. If your whole project fits in a few hundred GB, this is a strange way to live, and you can stop. DuckDB is a free, MIT-licensed, in-process analytical database — no server, no account, no invoice — and it now runs in public beta on the dbt Fusion engine. That means sub-second model iteration on your laptop, full-project CI in seconds on a plain GitHub runner, and Python models that run in-process without your data going anywhere. Add DuckDB's native readers for Parquet, Iceberg, and Postgres, DuckLake for publishing your output tables in open formats, and DuckDB-WASM for querying them straight from the browser, and the warehouse becomes optional at every stage — not just development. You'll see a real dbt project developed, tested, deployed, and served entirely on DuckDB, live on stage, on more data than you'd think reasonable. Your data is not that big. Your bill doesn't have to be either.
## Speakers
- Hannes Mühleisen — Co-Founder and CEO, DuckLabs
---
---
title: "When skills meet scale: an agent assembly line for dbt"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/when-skills-meet-scale-an-agent-assembly-line-for-dbt"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Winning with dbt v2"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries"]
---
# When skills meet scale: an agent assembly line for dbt
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 10:00 AM PDT – 10:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 7
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Winning with dbt v2
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries
As data teams explore AI, many are looking to move beyond simple text generation toward practical, "agentic" workflows. By leveraging dbt, data practitioners can support safe, multi-agent orchestration to modernize the analytics engineering SDLC.
Using dbt agent skills (now a part of dbt Wizard) and the dbt Fusion engine, my team has been exploring a development workflow where AI agents securely read metadata for automated discovery, translate complex legacy logic into dbt models, and generate PRs for code review. This approach relies heavily on a read-only guardrail architecture that ensures humans remain in control at every step.
In this session, we'll dive into this problem space and explore a practical architectural approach. We will discuss how to scope agent permissions to read-only, what these guardrails look like in practice, and where human review remains non-negotiable. You'll leave with a concrete blueprint for deploying multi-agent dbt workflows safely, along with a clear picture of what "safe" actually requires in a production data SDLC.
## Speakers
- Jessica Zhang — Senior Data Engineer, Riot Games
---
---
title: "Glorious Charts"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/glorious-charts"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["Delivering business outcomes"]
---
# Glorious Charts
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 10:00 AM PDT – 10:20 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** Delivering business outcomes
Take a close look at masterpieces of information design, extraordinary charts that inspire and inform how we can make better dashboards today. Each was built to do a job: settle an argument, run an empire, save lives. We'll focus on the details that make them work: where the eye enters, how a line is labeled, where color is deployed. You'll leave with a higher ceiling for what a chart can accomplish, and a handful of moves you can put on your next bar chart.
## Speakers
- RJ Andrews — Data Scientist, Fivetran
---
---
title: "Build, test, evaluate, deploy: Coding plugins for Connector SDK"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/build-test-evaluate-deploy-coding-plugins-for-connector-sdk-6b381805"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["AI and agentic analytics"]
---
# Build, test, evaluate, deploy: Coding plugins for Connector SDK
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 10:30 AM PDT – 10:45 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** AI and agentic analytics
A 15-minute lightning talk on using coding plugins across the full Connector SDK workflow: building connectors, local testing, evaluating code quality, and deploying with less friction. I’ll show how plugins save real time, how they improve consistency, and where engineers still need to make the hard calls.
## Speakers
- Kirk Van Arkel — Lead Solution Architect, Enterprise, Fivetran
- Cheril Lin Abeel — Lead Solution Architect, Enterprise, Fivetran
---
---
title: "Data + AI agent hackathon"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/data-ai-agent-hackathon"
sessionType: "Hackathon"
---
# Data + AI agent hackathon
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 10:30 AM PDT – 1:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Nolita
**Type:** Hackathon
Join us for the Data and AI Agent Hackathon, a multi-hour, hands-on session where you'll build data agents on top of dbt using the latest tools and techniques, including MCP, agent skills, and whatever new innovations have landed by the time we kick off. Bring your own data or work from one of our example datasets. You'll have space to experiment, iterate, and ship something real in a single sitting.
Whether you're a first-time agent builder looking for a friendly on-ramp or a seasoned practitioner ready to push the edge of what's possible, this hackathon is for you. The people who build agents at dbt Labs will be on hand throughout to answer questions, unblock you, and give direct feedback on what you're building.
## Speakers
- Jason Ganz — Director, Developer Experience, Community and AI, dbt Labs
- Benoit Perigaud — Staff DX Advocate, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "ADBC in production: zero-copy, non-zero problems"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/adbc-in-production-zero-copy-non-zero-problems"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Data modernization & emerging architectures"]
---
# ADBC in production: zero-copy, non-zero problems
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 11:00 AM PDT – 11:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 4
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Data modernization & emerging architectures
Both dbt and PowerBI, among others, have announced support and usage of ADBC (Arrow Database Connectivity) to power their connectors. When ADBC launched, the pitch was compelling: zero-copy columnar data movement, vendor neutrality, and Arrow-native performance. But then production happened...
Turns out creating a new connectivity standard was the easy part! The hard part is observability for queries that mysteriously fail, type mappings that work for 90% of schemas but explode on that one user's TIMESTAMP WITH TIMEZONE or Decimal values, driver discovery, and so on.
This talk shares what we've learned from ADBC getting used in production environments. We'll explore the maturation of the ADBC ecosystem: Driver manifests for discovery, connection profiles, type support evolution, and more. Expect war stories, concrete adoption guidance, and honest admissions of where the gaps still exist (and are being worked on!).
## Speakers
- Matt Topol — Co-founder, Columnar
---
---
title: "dbt for public health: sightline wastewater monitoring at scale"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dbt-for-public-health-sightline-wastewater-monitoring-at-scale"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Delivering business outcomes"]
persona: ["Data leaders"]
---
# dbt for public health: sightline wastewater monitoring at scale
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 11:00 AM PDT – 11:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 7
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Delivering business outcomes
**Persona:** Data leaders
Verily's Sightline program monitors 30+ pathogens in wastewater across hundreds of US sites, giving public health officials early detection before clinical testing shows upticks. We deliver concentration trends for COVID-19, RSV, influenza, norovirus, and mpox within 48 hours—powered by analytics built on Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR).
FHIR resources arrive as deeply nested JSON, and we built Sightline's analytics layer using composable, reusable dbt macros that flatten FHIR data into dimensional models optimized for real-time public health dashboards. These same macros now power dozens of dashboards across a wide variety of use cases in the health ecosystem—from clinical research to care delivery.
You'll learn how we designed macros that work across varied FHIR schemas, when to share transformation logic, and how to build dimensional models that scale from one data mart to many. Outcome: dashboards helping communities prepare for and prevent disease spread.
## Speakers
- David Drummond — Data Engineer, Technical Lead, Verily Health
---
---
title: "Does your data pipeline deserve to exist? How EF Education built a cost and value layer with dbt and Cortex Agent"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/does-your-data-pipeline-deserve-to-exist-how-ef-education-built-a-cost-and-value-layer-with-dbt-and-cortex-agent"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Delivering business outcomes"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Business leaders and executives", "Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
---
# Does your data pipeline deserve to exist? How EF Education built a cost and value layer with dbt and Cortex Agent
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 11:00 AM PDT – 11:30 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 2
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Delivering business outcomes
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Business leaders and executives, Data leaders, Data practitioners
Most analytics engineering teams can tell you if a pipeline is running. Very few can tell you if it's worth running.
At EF Tours, we built mart_metadata: a dbt-native observability layer that tracks build consumption, Snowflake credit costs, Power BI usage, and downstream query patterns, stitched into a single model of what each data product actually costs and who uses it. The goal was simple: give every team a factual answer to "what is this data product worth?"
We'll walk through the scoring methodology, the cost attribution layer in dbt, the semantic layer in Snowflake, and how we used a Cortex Agent to make that intelligence conversational, so anyone can get a grounded answer without writing a query.
You'll leave with a concrete scoring formula for dbt model performance, a pattern for attributing Snowflake credits to individual data products, and a working example of a Cortex Agent as the interface layer.
## Speakers
- Adrien Ledoux — Director, Data & Analytics Platform, EF
---
---
title: "More than a data-delivery service: becoming a trusted advisor to your stakeholders"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/more-than-a-data-delivery-service-becoming-a-trusted-advisor-to-your-stakeholders"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["Data careers and data leadership"]
---
# More than a data-delivery service: becoming a trusted advisor to your stakeholders
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 11:00 AM PDT – 11:15 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** Data careers and data leadership
Much of what earns a data team trust happens in the conversations around the work.
This lightning talk covers what builds that trust: things like being clear about what you can deliver and when, and being honest about how much confidence the data supports before someone turns it into a story for an exec.
I'll walk through real examples from my own stakeholder relationships and what they have in common, starting from one question: what would you want if you were the person making decisions informed by the data? It's the part of the job that gets more valuable as the tools we use get better.
## Speakers
- Paige Berry — Lead Data Analyst, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "{SOLD OUT} Mastering data quality with dbt"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-mastering-data-quality-with-dbt-957f01ac"
sessionType: "Training add-on"
---
# {SOLD OUT} Mastering data quality with dbt
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 11:00 AM PDT – 1:00 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Brera 6
**Type:** Training add-on
Doors open 30 minutes before each session. If you're not seated by the published start time, your seat is released to the waitlist.
Build a durable data quality practice in dbt—beyond “a few tests.” This course focuses on choosing the right type of test for the job, keeping tests maintainable as a project grows, and adding quality gates (like CI) that prevent bad changes from reaching production. You’ll leave with a practical, reusable approach to testing strategy and enforcement.
Learning objectives: After this course, you will be able to:
- Identify which quality technique fits the problem (schema tests, data tests, unit tests, and CI checks)
- Implement a maintainable testing strategy (what to test, where to place tests, and how to avoid brittle patterns)
- Understand CI workflows to catch quality regressions before merge and deploy
Prerequisites:
- dbt Fundamentals
What to bring:
- You must bring your own laptop to complete the hands-on exercises
- We will provide any required sandbox environments for dbt and the data platform.
Duration: 2 hours
- A valid dbt Summit pass is required to register for trainings and certifications
- Trainings and certifications will take place in-person at dbt Summit only
## Speakers
- Carol Ohms — Senior Resident Architect, dbt Labs
- Stephen Thibeault — Senior Resident Architect, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "Product roundtable: Optimizing your runs for lower compute, fresher data, and faster iteration with dbt State"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/product-roundtable-optimizing-your-runs-for-lower-compute-fresher-data-and-faster-iteration-with-dbt-state"
sessionType: "Roundtable"
track: ["dbt Product"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
---
# Product roundtable: Optimizing your runs for lower compute, fresher data, and faster iteration with dbt State
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 11:00 AM PDT – 12:00 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 1
**Type:** Roundtable
**Track:** dbt Product
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
Join us for a roundtable discussion where we’ll go deeper into the ideas shared in the breakout: Optimizing your runs for lower compute, fresher data, and faster iteration with dbt State. Bring your questions, share your take, and connect with peers and presenters. Note attendance in the breakout session is not required, but encouraged.
## Speakers
- Reuben McCreanor — Product Manager, dbt Labs
- Iaroslav Zeigerman — Principal Software Engineer, Fivetran
---
---
title: "Building dbt projects in rough terrain: creating a trailguide for dbt pioneers"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/building-dbt-projects-in-rough-terrain-creating-a-trailguide-for-dbt-pioneers"
sessionType: "Peer exchange"
track: ["Data careers and data leadership"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
---
# Building dbt projects in rough terrain: creating a trailguide for dbt pioneers
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 11:00 AM PDT – 12:00 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 6
**Type:** Peer exchange
**Track:** Data careers and data leadership
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
Not all of us work at organizations that live on the cutting edge, and while dbt may now be a decade old there are plenty of organizations that are just starting their data modernization journey (or still hanging out behind the start line). Sometimes it is up to the individual innovator to start building and lead their team into the modern world of version control, isolated environments, and iterative development of tested data products. This is a collective problem solving session for experienced analytics engineers and data leads introducing dbt to these constrained, slow-moving organizations. Whether it be people problems (pitching leadership or shifting how you engage with stakeholders), process problems (scaling the dbt development team from one to many), or technology problems (highly restrictive IT environments), we’ll start solving these challenges together through structured discussions and share-outs, creating a trailguide* for dbt pioneers everywhere.
*so bring your laptop!
## Speakers
- Jenna Jordan — Senior Analytics Engineer, Ratio PBC
- Eric Guroff — CEO/Founder, Ratio PBC
---
---
title: "Teaching dbt Wizard to write code like your team"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/teaching-dbt-wizard-to-write-code-like-your-team-5748d019"
sessionType: "Lightning talk"
track: ["AI and agentic analytics"]
---
# Teaching dbt Wizard to write code like your team
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 11:30 AM PDT – 11:45 AM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall Theater
**Type:** Lightning talk
**Track:** AI and agentic analytics
Everyone's answer to inconsistent AI output is a better prompt. Prompts are the wrong layer — they're per-person, per-session, and they disappear the moment the conversation ends. Every team already has conventions: naming standards, testing and logic rules, and style guides. The fix for output that doesn't look like yours was never a better AI model, it was writing your standards down somewhere they get used, which is exactly what Agent Skills are, and what dbt Wizard reads before it writes a line of your code.
## Speakers
- Sara Gawlinski — Technical Product Marketing Manager, dbt Labs
---
---
title: "Lunch"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/lunch-f9601ddb"
sessionType: "Meals"
beyondTheSessions: ["Meals"]
---
# Lunch
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 11:30 AM PDT – 1:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 4, Discovery Hall
**Type:** Meals
**Beyond the sessions:** Meals
---
---
title: "The semantic layer is dead. Long live the semantic layer!"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-semantic-layer-is-dead-long-live-the-semantic-layer-33566a33"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["dbt Product"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
---
# The semantic layer is dead. Long live the semantic layer!
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 12:00 PM PDT – 12:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 7
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** dbt Product
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
Semantic layers used to be boring. A solved problem. The thing you built years ago for your dashboards. Then agents showed up.
Suddenly everyone is trying to design what an AI system knows, how it reasons, and what it can trust. They're calling this context engineering, and it's what you've already been doing for years without a name. You weren't just defining metrics. You were building the ERD of your business.
In this session, we’ll cover why your semantic layer is now the most load-bearing piece of your AI strategy. We'll show where MetricFlow and the dbt Semantic Layer are heading, and how the dbt MCP server turns your governed metrics into context your agents can actually use. We’ll also share what teams are actually unlocking when they centralize context at the transformation layer: fewer AI hallucinations, lower token costs, and BI that doesn't contradict itself.
## Speakers
- Zach Mandell — Staff Product Manager, dbt Labs
- Toby Mao — Director, Engineering, Fivetran
---
---
title: "Don't ship what you can't measure: Evaluation-driven development for AI analytics agents"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dont-ship-what-you-cant-measure-evaluation-driven-development-for-ai-analytics-agents"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Powering AI-ready data"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
---
# Don't ship what you can't measure: Evaluation-driven development for AI analytics agents
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 12:00 PM PDT – 12:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 2
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Powering AI-ready data
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
Building AI analytics agents is becoming democratised; tools like Snowflake Cortex Analyst make it easier than ever to deploy a text-to-SQL agent over your data models. However, trusting the output is still a challenge, and evaluating AI agents in analytics remains a bottleneck for most teams. As a rule of thumb: don't ship what you can't measure.
This talk introduces evaluation-driven development for AI analytics agents: define what "correct" means before you build, measure every iteration, and only deploy when the evidence proves it's ready. Built from deploying Cortex Analyst agents leveraging modelled data in dbt across healthcare and e-commerce clients, this methodology is practical and repeatable.
You'll learn how to design golden question sets that test real business scenarios, build automated eval pipelines scoring across six dimensions, and track accuracy improvement across iterative semantic view enrichment.
## Speakers
- Opeyemi Fabiyi — Director, Analytics Engineering, Data Culture
---
---
title: "Charts worth stealing: The design calls BI should ship"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/charts-worth-stealing-the-design-calls-bi-should-ship"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Delivering business outcomes"]
---
# Charts worth stealing: The design calls BI should ship
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 12:00 PM PDT – 12:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 4
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Delivering business outcomes
Learn how to get more value from your bar charts and line graphs. Let’s build some, motivated by inspiring examples as we go. We’ll focus on how to make a comparison obvious, put color and labels to work, and get the most out of every available design surface. You’ll see the chart take shape alongside its souce YAML, with each design decision explained and its effect on display. Come for a close look at what dbt Charts can do. Leave with flourishes worth stealing for your own work.
## Speakers
- RJ Andrews — Data Scientist, Fivetran
---
---
title: "A dbt \"logic mesh\" with packages: standard model and metrics across 25 autonomous organizations"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/a-dbt-logic-mesh-with-packages-standard-model-and-metrics-across-25-autonomous-organizations"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["dbt at scale"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries", "Public Sector"]
---
# A dbt "logic mesh" with packages: standard model and metrics across 25 autonomous organizations
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 1:00 PM PDT – 1:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 7
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** dbt at scale
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries, Public Sector
Greenpeace manages 25 autonomous organizations with different tech stacks and no central mandate. Building a unified global metric language without creating a maintenance burden required a new architectural approach.
The solution: a three-layer dbt package architecture: source packages for governed inputs, a local logic layer for office-specific transformations, and a standard data model for shared metrics. With package versioning, compatibility testing, and CI-driven automated updates, a 12-person team now maintains 8+ packages across 25 projects.
The results are concrete: a new office onboarded every two months, a full data warehouse built in two weeks, and reporting delays reduced from months to daily updates. The data team went from bottleneck to innovation enabler. You'll leave with a reference architecture and a rollout checklist for scaling shared logic across decentralized environments.
## Speakers
- Koen Verburg — Lead Analytics Engineer, Greenpeace International
---
---
title: "Shrink the surface: governed self-service for analyst-owned dbt pipelines"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/shrink-the-surface-governed-self-service-for-analyst-owned-dbt-pipelines"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Delivering business outcomes"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Basic", "Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data leaders", "Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["Technology", "Media"]
---
# Shrink the surface: governed self-service for analyst-owned dbt pipelines
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 1:00 PM PDT – 1:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 4
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Delivering business outcomes
**Knowledge Level:** Basic, Intermediate
**Persona:** Data leaders, Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** Technology, Media
Most self-service dbt programs fail by giving analysts a full project and hoping governance catches up. The result: unreviewed SQL in production, engineers debugging code they didn't write.
We used dbt Mesh to give analysts a separate AI-native project, isolated from our production codebase. Analysts own business logic and metric grain. The platform owns everything else: microbatch config, schema isolation, CI, downstream registration. 10+ analysts have shipped production pipelines without touching deployment or backfill logic.
AI makes this boundary work. We built Claude skills: AI agents encoding dbt, microbatch, and git knowledge into repeatable steps. Analysts bring SQL; the skills scaffold models, generate tests, manage PRs, and enforce conventions.
This talk covers how we drew that boundary, the failures that reshaped it, and what we'd change.
## Speakers
- Jinze Xin — Analytics Engineer, Liftoff
---
---
title: "Meta:Context: a business context schema in dbt's semantic layer"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/metacontext-a-business-context-schema-in-dbts-semantic-layer"
sessionType: "Breakout session"
track: ["Powering AI-ready data"]
knowledgeLevel: ["Intermediate"]
persona: ["Data practitioners"]
relevantIndustry: ["All industries", "Technology"]
---
# Meta:Context: a business context schema in dbt's semantic layer
**When:** Friday, September 18, 2026, 1:00 PM PDT – 1:30 PM PDT
**Where:** Level 3, Gracia 2
**Type:** Breakout session
**Track:** Powering AI-ready data
**Knowledge Level:** Intermediate
**Persona:** Data practitioners
**Relevant Industry:** All industries, Technology
AI needs business context to deliver useful insights about enterprise data: what numbers mean, how to investigate anomalies, what to do about them.
Drawing on expert works in semantics and ontology, we built a 5-layer, 36-field schema that encodes business and metrics knowledge in dbt's existing meta: block. It flows through the Semantic Layer API with no new tooling required.
In simulations, Claude Haiku with structured meta context matched Claude Opus with scattered documentation; the schema preserves meaning well enough that a small, fast model reconstructs high-quality analytical reasoning from it.
This session covers the schema design, expert foundations, the simulation evidence, and where to start: one metric, three fields, one question.
## Speakers
- Keith Binkly — Director of Data Analytics, Green Dot Corporation
---
---
title: "Kensly Alexander"
description: "Director Data Stewardship & Architecture, Planned Parenthood Federation of America"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/kensly-alexander"
---
# Kensly Alexander
Director Data Stewardship & Architecture, Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Kensly Alexander is a thought leader in data and analytics with 25+ years of experience in both the private and public sectors. Kensly has been involved in many facets of the data industry including data management, data governance, analytics, master data management, data architecture, solution architecture, and strategy.
She believes that data is currency and is key to better informed decisions. Kensly is truly passionate about data and promoting a data driven culture in her organization.
## Sessions
- [A nonprofit's journey: we walked so dbt could run](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/a-nonprofits-journey-we-walked-so-dbt-could-run)
---
---
title: "Anikei Allen"
description: "Senior Community Manager, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/anikei-allen"
---
# Anikei Allen
Senior Community Manager, dbt Labs
Anikei Allen is Senior Community Manager (Events) at dbt Labs, leading community events and the global meetup program. She is focused on creating spaces where the global dbt community can connect, share knowledge, and build a genuine sense of belonging. Prior to dbt Labs, she worked at Shopify for six years, where she built and scaled community programs for entrepreneurs around the world and grew Slack engagement by more than 800 percent. Outside of work, Anikei can usually be found exploring Toronto's arts scene or chasing after her threenager.
## Sessions
- [Summit Springboard](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/summit-springboard)
---
---
title: "Nina Anderson"
description: "Senior Manager, Partner Solutions Architecture, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/nina-anderson"
---
# Nina Anderson
Senior Manager, Partner Solutions Architecture, dbt Labs
Nina Anderson is global head of partner solutions architecture at dbt Labs, where she leads the technical teams supporting the company's partner ecosystem.
## Sessions
- [dbt+Fabric: analytics engineering at enterprise scale](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dbtfabric-analytics-engineering-at-enterprise-scale)
---
---
title: "Derek Andres"
description: "Analytics Engineering Tech Lead, Sweetwater"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/derek-andres"
---
# Derek Andres
Analytics Engineering Tech Lead, Sweetwater
Derek Andres is an Analytics Engineering Tech Lead at Sweetwater. He has 10 years of experience in the data space across a variety of data platforms. He was an early adopter of dbt core in previous roles within the financial services industry. At Sweetwater, he has worked on analytics implementations for web and digital marketing data, drove adoption of AI tooling , and helped to maintain platform stability through the company’s data platform transformation.
## Sessions
- [Sweetwater's proactive data observability playbook with Datadog](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sweetwaters-proactive-data-observability-playbook-with-datadog)
---
---
title: "RJ Andrews"
description: "Data Scientist, Fivetran"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/rj-andrews"
---
# RJ Andrews
Data Scientist, Fivetran
RJ Andrews is obsessed with charts. He is the author of 'Info We Trust,' a comprehensive exploration of the craft of data graphics. His career is dedicated to establishing strong design principles within data tools, ensuring that analytical outputs are not just functional but clear, insightful, and accessible.
## Sessions
- [Chart clinic: live dashboard teardowns & rebuilds](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/chart-clinic-live-dashboard-teardowns-and-rebuilds)
- [Chart Slop: Your BI Tool Shipped the Mess](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/chart-slop-your-bi-tool-shipped-the-mess)
- [dbt Charts: Building a Viz Language that’s Easy on the I’s - AI, BI, CI, and ODI](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dbt-charts-building-a-viz-language-thats-easy-on-the-is-ai-bi-ci-and-odi)
- [Glorious Charts](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/glorious-charts)
- [Charts worth stealing: The design calls BI should ship](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/charts-worth-stealing-the-design-calls-bi-should-ship)
---
---
title: "Thomas Antonakis"
description: "Principal Analytics Engineer, Kaizen Gaming"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/thomas-antonakis"
---
# Thomas Antonakis
Principal Analytics Engineer, Kaizen Gaming
Thomas Antonakis is Principal Analytics Engineer at Kaizen Gaming. Thomas studied Statistics in Athens and began his career in finance controlling before moving into BI and analytics, spending six years at ClickDelivery.gr and efood, including four leading the Greek BI team.
In 2021, at ORFIUM, Thomas was introduced to the modern data stack and the Analytics Engineer role, which shaped his path from Staff to Principal BI Engineer. Since July 2025, Thomas has been at Kaizen Gaming, mentoring and technically leading an AE organization of 50 engineers. Thomas is also a co-organizer of the Athens dbt Meetup.
## Sessions
- [The principals' framework for consistent dbt at scale](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-principals-framework-for-consistent-dbt-at-scale)
---
---
title: "Venkatesh Aravamudan"
description: "Senior Partner Solutions Architect, Amazon"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/venkatesh-aravamudan"
---
# Venkatesh Aravamudan
Senior Partner Solutions Architect, Amazon
Venkatesh Aravamudan is a Senior Partner Solutions Architect at AWS. He supports and helps drive strategic co-build, co-market, and co-sell opportunities with ISV partners in the Data & AI space. With over 25 years of experience spanning Data Engineering, AI, Analytics, and Cloud Architecture, he has helped numerous organizations modernize their data platforms and extract insights from their data. Venkatesh’s passion is bridging between partner ecosystems and AWS services to deliver differentiated outcomes for customers.
## Sessions
- [How to build governed agentic analytics on Amazon Redshift with the dbt Semantic Layer](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/how-to-build-governed-agentic-analytics-on-amazon-redshift-with-the-dbt-semantic-layer)
---
---
title: "Thiago Baldim"
description: "Director of Engineering, Data, Mitti"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/thiago-baldim"
---
# Thiago Baldim
Director of Engineering, Data, Mitti
Thiago Baldim ensures the right people have the access to their data on the right time with quality and confidence.
Thiago is responsible for implementing most of Mitti data infrastructure with end-to-end solutions and ensuring the standards are followed by the company to delivery data quickly to the right people.
## Sessions
- [From 14-hour batches and poor documentation to AI-ready data: Mitti's dbt rebuild](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-14-hour-batches-and-poor-documentation-to-ai-ready-data-mittis-dbt-rebuild)
---
---
title: "Ryan Ballman"
description: "Senior Lead, Data Platform Engineer, Under Armour"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/ryan-ballman"
---
# Ryan Ballman
Senior Lead, Data Platform Engineer, Under Armour
Ryan Ballman is a Senior Lead Data Platform Engineer at Under Armour with more than 15 years of experience spanning software engineering, data engineering, business intelligence, and technology leadership. A dbt practitioner for the past five years, he helps build scalable, reliable, and AI-ready data platforms that enable trusted analytics across the enterprise. Based in Austin,Texas, Ryan enjoys sharing practical lessons from real-world implementations and helping turn ambitious ideas into sustainable solutions.
## Sessions
- [Ship AI agents like tables: dbt materializations for Snowflake CoWork](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/ship-ai-agents-like-tables-dbt-materializations-for-snowflake-cowork)
---
---
title: "Drew Barlage"
description: "Analytics Engineer, Genius.AI"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/drew-barlage"
---
# Drew Barlage
Analytics Engineer, Genius.AI
Drew Barlage is an Analytics Engineer at Genius.AI, where he helped lead the company's migration from a BI legacy tool to Hex and pioneer its semantic modeling layer. He started his career at Genius.AI in recruiting operations before moving into data, and now focuses a portion of his time building the context and workflows that make self-serve analytics trustworthy.
## Sessions
- [Genius.AI: Hex ate our legacy BI stack](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/geniusai-hex-ate-our-legacy-bi-stack)
---
---
title: "Stanley Bathina"
description: "Sr Data Platform Engineer, Under Armour"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/stanley-bathina"
---
# Stanley Bathina
Sr Data Platform Engineer, Under Armour
Stanley Bathina is a Senior Platform Data Engineer at Under Armour with nearly 10 years of experience building data platforms across AWS, Azure, Snowflake, and Databricks. He holds the dbt Certified Developer credential and has worked across the full data engineering stack, from large-scale ELT pipelines and Lakehouse architecture to production AI deployments. His current work explores how dbt Cloud can own the full data and AI layer, bringing the same engineering rigor to AI objects that data teams already apply to their models.
## Sessions
- [Ship AI agents like tables: dbt materializations for Snowflake CoWork](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/ship-ai-agents-like-tables-dbt-materializations-for-snowflake-cowork)
---
---
title: "Paige Berry"
description: "Lead Data Analyst, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/paige-berry"
---
# Paige Berry
Lead Data Analyst, dbt Labs
Paige Berry is a Lead Data Analyst at dbt Labs, where she brings a data investigative journalist mindset to uncovering insights and shaping decisions across the business. With 20+ years of experience in data roles across higher ed and SaaS, she has a deep perspective on complex systems, cross-functional collaboration, and the evolving role of analysts in modern data organizations.
She also participates in The View on Data, dbt Labs' company podcast. Outside of work, Paige lives in Portland, Oregon, with her partner Jay and three goofy cats, where she enjoys making custom emojis, setting fantasy sports lineups, and dabbling in mixed media art and printmaking.
## Sessions
- [AI in the analyst toolkit: What's actually working (and what isn't)](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/ai-in-the-analyst-toolkit-whats-actually-working-and-what-isnt)
- [The View on Data: Live from dbt Summit](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-view-on-data-live-from-dbt-summit)
- [More than a data-delivery service: becoming a trusted advisor to your stakeholders](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/more-than-a-data-delivery-service-becoming-a-trusted-advisor-to-your-stakeholders)
---
---
title: "Keith Binkly"
description: "Director of Data Analytics, Green Dot Corporation"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/keith-binkly"
---
# Keith Binkly
Director of Data Analytics, Green Dot Corporation
Keith Binkly is a data practitioner with over 10 years of industry experience. He is currently Director of Data Analytics at Green Dot Corporation, building Banking-as-a-Service partner analytics solutions and applying AI engineering to enterprise data pipelines. He maintains data-centered.com—a personal research library on semantics, ontology, and AI engineering, and a lab for experiments in AI tools for data viz/storytelling.
## Sessions
- [Meta:Context: a business context schema in dbt's semantic layer](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/metacontext-a-business-context-schema-in-dbts-semantic-layer)
---
---
title: "Marat Biyashev"
description: "Senior Analytics Engineer, Bilt"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/marat-biyashev"
---
# Marat Biyashev
Senior Analytics Engineer, Bilt
Marat Biyashev is a Senior Analytics Engineer at Bilt.
## Sessions
- [Real-time analytics at Bilt: architecture and approach](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/real-time-analytics-at-bilt-architecture-and-approach)
---
---
title: "Jarno Boeijink"
description: "IT Area Lead Global Data Processing, ING Bank N.V."
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/jarno-boeijink"
---
# Jarno Boeijink
IT Area Lead Global Data Processing, ING Bank N.V.
Jarno Boeijink is an IT Area Lead for Global Data Engineering at ING, where he leads the design and evolution of large‑scale, cloud‑native data platforms in a highly regulated environment. With over 14 years of experience, he has driven enterprise data engineering strategy, platform standardization, and operating model transformation across global teams.
Jarno focuses on building scalable, trustworthy data foundations by combining strong governance with domain ownership, and has hands‑on experience modernizing legacy data stacks using dbt cloud as a core engineering framework. He shares practical leadership lessons on running data engineering at enterprise scale.
## Sessions
- [From selection to scale: how ING is operationalizing dbt across a global bank](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-selection-to-scale-how-ing-is-operationalizing-dbt-across-a-global-bank)
---
---
title: "Alexander Bogdanowicz"
description: "Senior Manager, Software Engineering, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/alexander-bogdanowicz"
---
# Alexander Bogdanowicz
Senior Manager, Software Engineering, dbt Labs
Alexander Bogdanowicz leads the Fusion engineering team at dbt Labs, which builds the next-generation compilation and execution layer. He joined dbt Labs through the acquisition of SDF Labs, where he was the company’s first engineer and helped build its SQL compiler, execution engine, and developer tooling. At dbt Labs, Alex led the technical integration of SDF into dbt and the development of the dbt Fusion engine before moving into engineering leadership for the broader Fusion organization. His work sits at the intersection of compilers, data infrastructure, developer tools, and the evolution of the analytics engineering workflow
## Sessions
- [Getting instant feedback: The new dbt powered developer experience](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/getting-instant-feedback-the-new-dbt-powered-developer-experience)
- [Product roundtable: Rebuilding dbt Core: Faster runtime, adapters, and docs v2](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/product-roundtable-rebuilding-dbt-core-faster-runtime-adapters-and-docs-v2)
---
---
title: "Dipti Borkar"
description: "Vice President, Microsoft IQ & OneLake, Microsoft"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/dipti-borkar"
---
# Dipti Borkar
Vice President, Microsoft IQ & OneLake, Microsoft
Dipti Borkar is the Vice President for Microsoft IQ & OneLake, where she leads product strategy, engineering, innovation across these areas as well as the Microsoft Fabric Ecosystem. Her organization is focused on helping customers and partners unify, govern, and activate data at scale through AI-powered experiences, accelerating the transformation of data into business intelligence and actionable insights. A seasoned technology executive, entrepreneur, and product leader, Dipti brings over two decades of experience across cloud computing, AI, analytics, databases, and open-source technologies. Throughout her career, she has built and scaled high-performing teams, delivered innovative data platforms, and helped organizations unlock greater value from their data. A passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion, Dipti is dedicated to mentoring women in technology and open source. She also served as Chairperson of the Linux Foundation's Presto Foundation community. Dipti holds an M.S. in Computer Science (Databases) from UC San Diego, an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and a B.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Mumbai.
## Sessions
- [Keynote: Level Up](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/keynote-level-up)
---
---
title: "Célia Bru"
description: "Senior Director Data & Analytics, Koho Financial"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/celia-bru"
---
# Célia Bru
Senior Director Data & Analytics, Koho Financial
Celia Bru is the Senior Director of Data and Analytics at KOHO, Canada's leading challenger bank. She leads a 20-person data function spanning analytics, analytics engineering, and data science.
Under her leadership, KOHO's data team built one of the most mature dbt-based analytical platforms in Canadian fintech and adopted Claude Code from the start alongside the engineering org, running on AWS Bedrock.
She is currently working to extend AI-native analytics to the entire KOHO organization. She reports to the Chief Growth Officer and serves as head of data for the organization
## Sessions
- [Before the agents: what self-serve analytics actually needs](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/before-the-agents-what-self-serve-analytics-actually-needs)
---
---
title: "Nadine Bruxel"
description: "Senior Director, Nordstrom"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/nadine-bruxel"
---
# Nadine Bruxel
Senior Director, Nordstrom
Nadine Bruxel is a Senior Director at Nordstrom, leading the Business Insights Transformation (BIT) program and driving a comprehensive evolution of how the organization accesses, trusts, and acts on data.
She leads a cross-functional team of over 100 professionals across Engineering, Data Analytics, and Program Management—guiding them through a multi-year transformation of the enterprise BI landscape, from legacy platforms to modern, scalable data infrastructure.
Nadine's focus is on making data more accessible, governed, and actionable at scale—enabling business teams across the enterprise to move faster and make better decisions through trusted, self-service analytics and emerging conversational AI capabilities.
## Sessions
- [Governed by default: how data teams at Nordstrom turn dbt governance into an AI advantage](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/governed-by-default-how-data-teams-at-nordstrom-turn-dbt-governance-into-an-ai-advantage)
---
---
title: "Ben Butler"
description: "Customer Solutions Architect, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/ben-butler"
---
# Ben Butler
Customer Solutions Architect, dbt Labs
Ben is a builder and problem-solver who spent over two years using dbt in a supply chain engineering role. Now, as a Senior Customer Solutions Architect at dbt Labs, he helps teams unlock the full value of dbt with a blend of technical expertise and real-world experience.
## Sessions
- [{SOLD OUT} Upgrade to dbt v2](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-upgrade-to-dbt-v2)
---
---
title: "Russell Christopher"
description: "Sr. Director, Product Management, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/russell-christopher"
---
# Russell Christopher
Sr. Director, Product Management, dbt Labs
Russell loves data and has bar charts to prove it. He has worked in the data and analytics space for over 20 years and is a Senior Director of Product Strategy at dbt Labs.
## Sessions
- [The next wave of data infrastructure is in the Lake](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-next-wave-of-data-infrastructure-is-in-the-lake)
- [Product roundtable: Open Data Infrastructure in practice: unlock your dbt projects with Apache Iceberg and mesh](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/product-roundtable-open-data-infrastructure-in-practice-unlock-your-dbt-projects-with-apache-iceberg-and-mesh)
---
---
title: "Emanuela Ciotti"
description: "Head of Enterprise Analytics, Compare the Market"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/emanuela-ciotti"
---
# Emanuela Ciotti
Head of Enterprise Analytics, Compare the Market
Emanuela Ciotti leads Enterprise Analytics at Compare the Market, where she shapes their data strategy across analytics engineering, advanced analytics, and business insight. Her role sits at the intersection of strategy and execution, from defining modelling standards and governance frameworks to enabling experimentation, predictive use cases, and decision intelligence.
Emanuela has worked extensively with dbt and the modern data stack to build scalable, production-grade data foundations that support both trusted reporting and advanced analytical use cases.
She is particularly passionate about bridging analytics engineering and advanced analytics, ensuring that data models aren’t just technically sound, but designed to power forecasting, experimentation, and measurable business impact.
## Sessions
- [From dashboards to data products: how dbt transforms analytics teams](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-dashboards-to-data-products-how-dbt-transforms-analytics-teams)
---
---
title: "Logan Cochran"
description: "Analytics Engineer, LangChain"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/logan-cochran"
---
# Logan Cochran
Analytics Engineer, LangChain
Logan is an Analytics Engineer at LangChain, where he partners with the GTM organization to build analytics that help teams make faster, better decisions. He enjoys designing data models and pipelines that are both reliable and approachable, with a focus on making analytics genuinely useful for the people who rely on them every day.
Before moving into analytics engineering, Logan worked as both a teacher and a data analyst. Those experiences continue to shape how he approaches data, combining technical problem-solving with a love of helping others learn and understand complex ideas.
Outside of work, you'll usually find him training for a run, reading, exploring new restaurants, or unwinding with a video game or movie.
## Sessions
- [No drift allowed: LangChain's context playbook with Hex](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/no-drift-allowed-langchains-context-playbook-with-hex)
---
---
title: "Jeremy Cohen"
description: "Principal Product Manager, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/jeremy-cohen"
---
# Jeremy Cohen
Principal Product Manager, dbt Labs
Jeremy Cohen (”Jerco”) has been performing with the dbt Labs troupe for 8 years. In that time, he has played the parts of Data Analyst, Analytics Engineer, Product Manager for dbt Core, and Principal Product Manager working across every part of open data infrastructure.
## Sessions
- [Keynote: Community Keynote](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/keynote-community-keynote)
- [Product roundtable: Open Data Infrastructure in practice: unlock your dbt projects with Apache Iceberg and mesh](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/product-roundtable-open-data-infrastructure-in-practice-unlock-your-dbt-projects-with-apache-iceberg-and-mesh)
---
---
title: "Andrew Coleman"
description: "Staff Analytics Engineer, RX Benefits"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/andrew-coleman"
---
# Andrew Coleman
Staff Analytics Engineer, RX Benefits
Andrew Coleman is a Staff Analytics Engineer at RxBenefits. He started working with dbt in 2020 and has enjoyed seeing the product evolve and the community grow. He has a varied background, previously working as a Staff Analytics Engineer at Snowflake, a Data Analyst at Tractor Supply Co, and an Operations Research Systems Analyst for the US Army. Andrew reads the docs and sweats the details, which has lead him to merge PRs fixing typos in the dbt docs, GitHub docs, GitLab docs, and many others.
## Sessions
- [Reduce, reuse, recycle: how dbt State cut rebuilds by 92% at RxBenefits](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/reduce-reuse-recycle-how-dbt-state-cut-rebuilds-by-92percent-at-rxbenefits)
---
---
title: "Pooja Crahen"
description: "Senior Manager, Analytics Engineering, Okta"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/pooja-crahen"
---
# Pooja Crahen
Senior Manager, Analytics Engineering, Okta
Pooja Crahen is a Senior Manager of Analytics Engineering at Okta, leading a team focused on craft excellence, technical standards, and scalable data modeling practices. She is at the forefront of enabling her team with AI-assisted workflows, integrating AI tooling across the analytics engineering lifecycle to accelerate development and improve engineering quality.
Her passion for bridging data and business outcomes drove Okta's implementation of dbt and transition to a modern data stack. Previously, as a Principal Analytics Engineer at Okta and Director of Analytics Engineering at Pluralsight, she built and led high-performing analytics teams. She is a recognized 2x Tableau Visionary, a global conference speaker, and her work has appeared on UNICEF and United Nations.
## Sessions
- [Keynote: Level Up](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/keynote-level-up)
- [From AI experiment to production: how Okta governs context for agents at scale](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-ai-experiment-to-production-how-okta-governs-context-for-agents-at-scale)
---
---
title: "Gordon Curzon"
description: "Head Of Analytics Engineering, Virgin Media O2"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/gordon-curzon"
---
# Gordon Curzon
Head Of Analytics Engineering, Virgin Media O2
Gordon Curzon is Head of Analytics Engineering at Virgin Media O2, where he was brought in to spearhead the digital transformation of the company's analytics and engineering capabilities. With over a decade of experience delivering
large-scale data engineering and analytics solutions in high-growth e-commerce environments - including Just Eat Takeaway - Gordon brings deep expertise in building modern data platforms at pace and at scale.
His career bridges two worlds: The velocity of fast-moving disruptor companies and the complexity of large-scale enterprise digital transformation. This dual perspective enables him to combine startup-calibre engineering practices with the rigour and governance that established organisations demand.
Gordon was recognised as a dbt Pioneer in 2026 for his contributions to the analytics engineering community.
## Sessions
- [What changes when 300 dbt users at Virgin Media O2 move to Fusion and dbt State](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/what-changes-when-300-dbt-users-at-virgin-media-o2-move-to-fusion-and-dbt-state)
---
---
title: "Joe Dabrowski"
description: "Vice President, Productivity, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/joe-dabrowski"
---
# Joe Dabrowski
Vice President, Productivity, dbt Labs
Joe leads Global Productivity at dbt Labs. Joe is an accomplished technology executive with 20 years’ experience. Previously, he served in sales and leadership positions at Rubrik, NetApp, Splunk, and EMC. Joe resides in McLean, VA.
## Sessions
- [Data for everyone 360: Building empathy and alignment across the data stack](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/data-for-everyone-360-building-empathy-and-alignment-across-the-data-stack)
---
---
title: "Mars Dauer"
description: "Enterprise Data and AI Leader"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/mars-dauer"
---
# Mars Dauer
Enterprise Data and AI Leader
Mars Dauer was most recently Senior Director of Enterprise Data & AI at Integral Ad Science, where he led enterprise data platform strategy across analytics, governance, and applied AI. He focuses on modernizing legacy data environments, building trusted data products, and creating practical AI-enabled workflows that help teams understand and act on their data. His work sits at the intersection of data architecture, BI, and business operations, with an emphasis on making complex systems more reliable, usable, and impactful.
## Sessions
- [Beyond the dashboard: an MCP-connected AI agent that reads your dbt lineage](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/beyond-the-dashboard-an-mcp-connected-ai-agent-that-reads-your-dbt-lineage)
---
---
title: "Elias DeFaria"
description: "Director, Product Management, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/elias-defaria"
---
# Elias DeFaria
Director, Product Management, dbt Labs
Elias DeFaria is a Director of Product Management at dbt Labs. Most recently, he was the Co-Founder and Head of Product at SDF Labs, a cutting-edge transformation layer and SQL compiler recently acquired by dbt Labs. Elias is focused on launching the dbt Fusion engine and dbt Core v2.
## Sessions
- [Keynote: Level Up](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/keynote-level-up)
---
---
title: "Shubham Dhal"
description: "Senior Software Engineer, Databricks"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/shubham-dhal"
---
# Shubham Dhal
Senior Software Engineer, Databricks
Shubham Dhal is a software engineer in Databricks working on dbt. Earlier he was working in a social media startup where he was a part of Platform team, focussing on stream processing and realtime communication. His interests lie in large scale data processing.
Before that he was an equity derivatives quant at JP Morgan. Shubham has done his bachelor's in engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
## Sessions
- [Getting the most out of dbt on Databricks](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/getting-the-most-out-of-dbt-on-databricks)
---
---
title: "Matteo Dijoux"
description: "Customer Solutions Architect, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/matteo-dijoux"
---
# Matteo Dijoux
Customer Solutions Architect, dbt Labs
Matteo has lived several professional lives in France, from fintech to pharma to teaching at university. Now, a Customer Solutions Architect, he loves sharing his knowledge and helping teams get the most out of their data with dbt.
## Sessions
- [Scaling trusted self-service for dbt stakeholders](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/scaling-trusted-self-service-for-dbt-stakeholders)
---
---
title: "Tyson Doberneck"
description: "Senior Data Engineer, Obie Insurance"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/tyson-doberneck"
---
# Tyson Doberneck
Senior Data Engineer, Obie Insurance
Tyson Doberneck is a Senior Data Engineer at Obie, where he designs scalable data architectures using Apache Iceberg, Snowflake, and dbt. Known for cutting warehouse costs and building cutting-edge AI analytics layers- Tyson has spent his career modernizing data ecosystems at companies like Toggle Insurance and USAA. Tyson currently works as a Senior Data Engineer at Obie. He holds a B.A. in Software Engineering from BYU-Idaho and lives in Phoenix, Arizona.
## Sessions
- [Keynote: Level Up](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/keynote-level-up)
- [One engine to rule them all: why Obie left the shire](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/one-engine-to-rule-them-all-why-obie-left-the-shire)
---
---
title: "Mike Doll"
description: "VP of Data, Guitar Center"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/mike-doll"
---
# Mike Doll
VP of Data, Guitar Center
Michael Doll is the VP of Data for Guitar Center. Mike has over 15 years of experience in data, analytics, and strategy, with a track record of building high-performing data functions at companies across multiple industries. As the VP of Data at Guitar Center, the nation's largest musical retailer, Mike leads enterprise-wide data strategy across infra, BI, analytics, and ML.
## Sessions
- [Reliable by design: Lower cost, better delivery, trusted AI](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/reliable-by-design-lower-cost-better-delivery-trusted-ai)
---
---
title: "James Dorado"
description: "VP of Data, Bilt"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/james-dorado"
---
# James Dorado
VP of Data, Bilt
James Dorado is the VP of Data at Bilt Rewards and has over a decade of experience across roles in Data and Finance. James joined Bilt in early 2024 and built out the data function for the organization including implementing Bilt’s first dbt project.
He is experienced in implementing key elements of the modern data stack such as Snowflake, BigQuery, Materialize, Fivetran, Sigma, and leads Bilt’s strategic partnership with dbt as well as sitting on dbt’s Customer Advisory Board.
Previously James held Analytics and Strategic Finance roles at Boxed, joining the company at an early stage and working with the CFO to build out the finance function and raising several rounds of private capital before creating the Analytics function and leading that team.
## Sessions
- [Real-time analytics at Bilt: architecture and approach](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/real-time-analytics-at-bilt-architecture-and-approach)
---
---
title: "Srilekha Dornadula"
description: "Product Manager, Databricks"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/srilekha-dornadula"
---
# Srilekha Dornadula
Product Manager, Databricks
Srilekha Dornadula is a Product Manager at Databricks.
## Sessions
- [Getting the most out of dbt on Databricks](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/getting-the-most-out-of-dbt-on-databricks)
---
---
title: "David Drummond"
description: "Data Engineer, Technical Lead, Verily Health"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/david-drummond"
---
# David Drummond
Data Engineer, Technical Lead, Verily Health
David Drummond is the Technical Lead for the Data Engineering team at Verily Health (formerly known as Google Life Sciences), where he builds AI-driven infrastructure for precision health solutions. He has led analytics engineering & data teams in the field of health care, leveraging dbt since 2020. David has mentored hundreds of engineers and analysts in data fields and helped create the Data Engineering curriculum for Udacity. He earned a PhD in Physics, with research focused on fault tolerance in quantum computing.
## Sessions
- [dbt for public health: sightline wastewater monitoring at scale](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dbt-for-public-health-sightline-wastewater-monitoring-at-scale)
---
---
title: "Ryan Eakman"
description: "Senior Staff Software Engineer, Fivetran"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/ryan-eakman"
---
# Ryan Eakman
Senior Staff Software Engineer, Fivetran
Ryan Eakman is a data and software engineer focused on building better data products. He created SQLFrame and co-created SQLMesh, dbt State, and the dbt Wizard CLI and app. He has worked at Netflix, Riot Games, and Blizzard Entertainment, and enjoys applying data to the entertainment industry. His highest score on Bop It! is 82.
## Sessions
- [dbt Wizard: your AI teammate for data development](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dbt-wizard-your-ai-teammate-for-data-development)
- [Product roundtable: dbt Wizard: your AI teammate for data development](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/product-roundtable-dbt-wizard-your-ai-teammate-for-data-development)
---
---
title: "David Elliott"
description: "Senior Technical Instructor, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/david-elliott"
---
# David Elliott
Senior Technical Instructor, dbt Labs
David started in the tech world as a software engineer, working with companies as a technical consultant on an ERP package. Tired of traveling, he pivoted into adult education as a motorcycle instructor. Tech came calling and he worked as a data scientist and a data engineer, and also data science instructor. He's now able to both teach and learn as a Senior Technical Instructor at dbt Labs.
## Sessions
- [{SOLD OUT} Getting started with dbt](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-getting-started-with-dbt)
---
---
title: "Opeyemi Fabiyi"
description: "Director, Analytics Engineering, Data Culture"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/opeyemi-fabiyi"
---
# Opeyemi Fabiyi
Director, Analytics Engineering, Data Culture
Opeyemi is a Director of Analytics Engineering at Data Culture, a boutique data consultancy where he leads a team helping organisations build and scale their data infrastructure. His current work centres on developing Data Culture’s AI Enablement offering, a structured framework for assessing organisational AI readiness and guiding clients from foundational data work through to successful AI pilot implementation. Before Data Culture, Opeyemi worked as a Data Analytics Consultant at Deloitte and served as the founding data hire at Cowrywise, one of Nigeria’s leading fintechs, where he built their data infrastructure from the ground up. A two-time dbt Community Award winner and dbt Organiser for Lagos Meetup
## Sessions
- [Don't ship what you can't measure: Evaluation-driven development for AI analytics agents](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dont-ship-what-you-cant-measure-evaluation-driven-development-for-ai-analytics-agents)
---
---
title: "Elisha Feliciano"
description: "Strategic Events Manager, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/elisha-feliciano"
---
# Elisha Feliciano
Strategic Events Manager, dbt Labs
Elisha Feliciano has created and driven impactful brand experiences for fast-growing startups, including Pantheon Platform, StreamNative, and Odoo. She currently leads audience acquisition on the Strategic Events team at dbt Labs. She earned her BA from UC Berkeley and is based in San Francisco.
## Sessions
- [Summit Springboard](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/summit-springboard)
---
---
title: "Sam Ferguson"
description: "Staff Product Designer, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/sam-ferguson"
---
# Sam Ferguson
Staff Product Designer, dbt Labs
Sam Ferguson is a Staff Product Designer at dbt Labs. Before joining dbt Labs, she spent a decade designing BI and analytics tools for data analysts. Today, she is focused on building AI-powered experiences for analytics engineering, helping data teams build trusted data at scale.
## Sessions
- [Keynote: Level Up](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/keynote-level-up)
- [dbt Wizard: your AI teammate for data development](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dbt-wizard-your-ai-teammate-for-data-development)
---
---
title: "Nick Fernandez"
description: "Manager of Data Analytics, PetScreening"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/nick-fernandez"
---
# Nick Fernandez
Manager of Data Analytics, PetScreening
Nick Fernandez is Manager of Data Analytics at PetScreening, a pet policy management software company making the world a more pet inclusive place. Nick has 6+ years of analytics engineering experience across various industries, turning complex problems into useful outcomes. Today, he leads an innovative team using dbt to uncover insights and drive business value.
## Sessions
- [dbt-building a more pet friendly world](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dbt-building-a-more-pet-friendly-world)
---
---
title: "Chiel Fernhout"
description: "Migration Delivery Engineering Lead, Datafold"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/chiel-fernhout"
---
# Chiel Fernhout
Migration Delivery Engineering Lead, Datafold
Chiel Fernhout is a Migration Delivery Engineering Lead at Datafold, where he builds the Datafold Migration Agent (DMA) - an agentic, LLM-powered engine that autonomously translates and validates data transformation logic across platforms. The DMA handles any-to-any conversion spanning SQL dialects, dbt projects, Python code, and legacy ETL/ELT platforms, iteratively refining its translations until data parity is proven between source and target systems.
His four-plus years at Datafold began in DevOps and cloud infrastructure before shifting to backend engineering, where he has spent the last couple of years focused on scaling the DMA. And with Agentic Engineering he is finally a true full-stack engineer.
Before Datafold, Chiel's career spanned ML Research, ML Engineering, Data Engineering, and DevOps roles. Outside of Engineering, Chiel loves Alpine mountaineering and bouldering.
## Sessions
- [From DML soup to dbt structure: Ecolab's migration story](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-dml-soup-to-dbt-structure-ecolabs-migration-story)
---
---
title: "Sarah Fischbach"
description: "Staff Analytics Engineer, Checkr"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/sarah-fischbach"
---
# Sarah Fischbach
Staff Analytics Engineer, Checkr
Sarah Fischbach, Staff Analytics Engineer at Checkr, leads their AI-ready data infrastructure initiative. Her work focuses on building the organizational context AI agents need to reason accurately about a business: the domain knowledge, business rules, and metric nuance that live in people's heads, not in a schema. She builds systems to capture and deliver that knowledge to AI as a core engineering discipline. Sarah has spent a decade in data, from founding analytics engineer to semantic layer architecture to AI context systems. Before that, she earned a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from UCSF, studying how biological systems encode context. It turns out the problem isn't that different.
## Sessions
- [Is context engineering the new analytics engineering?](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/is-context-engineering-the-new-analytics-engineering)
---
---
title: "Dave Fowler"
description: "General Manager, Fivetran"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/dave-fowler"
---
# Dave Fowler
General Manager, Fivetran
Dave Fowler founded Chartio, a cloud BI product now known as Atlassian Analytics. He started dataschool.com and is the co-author author of 'Informed Companies' (https://theinformedcompany.com/), a definitive guide to organizing data teams and workflows.
## Sessions
- [Chart clinic: live dashboard teardowns & rebuilds](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/chart-clinic-live-dashboard-teardowns-and-rebuilds)
- [Dashboards as Code with dbt Charts](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dashboards-as-code-with-dbt-charts)
- [dbt Charts: Building a Viz Language that’s Easy on the I’s - AI, BI, CI, and ODI](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dbt-charts-building-a-viz-language-thats-easy-on-the-is-ai-bi-ci-and-odi)
---
---
title: "George Fraser"
description: "CEO & Co-founder, Fivetran + dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/george-fraser"
---
# George Fraser
CEO & Co-founder, Fivetran + dbt Labs
George Fraser is the CEO and co-founder of Fivetran + dbt Labs, the global leader in the modern data movement. George founded Fivetran with Taylor Brown, the company’s Chief Operating Officer, in 2012 after completing the prestigious Y Combinator accelerator program. Under his leadership, Fivetran has grown from a startup into a global enterprise valued at $5.6 billion, serving thousands of companies worldwide to automate data workflows and drive innovation. He holds a PhD in Neurobiology from the University of Pittsburgh and a Bachelor of Science in Cognitive Science and Biology from Carnegie Mellon University.
## Sessions
- [Keynote: Level Up](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/keynote-level-up)
---
---
title: "Gabriel Gambacorta"
description: "Product Manager, AI/ML Engineering, KOHO Financial"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/gabriel-gambacorta"
---
# Gabriel Gambacorta
Product Manager, AI/ML Engineering, KOHO Financial
Gabriel Gambacorta is a Product Manager on KOHO's AI/ML engineering team, working to drive the model lifecycle at Canada's leading challenger bank. His latest focus is self-serve analytics: driving org-wide adoption of agentic tools and monitoring correct usage so people trust the results. That work is grounded in evaluation, establishing ground truth and testing different context sources for agentic workflows so the tools stay accurate as adoption scales, turning broader access into faster, informed decisions.
## Sessions
- [Before the agents: what self-serve analytics actually needs](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/before-the-agents-what-self-serve-analytics-actually-needs)
---
---
title: "Jason Ganz"
description: "Director, Developer Experience, Community and AI, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/jason-ganz"
---
# Jason Ganz
Director, Developer Experience, Community and AI, dbt Labs
Jason Ganz is the Director of Developer Experience, Community and AI at dbt Labs
## Sessions
- [Fireside chat: What is Context Engineering and why does it matter for analytics practitioners](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/fireside-chat-what-is-context-engineering-and-why-does-it-matter-for-analytics-practitioners)
- [Data + AI agent hackathon](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/data-ai-agent-hackathon)
---
---
title: "Sara Gawlinski"
description: "Technical Product Marketing Manager, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/sara-gawlinski"
---
# Sara Gawlinski
Technical Product Marketing Manager, dbt Labs
Sara Gawlinski is a technical product marketing manager at Fivetran + dbt, where she helps data teams adopt the technologies powering modern analytics and AI workflows. Her background spans solutions engineering and research, with roots in open source communities and developer tools. Most days she's creating content for practitioners, bringing a creative approach to storytelling that makes complex technology approachable and exciting.
## Sessions
- [Teaching dbt Wizard to write code like your team](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/teaching-dbt-wizard-to-write-code-like-your-team)
- [Teaching dbt Wizard to write code like your team](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/teaching-dbt-wizard-to-write-code-like-your-team-5748d019)
---
---
title: "Mateusz Geca"
description: "Data Engineer, Verisk"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/mateusz-geca"
---
# Mateusz Geca
Data Engineer, Verisk
Mateusz Geca is a Data Engineer in Verisk’s Poland office to design and build high-quality datasets for Data Science and Business Intelligence teams.
Mateusz's work focuses on property insurance, and earlier in his career he gained experience with personal insurance lines. Having passed several actuarial exams, Mateusz combines data engineering expertise with an actuary’s analytical mindset, ensuring data pipelines are scalable, well engineered, and aligned with actuarial use cases.
Mateusz holds a Master’s degree in Actuarial Mathematics and Statistical Data Science from AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków.
## Sessions
- [From first models to AI-powered maturity: scaling data engineering with dbt at Verisk Underwriting](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-first-models-to-ai-powered-maturity-scaling-data-engineering-with-dbt-at-verisk-underwriting)
---
---
title: "Jobin George"
description: "Partner Engineering Lead, Data Cloud, Google"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/jobin-george"
---
# Jobin George
Partner Engineering Lead, Data Cloud, Google
Jobin George is a Partner Engineering Lead for Data Cloud at Google, with more than 16 years of experience designing and implementing large-scale AI and data solutions. He provides technical guidance, design advice, and thought leadership to key Google customers and AI & Analytics partners. Previously, Jobin served in a similar capacity at Amazon Web Services and held key roles at Netgear, Hortonworks, Wipro, and Tata Consultancy Services.
## Sessions
- [SQL-first AI: bringing BigQuery AI into your dbt project](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sql-first-ai-bringing-bigquery-ai-into-your-dbt-project)
- [From Lakehouse to agents: scaling analytics with dbt and Google Cloud](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-lakehouse-to-agents-scaling-analytics-with-dbt-and-google-cloud)
---
---
title: "Duncan Gilchrist"
description: "Co-Founder, Delphina"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/duncan-gilchrist"
---
# Duncan Gilchrist
Co-Founder, Delphina
Duncan Gilchrist is a co-founder of Delphina, the AI-managed context layer for enterprise data. He spent years leading data science at Uber, first running pricing for ridesharing and then marketplace science for Uber Eats — work where the modeling was rarely the bottleneck. What slowed teams down was everything the model didn't know about the business around it.
Now he's building Delphina so that context stops living in a handful of people's heads and never outdated. A Harvard PhD economist by training, Duncan is excited about the power that AI has for data-driven decision making and elevating the role of data practitioners into strategic leaders.
## Sessions
- [The limits of DIY: how an S&P 500 Company escaped the data context trap](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-limits-of-diy-how-an-sandp-500-company-escaped-the-data-context-trap)
---
---
title: "Grace Goheen"
description: "Product Manager, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/grace-goheen"
---
# Grace Goheen
Product Manager, dbt Labs
Grace Goheen is Product Manager at dbt Labs, focused on the dbt framework (across Core and Fusion) and the local development experience using the new VS Code Extension. She is delighted to work at a place that embraces her passion for theater; if she’s speaking at a conference, there will be costumes.
## Sessions
- [Keynote: Community Keynote](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/keynote-community-keynote)
- [The View on Data: Live from dbt Summit](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-view-on-data-live-from-dbt-summit)
---
---
title: "Daniel Gonzalez"
description: "Analytics Engineer Tech Lead, Sweetwater Sound"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/daniel-gonzalez"
---
# Daniel Gonzalez
Analytics Engineer Tech Lead, Sweetwater Sound
Daniel Gonzalez is an Analytics Engineering Tech Lead at Sweetwater Sound, where he and his team build the trusted data foundation that 1,000+ people across the business rely on to make decisions. Working in dbt, BigQuery, and Looker, they drive efforts to consolidate siloed, multi-source data into clean, well-modeled datasets. Daniel's work focuses on standardizing metrics in collaboration with stakeholders, building proactive observability into dbt pipelines to catch data issues before they reach users, and adopting dbt Mesh to give departments ownership as the team centralizes data.
## Sessions
- [Sweetwater's proactive data observability playbook with Datadog](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sweetwaters-proactive-data-observability-playbook-with-datadog)
---
---
title: "Mark Goodwin"
description: "Head of Analytics and Decisioning, Gen Digital"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/mark-goodwin"
---
# Mark Goodwin
Head of Analytics and Decisioning, Gen Digital
Mark Goodwin is a leader at Gen Digital, currently serving as the Head of Analytics and Decisioning focused on their financial services brands (MoneyLion + Engine by Gen). He leads a team of about 50 with work spanning marketing technology, analytics, business intelligence and decision science, using data to drive business outcomes impacting customer, product and partner growth. He is focused on expanding AI-Augmented analytics across his team to drive faster delivery of insights, dashboards and models.
## Sessions
- [The limits of DIY: how an S&P 500 Company escaped the data context trap](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-limits-of-diy-how-an-sandp-500-company-escaped-the-data-context-trap)
---
---
title: "Wayne Grigsby"
description: "Lead Sales Engineer, Prefect"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/wayne-grigsby"
---
# Wayne Grigsby
Lead Sales Engineer, Prefect
Wayne Grigsby is Lead Sales Engineer at Prefect, the company behind FastMCP, the standard framework for working with the Model Context Protocol. Wayne works directly with the engineering teams building on FastMCP, Prefect, Dagster, and Horizon, helping them take agentic and data workflows from proof of concept to production. He spent the better part of the last decade as a software engineer, data scientist, and everything in between. Before joining Prefect, he led technical teams at the United Nations Foundation and Gallup. He lives in Northern Virginia
## Sessions
- [Beyond vibe governance: keeping sensitive data out of your agent's context window](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/beyond-vibe-governance-keeping-sensitive-data-out-of-your-agents-context-window)
---
---
title: "William Guicheney"
description: "Principal Analytics Engineer, Aimpoint Digital"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/william-guicheney"
---
# William Guicheney
Principal Analytics Engineer, Aimpoint Digital
William Guicheney is a Principal Analytics Engineer at Aimpoint, focused on building modern data platforms with tools incluing dbt, Snowflake, Airbyte, and Sigma. With over nine years in analytics, he enjoys creating scalable solutions that help teams make smarter decisions with data.
Outside of analytics engineering, William loves the outdoors and running, and does some of his best thinking a few kilometers into a run with music blasting in his earphones.
## Sessions
- [dbt-building a more pet friendly world](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dbt-building-a-more-pet-friendly-world)
---
---
title: "Abhra Gupta"
description: "Lead Analytics Engineer, Mitratech"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/abhra-gupta"
---
# Abhra Gupta
Lead Analytics Engineer, Mitratech
Abhra Gupta is a lead data engineer at Mitratech, where he's building the data platform behind Aries, an AI-powered assistant and document processing system built into TeamConnect, Mitratech's enterprise legal management platform. He's used dbt for five years, starting as a founding engineer on Trakstar's analytics team, where he built the ELT and orchestration pipeline from scratch. Since Mitratech acquired Trakstar in 2023, he's carried dbt across three business units: legal, risk, and human resources. [One line: what he cares about, or what's genuinely hard about feeding an AI assistant trustworthy legal data.]
## Sessions
- [From cost center to profit center: how Mitratech built a data platform on dbt](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-cost-center-to-profit-center-how-mitratech-built-a-data-platform-on-dbt)
---
---
title: "Bishal Gupta"
description: "Lead Data Engineer, Docusign"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/bishal-gupta"
---
# Bishal Gupta
Lead Data Engineer, Docusign
Bishal Gupta is data engineering leader with over two decades of experience in building data analytics products and solutions for data-driven business intelligence platforms.
Bishal currently works as a Lead Data Engineer at Docusign. He previously worked at Starbucks, Sur La Table, and Microsoft.
Bishal introduced and leveraged dbt Core in the Docusign Product Data Science and Analytics team and eventually moved to the dbt platform, where it has been successfully adopted as the enterprise data platform to build robust and high performance data models and products.
Bishal was recognized this year as a dbt Champion.
## Sessions
- [AI-augmented analytics engineering at DocuSign: from prompt to production with Fusion, dbt MCP, and agent skills](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/ai-augmented-analytics-engineering-at-docusign-from-prompt-to-production-with-fusion-dbt-mcp-and-agent-skills)
---
---
title: "Eric Guroff"
description: "CEO/Founder, Ratio PBC"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/eric-guroff"
---
# Eric Guroff
CEO/Founder, Ratio PBC
Eric is the Founder and CEO of Ratio PBC, a software and data consultancy that serves public sector health and human services agencies. Eric's first interaction with dbt came in 2018 when, as Director of Product for a health tech startup, his team hired Tristan @ Fishtown Analytics to help his engineering and data teams implement this new tool that would enable them to eliminate discrepancies across client-facing reporting through version control, consistent modeling, testing, etc. The business impact was immediate and significant, and Eric was quickly sold on dbt even before he got his hands on it. Fast forward, Eric is now a dbt user and evangelist, having brought dbt to state health agencies. He coaches state data teams on applying modern engineering practices to their data work.
## Sessions
- [Building dbt projects in rough terrain: creating a trailguide for dbt pioneers](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/building-dbt-projects-in-rough-terrain-creating-a-trailguide-for-dbt-pioneers)
---
---
title: "Raza Hafeez"
description: "Senior Product Manager, Amazon"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/raza-hafeez"
---
# Raza Hafeez
Senior Product Manager, Amazon
Raza is a Senior Product Manager, Technical at Amazon Analytics. He has 15+ years of experience building and optimizing enterprise data platforms and is passionate about making cloud analytics accessible and cost-effective for customers of all sizes.
## Sessions
- [Scaling dbt on Amazon Redshift: how KOHO cut transformation runtime 70% without rewriting a single model](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/scaling-dbt-on-amazon-redshift-how-koho-cut-transformation-runtime-70percent-without-rewriting-a-single-model)
---
---
title: "Tristan Handy"
description: "President & Co-founder, Fivetran + dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/tristan-handy"
---
# Tristan Handy
President & Co-founder, Fivetran + dbt Labs
Tristan Handy is the Founder and CEO of dbt Labs. dbt is an emerging leader in the data transformation space. It's used by 100,000 teams including JetBlue, HubSpot, Dunelm, and SunRun. Tristan has over two decades of experience as a data practitioner working in both large enterprises and startups. His expertise and data industry best practices have influenced thousands of subscribers and listeners weekly via his newsletter and podcast covering analytics engineering.
## Sessions
- [Keynote: Level Up](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/keynote-level-up)
- [Fireside chat: What is Context Engineering and why does it matter for analytics practitioners](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/fireside-chat-what-is-context-engineering-and-why-does-it-matter-for-analytics-practitioners)
---
---
title: "Roy Hasson"
description: "Senior Director of Product Management, Microsoft"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/roy-hasson"
---
# Roy Hasson
Senior Director of Product Management, Microsoft
Roy Hasson is Senior Director of Product Management for Microsoft OneLake, the open and unified data lake at the heart of Microsoft Fabric. He leads product strategy and development focused on open data formats, interoperable federation across platforms, data sharing, and the agentic lakehouse future.
## Sessions
- [From data to AI: why Microsoft Fabric and dbt are better together](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-data-to-ai-why-microsoft-fabric-and-dbt-are-better-together)
---
---
title: "Emily Hawkins"
description: "Analytics Engineering Manager, LangChain"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/emily-hawkins"
---
# Emily Hawkins
Analytics Engineering Manager, LangChain
Emily Hawkins is the founding analytics engineer at LangChain; building the analytics function at the company from scratch. She enjoys creating seamless data infrastructure and turning chaos into clarity and simplicity.
Emily has given talks at multiple dbt conferences, her favorite being the one in New Orleans (the first in-person dbt conference!).
When not immersed in data, Emily is doing yoga, reading books, learning a new skill (learning to snowboard currently!), or sometimes traveling to a new place in the world.
## Sessions
- [No drift allowed: LangChain's context playbook with Hex](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/no-drift-allowed-langchains-context-playbook-with-hex)
---
---
title: "Nick Heron"
description: "Director, Data Analytics, Bilt"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/nick-heron"
---
# Nick Heron
Director, Data Analytics, Bilt
Nick Heron is a marketing-focused technical analytics leader at Bilt, where he architects personalized customer and merchant experiences with realtime audiences and AI agents reading from a universal data model.
## Sessions
- [Real-time analytics at Bilt: architecture and approach](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/real-time-analytics-at-bilt-architecture-and-approach)
---
---
title: "Pedro Heyerdahl"
description: "Head of Data & Analytics, Kilo Code"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/pedro-heyerdahl"
---
# Pedro Heyerdahl
Head of Data & Analytics, Kilo Code
Pedro Heyerdahl is Head of Data at Kilo Code, the open-source agentic engineering platform used by 2M+ developers. He runs a data team of one human and many agents, and is interested in what it takes to go from agents that are technically capable to ones that genuinely extend what a data team can do.
## Sessions
- [YAML doesn't know why: building the business context your agents are missing](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/yaml-doesnt-know-why-building-the-business-context-your-agents-are-missing)
---
---
title: "Cathy Huang"
description: "Senior BI Engineer, Webstaurantstore"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/cathy-huang"
---
# Cathy Huang
Senior BI Engineer, Webstaurantstore
Cathy Huang is a Senior BI Engineer at WebstaurantStore where she specializes in system integrations and automation frameworks that take the manual busy work out of data engineering.
Cathy is happiest when she is figuring out how to connect different parts of a tech stack or architecting a process that can scale without breaking. Driven by a healthy dose of curiosity, she loves digging into the why behind a problem until she finds a way to make the entire system run better. When not at her desk, she is usually traveling, messing around with a side project, or hunting for the next process to optimize.
## Sessions
- [Revolutionizing the staging layer: automating dbt generation for 700+ sources](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/revolutionizing-the-staging-layer-automating-dbt-generation-for-700-sources)
---
---
title: "Suhas Jangoan"
description: "Senior Data Engineer, Zendesk"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/suhas-jangoan"
---
# Suhas Jangoan
Senior Data Engineer, Zendesk
Suhas Jangoan is a Senior Data Engineer with over a decade of experience architecting massive enterprise data platforms at companies like Zendesk and EAB. A proud UT Dallas computer science alumnus and an IEEE Senior Member (currently serving as Treasurer for the Richmond Section), Suhas is passionate about bringing rigorous software engineering principles, robust modeling, and scalability to the data warehouse. Beyond designing reliable pipelines, he is a dedicated mentor, a tech contributor, and a published researcher focusing on data platforms and AI. Suhas is dedicated to helping teams break down data silos, optimize their analytics stacks, and unlock the true, trusted potential of their data.
## Sessions
- [AI-powered data development: How agentic SDLC & dbt-MCP transformed our data engineering workflow](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/ai-powered-data-development-how-agentic-sdlc-and-dbt-mcp-transformed-our-data-engineering-workflow)
---
---
title: "Jenna Jordan"
description: "Senior Analytics Engineer, Ratio PBC"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/jenna-jordan"
---
# Jenna Jordan
Senior Analytics Engineer, Ratio PBC
Jenna Jordan is a mission-driven data engineer in civic tech. As a Sr Analytics Engineer at Ratio PBC, she builds data systems that support public health initiatives and advises public sector clients on analytics engineering best practices. In past roles she has spearheaded the adoption of dbt core for the City of Boston Analytics Team, and served as an expert on dbt Mesh architecture and accompanying governance strategies. Jenna grounds her data work in information science principles, and brings a data librarian’s perspective to modern data teams. She has a Masters in Library & Information Science and learned to code at library school.
## Sessions
- [Building dbt projects in rough terrain: creating a trailguide for dbt pioneers](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/building-dbt-projects-in-rough-terrain-creating-a-trailguide-for-dbt-pioneers)
---
---
title: "Tomasz Kaczmarek"
description: "Lead IT Developer, Ecolab"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/tomasz-kaczmarek"
---
# Tomasz Kaczmarek
Lead IT Developer, Ecolab
Tomasz Kaczmarek is a Lead IT Developer at Ecolab Deutschland GmbH, bringing over nine years of experience as a SAP BI, HANA, and BusinessObjects consultant. He provides technical leadership on complex data and analytics projects, with deep expertise in data warehousing, business intelligence, and reporting.
## Sessions
- [From DML soup to dbt structure: Ecolab's migration story](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-dml-soup-to-dbt-structure-ecolabs-migration-story)
---
---
title: "Ariel Kaplan"
description: "Data Architect, Planned Parenthood"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/ariel-kaplan"
---
# Ariel Kaplan
Data Architect, Planned Parenthood
Ariel Kaplan has been a non-profit data professional for nearly 15 years. He is proud of the many hats he has worn from sorting mail to batching gifts to designing gift entry processes to the many different data roles that led him to Data Architect.
The mission is what is important to him and he is always taking that into consideration when thinking about best practices.
Ariel enjoys trivia and is the trivia master at his office.
## Sessions
- [A nonprofit's journey: we walked so dbt could run](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/a-nonprofits-journey-we-walked-so-dbt-could-run)
---
---
title: "Matt Karan"
description: "Senior Data Engineer, Obie Insurance"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/matt-karan"
---
# Matt Karan
Senior Data Engineer, Obie Insurance
Matt Karan is a Senior Data Engineer at Obie with a decade of experience building data infrastructure from the ground up.
He honed his craft in the visual effects and animation industry, beginning as a render and data wrangler and working his way into analyst and engineering roles at Animal Logic, DNEG, Technicolor, and ScanlineVFX, where he designed pipelines handling millions of daily events and built forecasting models that informed studio-wide resourcing decisions.
In 2025, Matt pivoted out of post-production and into insurtech, joining Obie where he works with modern tooling centered around dbt Fusion to build reliable, scalable data systems in a fast-moving industry.
## Sessions
- [One engine to rule them all: why Obie left the shire](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/one-engine-to-rule-them-all-why-obie-left-the-shire)
---
---
title: "Casey Karst"
description: "Principal Product Manager, Fivetran"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/casey-karst"
---
# Casey Karst
Principal Product Manager, Fivetran
Casey Karst is a Principal Product Manager focusing on Data Lakes at Fivetran. His background in Data Warehousing and Data Lakes provides a long view on the evolution of the cloud analytics market.
## Sessions
- [The next wave of data infrastructure is in the Lake](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-next-wave-of-data-infrastructure-is-in-the-lake)
- [Product roundtable: Open Data Infrastructure in practice: unlock your dbt projects with Apache Iceberg and mesh](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/product-roundtable-open-data-infrastructure-in-practice-unlock-your-dbt-projects-with-apache-iceberg-and-mesh)
---
---
title: "Brian Kasen"
description: "Director, Data Engineering and Analytics, Mitratech"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/brian-kasen"
---
# Brian Kasen
Director, Data Engineering and Analytics, Mitratech
Brian is Director of Software Engineering at Mitratech, where he led the data engineering and analytics platform initiative, PlatoBI. He currently oversees the HRS Division analytics strategy along and with the development team building Mitratech's newest solution Mitratech Leave, a software product that helps HR teams administer employee leave of absence. Before joining Mitratech, Brian built predictive analytics and BI reporting systems in the higher education, technology, and restaurant industries. Based in Denver, Colorado, he spends his free time mountain biking and snowboarding in the Rockies.
## Sessions
- [From cost center to profit center: how Mitratech built a data platform on dbt](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-cost-center-to-profit-center-how-mitratech-built-a-data-platform-on-dbt)
---
---
title: "Jerrie Kenney"
description: "Manager, Professional Services, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/jerrie-kenney"
---
# Jerrie Kenney
Manager, Professional Services, dbt Labs
Jerrie Kenney has spent her career doing the unglamorous work that makes data actually useful: fixing broken pipelines, rebuilding trust in numbers, and convincing organizations that data culture is, in fact, a real thing. At dbt Labs, she specializes in helping companies diagnose what's broken, design what should exist, and build the capability to make it stick. When she's not untangling data systems, she's probably chasing her kids, catching up on sci-fi, or finding a quiet corner to read
## Sessions
- [Black in Data: Building connections and community during career growth](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/black-in-data-building-connections-and-community-during-career-growth)
- [The View on Data: Live from dbt Summit](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-view-on-data-live-from-dbt-summit)
---
---
title: "Kevin Kim"
description: "Staff Product Manager, Fivetran"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/kevin-kim"
---
# Kevin Kim
Staff Product Manager, Fivetran
Kevin is a Product Manager working on the Fivetran Context Layer. He worked on the team that developed and launched Agents Schema, a new open source standard for AI context, and is now helping integrate this into the Fivetran + dbt platform.
## Sessions
- [With great context comes great autonomy: leveling up your agent context](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/with-great-context-comes-great-autonomy-leveling-up-your-agent-context)
- [With great context comes great autonomy: leveling up your agent context](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/with-great-context-comes-great-autonomy-leveling-up-your-agent-context-09111662)
- [Product roundtable: With great context comes great autonomy: leveling up your agent context](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/product-roundtable-with-great-context-comes-great-autonomy-leveling-up-your-agent-context)
---
---
title: "Madison Kohls"
description: "Data Scientist, Figma"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/madison-kohls"
---
# Madison Kohls
Data Scientist, Figma
Madison is a full-stack Data Scientist at Figma supporting the Growth and Monetization pillar. Beyond analytics, she develops data-backed tooling to raise both code and data quality within engineering, as well as enables non-technical functions to support customers through self-service data applications.
## Sessions
- [How Figma builds a consistent experience with confidence](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/how-figma-builds-a-consistent-experience-with-confidence)
---
---
title: "Pavan Kotikalapudi"
description: "Staff Software Engineer, Twilio Inc."
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/pavan-kotikalapudi"
---
# Pavan Kotikalapudi
Staff Software Engineer, Twilio Inc.
Pavan is a Staff Software Engineer at Twilio, with over a decade of deep expertise in distributed data systems, his work centers on building resilient, highly scalable architectures and driving long-term technical sustainability for Analytics platforms.
## Sessions
- [ClickHouse + dbt: Building a GitOps workflow at Twilio](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/clickhouse-dbt-building-a-gitops-workflow-at-twilio)
---
---
title: "Ben Kramer"
description: "Senior Director, Data & Analytics, Bilt"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/ben-kramer"
---
# Ben Kramer
Senior Director, Data & Analytics, Bilt
Ben Kramer is the Senior Director of Data & Analytics at Bilt, the loyalty platform of your home and neighborhood. Prior to Bilt, he led analytics teams at Zip, the BNPL, and Mastercard.
## Sessions
- [Inside the agentic data stack at Bilt](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/inside-the-agentic-data-stack-at-bilt)
---
---
title: "Luke Kranz"
description: "Senior Staff AI Engineer, Fanatics Betting & Gaming"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/luke-kranz"
---
# Luke Kranz
Senior Staff AI Engineer, Fanatics Betting & Gaming
Luke Kranz is a Senior Staff Software Engineer at Fanatics Betting & Gaming, where he was one of the first engineers on the data team and has built the company's data platform from scratch. He has 15+ years of experience in the data industry and currently leads the Core Platform, Data Engineering Integrations, and Applied AI teams.
## Sessions
- [From hard lessons to AI-ready analytics: Fanatics’ journey with dbt and Snowflake](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-hard-lessons-to-ai-ready-analytics-fanatics-journey-with-dbt-and-snowflake)
---
---
title: "Rakesh Krishnan"
description: "Principal PM Lead, Microsoft Fabric, Microsoft"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/rakesh-krishnan"
---
# Rakesh Krishnan
Principal PM Lead, Microsoft Fabric, Microsoft
Rakesh Krishnan is a Principal PM Lead on Microsoft Fabric. Currently, Rakesh leads developer & AI experiences and enterprise readiness features for Fabric Data Warehouse
## Sessions
- [dbt+Fabric: analytics engineering at enterprise scale](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dbtfabric-analytics-engineering-at-enterprise-scale)
---
---
title: "Neela Kulkarni"
description: "AWS Solutions Architect, Amazon"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/neela-kulkarni"
---
# Neela Kulkarni
AWS Solutions Architect, Amazon
Neela Kulkarni is a Solutions Architect at AWS, with close to 20 years of industry experience across a range of technical roles. She is an AWS Certified Machine Learning Specialist and AWS Certified Security Specialist.
## Sessions
- [How to build governed agentic analytics on Amazon Redshift with the dbt Semantic Layer](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/how-to-build-governed-agentic-analytics-on-amazon-redshift-with-the-dbt-semantic-layer)
---
---
title: "Saravana Kumar"
description: "CEO, Authentic"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/saravana-kumar"
---
# Saravana Kumar
CEO, Authentic
Saravana Kumar (SK) is the CTO of Authentic, where he leads product, engineering & data and owns the in-house proprietary platform that runs the full insurance lifecycle, from underwriting and policy administration to automated bordereaux and carrier reporting. Previously, SK was an early engineer at Amazon Braket, Amazon's cloud platform for quantum computing, where he helped build the first version of the product now used by thousands of researchers worldwide.
## Sessions
- [Most of your dbt models aren't in a hurry: How to stop paying for the whole DAG](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/most-of-your-dbt-models-arent-in-a-hurry-how-to-stop-paying-for-the-whole-dag)
---
---
title: "Christine Kwon"
description: "Senior Director, Data, Fanatics Betting & Gaming"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/christine-kwon"
---
# Christine Kwon
Senior Director, Data, Fanatics Betting & Gaming
Christine Kwon is the Senior Director of Data at Fanatics Betting & Gaming, where she leads data strategy and foundational functions including data integration, governance, analytics engineering, and reporting.
She has extensive experience driving scalable, compliant, and reliable data solutions that enhance operational efficiency and decision-making. She is passionate about building robust data platforms that enable long-term business growth, while leveraging modern technologies to empower teams and deliver measurable value across the organization.
Prior to Fanatics, she held data leadership roles in enterprise organizations and brings deep expertise in fostering data-driven cultures.
## Sessions
- [How Fanatics manages dbt metrics with Snowflake CoCo for natural language analytics](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/how-fanatics-manages-dbt-metrics-with-snowflake-coco-for-natural-language-analytics)
---
---
title: "Joel Labes"
description: "Staff DX Advocate, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/joel-labes"
---
# Joel Labes
Staff DX Advocate, dbt Labs
Joel is a Staff Developer Experience Advocate at dbt Labs. After working as Head of Data at his last job, he joined dbt Labs to help make using dbt delightful.
## Sessions
- [In the weeds of dbt State](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/in-the-weeds-of-dbt-state)
- [Live debate: Should you stop using introspection in your models?](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/live-debate-should-you-stop-using-introspection-in-your-models)
- [In the weeds of dbt State](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/in-the-weeds-of-dbt-state-8e30083f)
---
---
title: "Raini Laughlin"
description: "Technical Instructor, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/raini-laughlin"
---
# Raini Laughlin
Technical Instructor, dbt Labs
Raini is a former high school math teacher who spent ten years helping students land on their feet—no matter how many times the equations tried to knock them over. Now, they chase patterns and pounce on problems in the data world with the same curiosity that a cat brings to a cardboard box. Raini loves demystifying tech, untangling complexity like a ball of yarn, and making learning feel less like a lecture and more like a game of laser pointer tag. They’re thrilled to be helping others land their own “aha” moments as a Technical Instructor at dbt Labs.
## Sessions
- [{SOLD OUT} Governed & scalable AI-assisted analytics with dbt](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-governed-and-scalable-ai-assisted-analytics-with-dbt)
- [Migrate stored procs with dbt Wizard](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/migrate-stored-procs-with-dbt-wizard)
- [{SOLD OUT} Governed & scalable AI-assisted analytics with dbt](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-governed-and-scalable-ai-assisted-analytics-with-dbt-8bebec40)
---
---
title: "Adrien Ledoux"
description: "Director, Data & Analytics Platform, EF"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/adrien-ledoux"
---
# Adrien Ledoux
Director, Data & Analytics Platform, EF
Adrien Ledoux is Director of Data Platform at EF (Education First), where he leads the team building and running the data foundation for one of the world's largest private education organisations. The stack runs on Snowflake and AWS, with dbt (Cloud and Core) as the transformation layer, Prefect for orchestration, and Power BI as the semantic and visualisation layer.
Adrien is a firm believer in dimensional modelling and a vanilla by default approach: proven patterns over invented complexity. He treats the platform as a product and EF's data community as its users, and spends much of his time enabling that community, not just shipping infrastructure.
Outside data, Adrien is a fine art photographer, selling limited edition prints and running workshops in Switzerland. Based in Zurich, by way of Paris, London & Leicester, he brings a photographer's patience and eye for the right moment to how he leads.
## Sessions
- [Does your data pipeline deserve to exist? How EF Education built a cost and value layer with dbt and Cortex Agent](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/does-your-data-pipeline-deserve-to-exist-how-ef-education-built-a-cost-and-value-layer-with-dbt-and-cortex-agent)
---
---
title: "Anna Lee"
description: "Software Engineer, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/anna-lee"
---
# Anna Lee
Software Engineer, dbt Labs
Anna Lee is a software engineer working at the cross-section of dbt fusion, adapters, and iceberg. Anna brings deep expertise in the adapters stack and is one of the primary authors behind the Iceberg catalogs v2 spec powering cross platform mesh. When she's not writing code, she's playing tennis and hanging out with her two cats, Lilac and Lemon.
## Sessions
- [Open Data Infrastructure in practice: unlock your dbt projects with Apache Iceberg and mesh](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/open-data-infrastructure-in-practice-unlock-your-dbt-projects-with-apache-iceberg-and-mesh)
- [Product roundtable: Open Data Infrastructure in practice: unlock your dbt projects with Apache Iceberg and mesh](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/product-roundtable-open-data-infrastructure-in-practice-unlock-your-dbt-projects-with-apache-iceberg-and-mesh)
- [Open Data Infrastructure in practice: unlock your dbt projects with Apache Iceberg and mesh](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/open-data-infrastructure-in-practice-unlock-your-dbt-projects-with-apache-iceberg-and-mesh-7d7b5efe)
---
---
title: "Timothy Leonard"
description: "Senior Insights Manager, Spotify"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/timothy-leonard"
---
# Timothy Leonard
Senior Insights Manager, Spotify
Tim Leonard is a Senior Insights Manager at Spotify, where he has spent the last several years building teams, tools, and systems that make it easier to do good data work at scale. His work spans analytics engineering, data architecture, and developer tooling, with a growing focus on how AI can improve the way people build and work with data.
## Sessions
- [Keynote: Level Up](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/keynote-level-up)
---
---
title: "Ben Lerner"
description: "CEO, Espresso AI"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/ben-lerner"
---
# Ben Lerner
CEO, Espresso AI
Founded Espresso AI with a team of ex-Google, ex-Apple, MIT engineers to help save companies up to 70% on Snowflake automatically.
We can estimate your savings upfront and have you up and running in 10 minutes flat. In the words of our first customer:
"Espresso Al literally cut our Snowflake bill in half. Setup was easy
and straightforward, and there's zero maintenance. This is a no-brainer if you're stressed about your Snowflake costs."
--
Prior to Espresso AI, I helped Google save hundreds of millions of dollars on compute costs.
## Sessions
- [Most of your dbt models aren't in a hurry: How to stop paying for the whole DAG](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/most-of-your-dbt-models-arent-in-a-hurry-how-to-stop-paying-for-the-whole-dag)
---
---
title: "Brad Levy"
description: "Director of Analytics, AlphaSense"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/brad-levy"
---
# Brad Levy
Director of Analytics, AlphaSense
Brad Levy is a Director of Analytics at AlphaSense, a pre-IPO SaaS company, where he sits on the Data & Analytics leadership team and partners with senior leaders across Go-to-Market and Operations teams to turn business priorities into measurable insight.
With more than a decade of experience scaling analytics, including prior leadership roles at Sprout Social, Hub Group, and Stericycle, he has built distributed teams and turned sprawling reporting into trusted, governed sources. He has worked with dbt since 2020 and uses both dbt Core and dbt Cloud today.
At AlphaSense, Brad leads AI-first development across a 20-person Data & Analytics org, introducing frontier models and MCP servers to create a connected, context-rich experience across core data and workflow tools.
## Sessions
- [An AlphaSense case study: scaling AI on enterprise data with dbt-first governance and context from Euno](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/an-alphasense-case-study-scaling-ai-on-enterprise-data-with-dbt-first-governance-and-context-from-euno)
---
---
title: "Sarah Levy"
description: "Co-Founder & CEO, Euno"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/sarah-levy"
---
# Sarah Levy
Co-Founder & CEO, Euno
Sarah Levy leads Euno, the AI context platform for enterprise data. For 25 years, she’s led teams across cybersecurity, healthcare, and finance, leveraging data and AI in transformative ways. Her expertise in navigating the complexities of data at scale-up companies has positioned her as a leader in balancing strong data governance with the speed of AI.
Now, she’s building Euno to unlock enterprise AI that can safely act on core data at scale. Together with her Euno-tastic team, Sarah’s mission is clear: to untangle the toughest data challenges for business and data teams, as organizations enter the AI era.
## Sessions
- [An AlphaSense case study: scaling AI on enterprise data with dbt-first governance and context from Euno](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/an-alphasense-case-study-scaling-ai-on-enterprise-data-with-dbt-first-governance-and-context-from-euno)
---
---
title: "XiaoHan Li"
description: "Analytics Engineer & Consultant, Xebia"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/xiaohan-li"
---
# XiaoHan Li
Analytics Engineer & Consultant, Xebia
XiaoHan Li is an Analytics Engineer and Consultant with expertise in ELT-driven Medallion Architecture & data modelling, and dbt architecture design and implementation.
## Sessions
- [Agents, MCPs and buzzword fatigue: what AI actually changes for analytics engineers](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/agents-mcps-and-buzzword-fatigue-what-ai-actually-changes-for-analytics-engineers-f3bc39cb)
- [Agents, MCPs and buzzword fatigue: what AI actually changes for analytics engineers](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/agents-mcps-and-buzzword-fatigue-what-ai-actually-changes-for-analytics-engineers)
---
---
title: "Bruno Lima"
description: "Lead Data Engineer, phData"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/bruno-lima"
---
# Bruno Lima
Lead Data Engineer, phData
Bruno Lima is a Lead Data Engineer at phData who loves sharing the dbt mindset and helping teams scale analytics that’s fast, trusted, and genuinely pleasant to use. Bruno’s proudest highlights include winning a dbt Community Award 3 years in a row, speaking at dbt Summit, and teaching 1,000+ practitioners through trainings, content, and hands-on enablement. He also helps grow the dbt community in Brazil by organizing meetups in two cities and staying active in community conversation. Fun fact: Bruno’s group chats know it’s race day when the F1 memes start.
## Sessions
- [How to build a successful data career](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/how-to-build-a-successful-data-career)
---
---
title: "Cheril Lin Abeel"
description: "Lead Solution Architect, Enterprise, Fivetran"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/cheril-lin-abeel"
---
# Cheril Lin Abeel
Lead Solution Architect, Enterprise, Fivetran
Cheril Lin is a Lead Solution Architect at Fivetran. She spends her days helping customers build their own connectors and working through the challenges that come with doing it. She’s excited about the ways coding plugins can make that process simpler, making data more accessible for everyone.
## Sessions
- [Build, test, evaluate, deploy: Coding plugins for Connector SDK](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/build-test-evaluate-deploy-coding-plugins-for-connector-sdk)
- [Build, test, evaluate, deploy: Coding plugins for Connector SDK](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/build-test-evaluate-deploy-coding-plugins-for-connector-sdk-6b381805)
---
---
title: "Erica Louie"
description: "Sr. Manager, Data Analytics & BI, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/erica-louie"
---
# Erica Louie
Sr. Manager, Data Analytics & BI, dbt Labs
Erica Louie (“ric”) has worn many hats over her 9 year tenure at dbt Labs: Data Analyst, Analytics Engineer, Customer Support, dbt Learn founder, Head of Data, Senior Manager for Analytics and Enablement. But, ultimately, she cares about enabling people and reframing how we think about the role work plays in our life; professional musings are recorded on The View on Data podcast and existential musings on her substack: ericalouie.substack.com.
## Sessions
- [The View on Data: Live from dbt Summit](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-view-on-data-live-from-dbt-summit)
---
---
title: "Jack Lowery"
description: "Lead Sales Engineer Specialist- Data Lakes and Transformations, Fivetran"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/jack-lowery"
---
# Jack Lowery
Lead Sales Engineer Specialist- Data Lakes and Transformations, Fivetran
Jack Lowery is Fivetran's Lead Specialist for Data Lakes and Transformations — the building blocks of true open data infrastructure. When he's not helping enterprises rethink how they move and transform data, he's in the mountains of Colorado with his wife, kids, and dog.
## Sessions
- [Open Data Infrastructure in practice: unlock your dbt projects with Apache Iceberg and mesh](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/open-data-infrastructure-in-practice-unlock-your-dbt-projects-with-apache-iceberg-and-mesh)
- [Product roundtable: Open Data Infrastructure in practice: unlock your dbt projects with Apache Iceberg and mesh](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/product-roundtable-open-data-infrastructure-in-practice-unlock-your-dbt-projects-with-apache-iceberg-and-mesh)
- [Open Data Infrastructure in practice: unlock your dbt projects with Apache Iceberg and mesh](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/open-data-infrastructure-in-practice-unlock-your-dbt-projects-with-apache-iceberg-and-mesh-7d7b5efe)
---
---
title: "Zach Mandell"
description: "Staff Product Manager, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/zach-mandell"
---
# Zach Mandell
Staff Product Manager, dbt Labs
Zach Mandell is a Staff Product Manager for dbt’s Semantic Layer at dbt Labs. He was the Cofounder and CTO at Push.ai AI, later acquired by dbt Labs in 2026, where he built tools that helped data teams unify and manage context across systems, for AI they can trust in production.
## Sessions
- [The semantic layer is dead. Long live the semantic layer!](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-semantic-layer-is-dead-long-live-the-semantic-layer)
- [Product roundtable: The semantic layer is dead. Long live the semantic layer!](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/product-roundtable-the-semantic-layer-is-dead-long-live-the-semantic-layer)
- [The semantic layer is dead. Long live the semantic layer!](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-semantic-layer-is-dead-long-live-the-semantic-layer-33566a33)
---
---
title: "Toby Mao"
description: "Director, Engineering, Fivetran"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/toby-mao"
---
# Toby Mao
Director, Engineering, Fivetran
Toby is an engineering Director at Fivetran / dbt Labs leading state, compute, and semantics layer. He was previous the co-founder and CTO at Tobiko Data, the company behind SQLMesh. He formerly led Analytics Infrastructure at Airbnb where he helped create their semantic layer Minerva as well as designed Netflix's experimentation platform. He also started SQLGlot, a popular open source Python SQL framework. He enjoys smoking meats, is a brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and the former world record holder for solving a Rubik's Cube.
## Sessions
- [The semantic layer is dead. Long live the semantic layer!](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-semantic-layer-is-dead-long-live-the-semantic-layer)
- [Product roundtable: The semantic layer is dead. Long live the semantic layer!](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/product-roundtable-the-semantic-layer-is-dead-long-live-the-semantic-layer)
- [The semantic layer is dead. Long live the semantic layer!](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-semantic-layer-is-dead-long-live-the-semantic-layer-33566a33)
---
---
title: "Aaron Mardis"
description: "Customer Solutions Engineer, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/aaron-mardis"
---
# Aaron Mardis
Customer Solutions Engineer, dbt Labs
Aaron Mardis is a customer solutions engineer at dbt Labs, based in LA by way of Iowa. Before dbt, he spent time at Abacus.AI and Datadog enabling customers via troubleshooting and onboarding support. He holds a B.A. in Mathematics from Grinnell College and an M.S. in Computer Science from Georgia Tech.
Originally a licensed math teacher (grades 5 through 12), Aaron spent a year in Montenegro as a Fulbright ETA Fellow. It was there that he rekindled a passion for food and began doing plenty of his own cooking and baking. An avid LA foodie, Aaron dabbles in music as well. He sings with a couple of choirs around LA, including Selah Gospel Choir, and traces it back to his show choir days in high school. Ask him about his latest performance, he'll probably have a video to share.
## Sessions
- [Black in Data: Building connections and community during career growth](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/black-in-data-building-connections-and-community-during-career-growth)
---
---
title: "Silja Märdla"
description: "Head of Analytics Engineering, Bolt"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/silja-mardla"
---
# Silja Märdla
Head of Analytics Engineering, Bolt
Silja Märdla doesn't enjoy ambiguity. She prefers things to be structured, logical, and easy to reason about, which is why she loves working with data. She takes a scientist’s approach to data modelling, experimenting until clear patterns emerge.
Through working with many domain teams, Silja sees recurring challenges and focuses on solving them in a consistent, domain-agnostic way. She cares about designing data models that are not just correct, but also obvious, fast and maintainable.
## Sessions
- [How to build a successful data career](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/how-to-build-a-successful-data-career)
- [Beyond layers and medallions: An explicit data modeling framework](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/beyond-layers-and-medallions-an-explicit-data-modeling-framework)
---
---
title: "Jairus Martinez"
description: "Resident Architect, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/jairus-martinez"
---
# Jairus Martinez
Resident Architect, dbt Labs
With a non-traditional path into data, Jairus is passionate about learning new things, making the unknown known, and sharing his learnings with the community. As a Resident Architect at dbt Labs, he cares deeply about enabling others and is excited to exchange ideas at dbt Summit!
## Sessions
- [Creating context with dbt MCP Server](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/creating-context-with-dbt-mcp-server)
---
---
title: "Sam Masling"
description: "AI Lead, Bilt"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/sam-masling"
---
# Sam Masling
AI Lead, Bilt
Sam Masling is the AI Lead at Bilt Rewards, where he leads the adoption of AI tooling across engineering and builds the agentic infrastructure powering Bilt's internal systems. Working at the intersection of ML engineering, data platform, and AI evangelism, Sam has built out the recommendation, and search and ranking models behind Bilt's rewards experience while building the internal MCP servers, agents, and evaluation frameworks that scale AI adoption across the organization.
## Sessions
- [Inside the agentic data stack at Bilt](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/inside-the-agentic-data-stack-at-bilt)
---
---
title: "Kasey Mazza"
description: "Director, Data Science, HubSpot"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/kasey-mazza"
---
# Kasey Mazza
Director, Data Science, HubSpot
Kasey Mazza is passionate about data-driven decision making, process efficiency, data visualization and storytelling, high-performing inclusive teams, behavioral economics, Diet Coke, and pasta in all forms. She currently manages a few teams of Analytics Engineers at HubSpot.
## Sessions
- [Beyond the bottleneck: position your Analytics Engineering team as a strategic force](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/beyond-the-bottleneck-position-your-analytics-engineering-team-as-a-strategic-force)
---
---
title: "Reuben McCreanor"
description: "Product Manager, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/reuben-mccreanor"
---
# Reuben McCreanor
Product Manager, dbt Labs
Reuben McCreanor is a Product Manager at dbt leading dbt State. Before dbt, Reuben worked at Seattle startups like Karat and Convoy, and as a former data scientist, he brings his expertise in building AI/ML models to building data pipelines and compute optimization for dbt users.
## Sessions
- [Optimizing your runs for lower compute, fresher data, and faster iteration with dbt State](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/optimizing-your-runs-for-lower-compute-fresher-data-and-faster-iteration-with-dbt-state)
- [Product roundtable: Optimizing your runs for lower compute, fresher data, and faster iteration with dbt State](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/product-roundtable-optimizing-your-runs-for-lower-compute-fresher-data-and-faster-iteration-with-dbt-state)
---
---
title: "Faith McKenna"
description: "Manger, Technical Instruction, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/faith-mckenna"
---
# Faith McKenna
Manger, Technical Instruction, dbt Labs
Faith has lived several professional lives, including a classroom math teacher and a supply chain data analyst building a data stack with dbt. She's stoked to combine her love of teaching, data, and dbt as a Manger of Technical Instruction at dbt Labs!
## Sessions
- [Accelerating and optimizing your deployment with dbt v2 and dbt State](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/accelerating-and-optimizing-your-deployment-with-dbt-v2-and-dbt-state)
- [Accelerating analytics with AI](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/accelerating-analytics-with-ai)
- [The View on Data: Live from dbt Summit](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-view-on-data-live-from-dbt-summit)
---
---
title: "Chris Merrick"
description: "Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Omni"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/chris-merrick"
---
# Chris Merrick
Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Omni
Chris is the Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Omni. Before Omni, Chris was the CTO of Stitch, where he led product strategy and development. He originally led the development of Stitch within another company, spun it out, and sold it two years later to Talend. He then served as VP of Engineering at Talend. Chris enjoys spending his time at the intersection of product and engineering, and participated in the creation of the Singer and dbt open source projects.
## Sessions
- [Keynote: Community Keynote](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/keynote-community-keynote)
- [Is context engineering the new analytics engineering?](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/is-context-engineering-the-new-analytics-engineering)
---
---
title: "Monica Miller"
description: "Senior Product Manager, Starburst"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/monica-miller"
---
# Monica Miller
Senior Product Manager, Starburst
Monica Miller is a Senior Product Manager at Starburst, where she is responsible for data experience including data products powering Starburst's AI analytics agent. A former data engineer and developer advocate, she's spent her career making data engineers' lives easier, first building pipelines herself, then teaching others through hands-on labs, workshops, webinars, and live events. When she's not talking data, she's chasing squirrels with her dog, Phoebe.
## Sessions
- [AI didn't change our dbt project, just who cared about it.](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/ai-didnt-change-our-dbt-project-just-who-cared-about-it)
---
---
title: "Jordan Morgan"
description: "Principal Data Analytics Engineer, CarGurus"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/jordan-morgan"
---
# Jordan Morgan
Principal Data Analytics Engineer, CarGurus
Currently a Principal Data Analytics Engineer at CarGurus, Jordan Morgan leads the modernization of the company's analytics engineering infrastructure, including the migration from dbt Core to dbt platform running Fusion across a team of 80 developers.
Prior to CarGurus, he served as Director of Data and Analytics at connectRN, where he built the data engineering and analytics stack from the ground up using Fivetran, dbt, Snowflake, and Sigma Computing. Earlier, he spent over seven years at athenahealth in progressive analytics leadership roles, delivering insights across a network of more than 160,000 physicians and 110 million patients. When away from his computer he's often found leading others through the backcountry as a Registered Maine Guide.
## Sessions
- [From dbt Core to Fusion: How CarGurus unlocked dbt State and AI at scale](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-dbt-core-to-fusion-how-cargurus-unlocked-dbt-state-and-ai-at-scale)
---
---
title: "Junya Morita"
description: "Group Manager, Tech Lead, Recruit Co.,ltd."
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/junya-morita"
---
# Junya Morita
Group Manager, Tech Lead, Recruit Co.,ltd.
Junya Morita joined Recruit in 2019. Junya is currently building data analytics platforms for various matching services, including used car dealerships, wedding venues, and real estate.
## Sessions
- [Beyond semantic models: "Domain context as code" for high-accuracy text-to-SQL](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/beyond-semantic-models-domain-context-as-code-for-high-accuracy-text-to-sql)
---
---
title: "Ben Moser"
description: "Senior Product Manager, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/ben-moser"
---
# Ben Moser
Senior Product Manager, dbt Labs
Ben Moser is a staff product manager at dbt Labs, where he leads the company's work on one of the central questions of the AI era: how do you make agents trustworthy at scale. He has spent more than a decade building AI and data products, with previous roles at Collibra and Capital One and an earlier run as a startup co-founder. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and daughters, and spends the little free time he has on an unreasonable number of side projects.
## Sessions
- [With great context comes great autonomy: leveling up your agent context](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/with-great-context-comes-great-autonomy-leveling-up-your-agent-context)
- [With great context comes great autonomy: leveling up your agent context](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/with-great-context-comes-great-autonomy-leveling-up-your-agent-context-09111662)
- [Product roundtable: With great context comes great autonomy: leveling up your agent context](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/product-roundtable-with-great-context-comes-great-autonomy-leveling-up-your-agent-context)
---
---
title: "Hannes Mühleisen"
description: "Co-Founder and CEO, DuckLabs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/hannes-muhleisen"
---
# Hannes Mühleisen
Co-Founder and CEO, DuckLabs
Hannes Mühleisen is a creator of the DuckDB database management system, the DuckLake data lake specification, and Co-founder and CEO of DuckLabs.
## Sessions
- [Keynote: Community Keynote](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/keynote-community-keynote)
- [dbt without the warehouse (or the bill): DuckDB end to end](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dbt-without-the-warehouse-or-the-bill-duckdb-end-to-end)
---
---
title: "Abhishek Narain"
description: "Principal PM Manager, Microsoft"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/abhishek-narain"
---
# Abhishek Narain
Principal PM Manager, Microsoft
Abhishek Narain is a Principal PM Manager at Microsoft, leading product for Fabric Data Factory. He drives the dbt job experience in Microsoft Fabric, helping analytics engineers run dbt-powered transformations natively in the cloud. With deep expertise in data integration, he's focused on making modern, code-first data workflows seamless at enterprise scale.
## Sessions
- [Beyond the basics: Running dbt at scale on Microsoft Fabric](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/beyond-the-basics-running-dbt-at-scale-on-microsoft-fabric)
- [From data to AI: why Microsoft Fabric and dbt are better together](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-data-to-ai-why-microsoft-fabric-and-dbt-are-better-together)
---
---
title: "Bao Nguyen"
description: "Senior Analytics Engineer, Adobe"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/bao-nguyen"
---
# Bao Nguyen
Senior Analytics Engineer, Adobe
Bao Nguyen is a Senior Analytics Engineer at Adobe, where he works on the data platform behind Frame.io. He builds reliable data pipelines and shared metrics systems that support product analytics, enterprise reporting, and decision-making across teams. His work focuses on data platform reliability, lifecycle and retention analytics, and modernizing data workflows using dbt, Apache Airflow, and Databricks.
Bao holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master’s degree in Economics from Tufts University.
## Sessions
- [Your dbt tests passed. Why did the metric still move? Making semantic stability a platform guarantee](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/your-dbt-tests-passed-why-did-the-metric-still-move-making-semantic-stability-a-platform-guarantee)
---
---
title: "Steven Nguyen"
description: "Customer Solutions Architect, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/steven-nguyen"
---
# Steven Nguyen
Customer Solutions Architect, dbt Labs
Steven is a Customer Solutions Architect that is focused on furthering the adoption and success in the South Central region. He is always interested in learning about new technologies and developments in the data/AI space.
## Sessions
- [Migrate stored procs with dbt Wizard](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/migrate-stored-procs-with-dbt-wizard)
---
---
title: "Stefanos Nikolaou"
description: "Principal Analytics Engineer, Kaizen Gaming"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/stefanos-nikolaou"
---
# Stefanos Nikolaou
Principal Analytics Engineer, Kaizen Gaming
Stefanos Nikolaou is Principal Analytics Engineer at Kaizen Gaming, where he provides architectural guidance and mentorship across analytics engineering teams.
He is co-founder of the Athens dbt Meetup. He led enterprise adoption of dbt Cloud from proof of concept to division-wide rollout, and delivers scalable models and pipelines on Databricks with Apache Spark. On Medium (@stefanikolaou) he writes on dbt, analytics engineering, and trustworthy data systems at scale.
## Sessions
- [The principals' framework for consistent dbt at scale](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-principals-framework-for-consistent-dbt-at-scale)
---
---
title: "Alex Noonan"
description: "Senior Developer Experience Advocate, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/alex-noonan"
---
# Alex Noonan
Senior Developer Experience Advocate, dbt Labs
Alex Noonan is a Senior Developer Experience Advocate at dbt Labs, where he focuses on AI: both using it to build with dbt and making dbt itself a trusted conduit for agent context and governed data. Before dbt Labs, he worked as a data engineer and developer advocate at other data tooling companies, giving him a practitioner's view of what actually makes a dev tool work. He spends his days figuring out how dbt fits into the agentic data workflows that are reshaping the field.
## Sessions
- [Conversational analytics: building AI-powered analytics people can actually trust](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/conversational-analytics-building-ai-powered-analytics-people-can-actually-trust)
- [We have been overthinking context engineering](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/we-have-been-overthinking-context-engineering)
- [We have been overthinking context engineering](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/we-have-been-overthinking-context-engineering-7a111180)
---
---
title: "Carol Ohms"
description: "Senior Resident Architect, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/carol-ohms"
---
# Carol Ohms
Senior Resident Architect, dbt Labs
Carol has been working in data analytics her entire career, and was thrilled to discover dbt as it has completely changed data work for the better. Now Carol works as a Senior Resident Architect at dbt Labs and loves helping customers with their own dbt projects.
## Sessions
- [{SOLD OUT} Mastering data quality with dbt](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-mastering-data-quality-with-dbt)
- [{SOLD OUT} Mastering data quality with dbt](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-mastering-data-quality-with-dbt-957f01ac)
---
---
title: "Bolaji Oyejide"
description: "Senior Community Manager, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/bolaji-oyejide"
---
# Bolaji Oyejide
Senior Community Manager, dbt Labs
As a demand gen marketer turned community and content strategist, Bolaji builds high-impact owned media channels that drive real business outcomes—through community, video podcasting, and first-party content.
Bolaji thrives at the intersection of community-led growth, media brand building, and strategic storytelling. Especially in B2B SaaS environments where trust, education, and differentiation matter more than ever.
He's passionate about helping brands create memorable experiences that turn users into champions.
In his spare time, Bolaji coaches youth soccer, writes children's books, and reads too much science fiction.
## Sessions
- [Keynote: Community Keynote](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/keynote-community-keynote)
---
---
title: "Manikandan Paramasivan"
description: "Principal Architect for Data, ML & AI, KOHO Financial"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/manikandan-paramasivan"
---
# Manikandan Paramasivan
Principal Architect for Data, ML & AI, KOHO Financial
Manikandan Paramasivan is Principal Architect for Data, ML & AI at KOHO, a Canadian fintech. He leads a team of data engineers and data scientists and is responsible for the platform behind the company's analytics, machine learning and AI work — data ingestion and orchestration, the data warehouse, and the ML and AI infrastructure that supports all lines of business.
Over 20 years he has worked as an application developer, solutions architect, data engineer, data architect, cloud architect, and ML specialist, across large financial institutions and fintech startups.
## Sessions
- [Scaling dbt on Amazon Redshift: how KOHO cut transformation runtime 70% without rewriting a single model](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/scaling-dbt-on-amazon-redshift-how-koho-cut-transformation-runtime-70percent-without-rewriting-a-single-model)
---
---
title: "Niyazulla Khan Pathan"
description: "Data Platform Engineering Manager, Careem"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/niyazulla-khan-pathan"
---
# Niyazulla Khan Pathan
Data Platform Engineering Manager, Careem
Niyazulla leads Data Platform Engineering at Careem, where he's spent over a decade working across massive, varied datasets. His experience spans from ads and real-time targeting at Flipkart to the full breadth of rides, food, and payments data at Careem. That range shaped how he designs and builds: data marts and warehouse architecture from the ground up, an in-house semantic layer to give every BI tool one consistent definition of the business, and strong governance systems, ranging from a policy-as-code access layer on Open Policy Agent to a TTL-based lifecycle system that reclaimed 10TB+ and 15,000+ stale assets. All the systems were stitched together from whatever mix of open-source and enterprise tooling actually fit the problem, cutting infrastructure spend by over 50% along the way.
He's now extending that same rigor into GenAI: building a context layer that gives AI agents a clear, structured understanding of data ontology before they're trusted anywhere near production systems. He leads an exceptional team of engineers across multiple regions and also holds a US patent early in his career on automated root-cause analysis in DB systems.
## Sessions
- [From prompt to PR: sandbox-validated dbt changes before human review](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-prompt-to-pr-sandbox-validated-dbt-changes-before-human-review)
---
---
title: "Paul Pedrozo"
description: "Data Analytics Engineer, Westchester Medical Center"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/paul-pedrozo"
---
# Paul Pedrozo
Data Analytics Engineer, Westchester Medical Center
Paul Pedrozo is a Data Analytics Engineer at WMCHealth, where he builds scalable data products and analytics solutions across Snowflake, dbt, Power BI, and cloud platforms. Previously, Paul worked at Amazon Web Services, bringing experience across cloud architecture, data engineering, and enterprise analytics.
His current work focuses on modern data architecture, semantic modeling, automation, and applying AI to make enterprise data more accessible and actionable. He has led initiatives spanning data warehouse modernization, AI-assisted semantic layers, and self-service analytics.
## Sessions
- [From 72 minutes to 5: how one environment variable powers two dbt pipelines](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-72-minutes-to-5-how-one-environment-variable-powers-two-dbt-pipelines)
---
---
title: "Brett Pendleton"
description: "Analytics Engineering Manager, Fanatics"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/brett-pendleton"
---
# Brett Pendleton
Analytics Engineering Manager, Fanatics
Brett Pendleton is an Analytics Engineering Manager at Fanatics Betting & Gaming, where he leads the development of scalable data models that support the entire organization. He focuses on building reliable, efficient data pipelines and transforming raw data into actionable insights for stakeholders across the organization.
At Fanatics, Brett plays a key role in bridging data engineering and business analytics, helping teams leverage modern data tooling and frameworks to deliver impactful results. He also drives the evolution of analytics by turning high-quality data models into AI-powered solutions that enable more advanced insights, automation, and decision-making.
## Sessions
- [How Fanatics manages dbt metrics with Snowflake CoCo for natural language analytics](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/how-fanatics-manages-dbt-metrics-with-snowflake-coco-for-natural-language-analytics)
---
---
title: "Benoit Perigaud"
description: "Staff DX Advocate, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/benoit-perigaud"
---
# Benoit Perigaud
Staff DX Advocate, dbt Labs
Benoit is a member of the Developer Experience team at dbt Labs, working at the intersection of community, open-source development, and advocacy for dbt users.
Recently, he has focused on improving the experience of using dbt with AI. His work includes contributing to the dbt MCP server and dbt Agent Skills, as well as running a benchmark comparing the performance of Text-to-SQL and the Semantic Layer when paired with LLMs.
Previously, Benoit spent several years on the Professional Services team, helping companies deploy dbt at scale.
## Sessions
- [Picking the best compute engine for any task](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/picking-the-best-compute-engine-for-any-task)
- [Data + AI agent hackathon](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/data-ai-agent-hackathon)
---
---
title: "Madhura Pharande"
description: "Analytics Engineer, WHOOP"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/madhura-pharande"
---
# Madhura Pharande
Analytics Engineer, WHOOP
Madhura Pharande is an Analytics Engineer at WHOOP, working on the Analytics Platform team at the intersection of data, engineering, and finance. She focuses on building reliable data models and improving how business logic is defined and used across the organization. Her work centers on making data more consistent, trustworthy, and accessible for decision-making.
## Sessions
- [How WHOOP bridges dbt models and Snowflake semantic views](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/how-whoop-bridges-dbt-models-and-snowflake-semantic-views)
---
---
title: "Roxi Pourzand"
description: "Product manager, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/roxi-pourzand"
---
# Roxi Pourzand
Product manager, dbt Labs
Roxi Pourzand is the Product Manager for dbt Catalog and the metadata platform at dbt Labs. With a background in data analytics and more than five years of product management experience across a range of products, she specializes in building tools that connect data, context, and people. Her work is focused on making metadata more discoverable, actionable, and impactful across the modern data stack.
## Sessions
- [We said I do. Now, we’re joined at the DAG](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/we-said-i-do-now-were-joined-at-the-dag)
---
---
title: "Tyler Pugliese"
description: "Staff Solutions Architect, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/tyler-pugliese"
---
# Tyler Pugliese
Staff Solutions Architect, dbt Labs
Tyler Pugliese is a Senior Solutions Architect at dbt Labs where he regularly helps businesses modernize, optimize and galvanize their data stack. He's passionate about all things data and has been a dbt power user since 2017 where he spoke at a dbt community meetup. He originally comes from a background in the arts bringing "Big Theater Kid Energy" to his meetings, customer demos and face to face interactions.
## Sessions
- [Keynote: Level Up](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/keynote-level-up)
---
---
title: "Ayan Putatunda"
description: "Staff Data Engineer, Zendesk"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/ayan-putatunda"
---
# Ayan Putatunda
Staff Data Engineer, Zendesk
Ayan Putatunda is a Staff Data Engineer at Zendesk responsible for architecting petabyte-scale data platforms that power production AI applications. He leads enterprise AI-readiness initiatives, specializing in context governance, Model Context Protocol (MCP) architectures, and agentic frameworks designed to safely connect LLM agents to governed enterprise data. At the intersection of the modern data stack and Generative AI, Ayan’s work focuses on automating complex data workflows across dbt, Snowflake, and Airflow.
## Sessions
- [AI-powered data development: How agentic SDLC & dbt-MCP transformed our data engineering workflow](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/ai-powered-data-development-how-agentic-sdlc-and-dbt-mcp-transformed-our-data-engineering-workflow)
---
---
title: "Marek Radonsky"
description: "Engineering Leader, Twilio Inc."
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/marek-radonsky"
---
# Marek Radonsky
Engineering Leader, Twilio Inc.
Marek Radonsky is the Senior Engineering Manager of the Voice and Video Insights Core team at Twilio, where he drives the architecture, design, and infrastructure development for near-real-time data analytics. With over twenty years of experience in software development and engineering leadership, Marek has spent his career designing, implementing, and operating complex distributed systems. His extensive professional journey includes senior engineering roles at Netflix and CA Technologies
## Sessions
- [ClickHouse + dbt: Building a GitOps workflow at Twilio](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/clickhouse-dbt-building-a-gitops-workflow-at-twilio)
---
---
title: "Harsha Reddy"
description: "Senior Engineering Leader, DoorDash"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/harsha-reddy"
---
# Harsha Reddy
Senior Engineering Leader, DoorDash
Harsha Reddy is a Senior Engineering Leader at DoorDash, where he leads Data End-User Platforms within the company’s Data Platform organization. His work spans AI networks, agent marketplaces, AI workflows, business intelligence tools, semantic layers and DoorDash’s in-house data portal. He also drives cross-functional initiatives focused on data reliability and lakehouse strategy. Previously with Uber, Harsha brings extensive experience building scalable data and AI solutions and leading high-impact engineering teams.
## Sessions
- [From prototype to production: How DoorDash built a scalable analytics SDLC with dbt and ThoughtSpot](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-prototype-to-production-how-doordash-built-a-scalable-analytics-sdlc-with-dbt-and-thoughtspot)
---
---
title: "Sonny Rivera"
description: "Principal Data and AI Strategist, ThoughtSpot"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/sonny-rivera"
---
# Sonny Rivera
Principal Data and AI Strategist, ThoughtSpot
Sonny is a data and AI strategist who has spent his career at the intersection of technology and business transformation. As a Principal Data & AI Strategist, he partners with enterprise data and AI leaders tackling real business challenges as they navigate the shift to agentic analytics and AI-first platforms. With over 25 years as a data leader and CPO, he combines deep technical expertise with strategic perspective to drive data and AI transformations, data monetization, embedded analytics, and AI adoption.
Recognized by Snowflake as one of the original Data Superheroes, Sonny is an international thought leader who speaks annually at Snowflake Summit and Big Data London. In 2023, he was named dbt's Community Leader of the Year for his contributions to the data and analytics community.
## Sessions
- [What AI agents get wrong, and how semantics fixes it](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/what-ai-agents-get-wrong-and-how-semantics-fixes-it)
- [From prototype to production: How DoorDash built a scalable analytics SDLC with dbt and ThoughtSpot](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-prototype-to-production-how-doordash-built-a-scalable-analytics-sdlc-with-dbt-and-thoughtspot)
---
---
title: "Stephen Robb"
description: "Partner Solutions Architect, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/stephen-robb"
---
# Stephen Robb
Partner Solutions Architect, dbt Labs
Stephen Robb is a partner solutions architect at dbt Labs, where he works with global technology alliance partners and implementation teams to strengthen and scale technical partnerships. He focuses on helping organizations build better integrations and collaborative solutions across the modern data stack. With more than a decade of experience spanning software engineering, data engineering, sales, and strategic partnerships, Stephen brings a practical perspective on aligning technical innovation with business outcomes.
## Sessions
- [From Lakehouse to agents: scaling analytics with dbt and Google Cloud](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-lakehouse-to-agents-scaling-analytics-with-dbt-and-google-cloud)
---
---
title: "Maksim Romanchuk"
description: "Data Analytics Engineer, WMCHealth"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/maksim-romanchuk"
---
# Maksim Romanchuk
Data Analytics Engineer, WMCHealth
Maksim Romanchuk is an Analytics Engineer at WMCHealth, a 9-hospital health network in New York's Hudson Valley. His team builds and maintains the network's analytics platform using dbt, Snowflake, and Power BI - serving clinical and operational leaders across the entire healthcare system. He's currently leading AI adoption initiatives across the analytics and operational excellence teams, from agentic coding workflows to Snowflake Cortex integration for clinician-facing AI solutions. He recently presented "One Model, Two Pipelines" at the NYC dbt Meetup (~250 attendees at Datadog HQ).
## Sessions
- [From 72 minutes to 5: how one environment variable powers two dbt pipelines](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-72-minutes-to-5-how-one-environment-variable-powers-two-dbt-pipelines)
---
---
title: "Tyler Rouze"
description: "Senior Resident Architect, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/tyler-rouze"
---
# Tyler Rouze
Senior Resident Architect, dbt Labs
Tyler is a systems thinker with a deep love for the messy, human side of data. Now a Resident Architect at dbt Labs, he partners with some of the largest dbt customers to elevate their platforms and teams — bringing together hands-on experience, architectural frameworks, and a sharp eye for data modeling, platform engineering, and developer workflows.
## Sessions
- [{SOLD OUT} Upgrade to dbt v2](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-upgrade-to-dbt-v2)
---
---
title: "Divyakumar Savla"
description: "Research Data Analyst, Datadog"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/divyakumar-savla"
---
# Divyakumar Savla
Research Data Analyst, Datadog
Div is a Research Data Analyst at Datadog, where he works on large-scale analytics for research blogs focused on cloud usage, costs, and observability. His work centers on data modeling, statistical analysis, and translating complex datasets into clear, decision-ready insights. He is particularly interested in making analytical workflows more repeatable, auditable, and scalable across teams. Prior to Datadog, Div worked at Robinhood and earned a master’s degree from Rutgers University.
Outside of work, Div enjoys traveling, exploring cities through food, and planning overly detailed itineraries.
## Sessions
- [Testing, 1, 2, 3: Catching silent data failures beyond dbt tests](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/testing-1-2-3-catching-silent-data-failures-beyond-dbt-tests)
---
---
title: "Sophia Scaglioni Melegari"
description: "Senior Data Analyst, WHOOP"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/sophia-scaglioni-melegari"
---
# Sophia Scaglioni Melegari
Senior Data Analyst, WHOOP
Sophia Scaglioni Melegari is a Senior Business Analyst at WHOOP, the wearable health and fitness technology company. Before joining WHOOP, Sophia was a Research Fellow in Economics at MIT, and prior to that worked as a Quantitative Researcher at Y Combinator Research (now OpenResearch).
Earlier in her career, she worked in data consulting within financial services. Sophia thrives in ambiguous, 0-1 problem spaces and brings a research-trained analytical toolkit to business problems, moving fluidly between data, strategy, and execution.
## Sessions
- [How WHOOP bridges dbt models and Snowflake semantic views](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/how-whoop-bridges-dbt-models-and-snowflake-semantic-views)
---
---
title: "Casey Schwegel"
description: "Lead Data Engineer, Verisk"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/casey-schwegel"
---
# Casey Schwegel
Lead Data Engineer, Verisk
Casey Schwegel is a highly accomplished professional with over 15 years of experience in data analysis and data engineering, primarily within the property and casualty insurance industry. Using his background in programming and actuarial science, Casey is known for transforming complex data into clear, actionable strategies and has a proven track record of developing data solutions.
Currently serving as a Data Engineer at Verisk Analytics, Casey specializes in the management and processing of large-scale statistical data using cutting-edge cloud technologies like Snowflake and dbt. With a deep technical foundation spanning SQL, R, Python, and even COBOL, Casey effectively partners with cross-functional teams to drive innovation and deliver impactful business outcomes.
## Sessions
- [From first models to AI-powered maturity: scaling data engineering with dbt at Verisk Underwriting](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-first-models-to-ai-powered-maturity-scaling-data-engineering-with-dbt-at-verisk-underwriting)
---
---
title: "Matt Senick"
description: "Senior Analytics Engineer, Sigma Computing"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/matt-senick"
---
# Matt Senick
Senior Analytics Engineer, Sigma Computing
Matt Senick is a Senior Analytics Engineer at Sigma, based in San Francisco. He brings a background that blends software engineering, econometrics, and applied data science, holding a Master of Arts in Economics from the University of Toronto and a Double Honours Bachelor's in Computer Science and Economics from the University of Saskatchewan. Before Sigma, Matt worked as an Analytics Engineer and Senior Data Analyst at 7shifts, where he owned ELT architecture and data transformation strategy, and he has also lectured on econometrics at the university level. He's an active open-source contributor with 8 packages on the dbt Package Hub.
## Sessions
- [How Sigma manages the semantic layer with dbt and Dagster](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/how-sigma-manages-the-semantic-layer-with-dbt-and-dagster)
---
---
title: "M. Waqas Shahid"
description: "Principal Data Platform Engineer, Delivery Hero"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/m-waqas-shahid"
---
# M. Waqas Shahid
Principal Data Platform Engineer, Delivery Hero
Data Engineer and Architect with over a decade of experience building scalable data platforms and efficient data pipelines at massive scale. He specializes in simplifying complex data ecosystems, designing modern data platforms, and leading the adoption of data mesh to decentralize ownership and accelerate access to trusted data.
Passionate about platform engineering, he's focused on building the next generation of data platforms — autonomous, self-serve, and ready for an agentic future — that empower teams to deliver reliable data products at scale.
## Sessions
- [The Platform Team Said No — dbt won with “Yes” - Story of Governance, Autonomy, and Scale](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-platform-team-said-no-dbt-won-with-yes-story-of-governance-autonomy-and-scale)
---
---
title: "Chris Shepherd"
description: "Principal Data Engineer, RX Benefits"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/chris-shepherd"
---
# Chris Shepherd
Principal Data Engineer, RX Benefits
Chris Shepherd is a Principal Data Engineer at RxBenefits with over 20 years of experience in data engineering and the last decade focused on cloud infrastructure. Throughout his career, he has navigated the evolution of data transformation — from SSIS to dbt — and worked across a wide range of database technologies, including SQL Server (since 2005), PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Snowflake, as well as NoSQL platforms like AWS DocumentDB, MongoDB, and RavenDB.
Chris has deep expertise in ETL tooling (Airbyte, Boomi, Fivetran, AWS DMS) and has led numerous large-scale data migrations. He also leverages AWS services like SNS and S3, along with Snowpipe streaming, to build scalable, event-driven data pipelines.
His programming toolkit spans Python, C#, JavaScript, SQL, and Jinja, giving him the flexibility to work across the full stack of modern data engineering.
He is also committed to strong data governance, documenting and implementing architectural guidelines using tools like Lucidchart and Confluence to keep teams aligned as systems scale.
More recently, he has championed the adoption of AI technologies within his data team, helping integrate AI-driven tools into day-to-day workflows and modernizing how the team approaches data engineering.
Beyond hands-on engineering, he provides technical leadership across tool selection and vendor negotiations, and drives cost optimization efforts — most notably helping deliver approximately $600,000 in savings last year, an achievement that earned him a spot in his company's Summit Club.
## Sessions
- [Reduce, reuse, recycle: how dbt State cut rebuilds by 92% at RxBenefits](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/reduce-reuse-recycle-how-dbt-state-cut-rebuilds-by-92percent-at-rxbenefits)
---
---
title: "Lucas Silbernagel"
description: "Resident Architect, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/lucas-silbernagel"
---
# Lucas Silbernagel
Resident Architect, dbt Labs
As an Analytics Engineer, Lucas worked at organizations of different sizes across a range of industries. One part of the stack never changed: dbt.
He found his way to dbt Labs through the community. After speaking at and organizing meetups in his hometown Berlin, Germany, he joined dbt Labs as a Support Engineer and later transitioned into the Resident Architect role.
## Sessions
- [{SOLD OUT} Operationalize cost visibility in dbt](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-operationalize-cost-visibility-in-dbt)
- [Accelerating and optimizing your deployment with dbt v2 and dbt State](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/accelerating-and-optimizing-your-deployment-with-dbt-v2-and-dbt-state)
- [Accelerating analytics with AI](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/accelerating-analytics-with-ai)
---
---
title: "Melissa Simpson"
description: "Lead Analytics Engineer, Virgin Media O2"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/melissa-simpson"
---
# Melissa Simpson
Lead Analytics Engineer, Virgin Media O2
Mel Simpson is a Lead Analytics Engineer at Virgin Media O2, with over 10 years of experience turning complex data problems into scalable solutions. She’s worked extensively with dbt, GCP, Git, and Snowflake, and has hands-on experience across a range of data modelling methodologies.
She enjoys getting into the details of optimisation, improving workflows, and designing solutions that actually scale in large, real-world environments. More recently, along with her team, Mel has been exploring dbt Fusion at VMO2, helping drive faster, more efficient ways of building and validating data at scale.
She's particularly interested in how AI and more agentic ways of working will reshape analytics engineering—and always keen to experiment with what’s next.
## Sessions
- [What changes when 300 dbt users at Virgin Media O2 move to Fusion and dbt State](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/what-changes-when-300-dbt-users-at-virgin-media-o2-move-to-fusion-and-dbt-state)
---
---
title: "Vijay Singh"
description: "Lead, Data Science and Business Intelligence, Verisk"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/vijay-singh"
---
# Vijay Singh
Lead, Data Science and Business Intelligence, Verisk
Vijay Singh is the Lead of Data Science and Business Intelligence at Verisk Analytics, where he has spent more than a decade building data platforms, machine learning models, and business intelligence solutions for the P&C insurance industry. With a background in predictive modeling and statistical analysis, Vijay brings an analyst-first mindset to analytics engineering, designing modular data pipelines that preserve analytical rigor while scaling for modern cloud platforms.
His career spans the evolution from SAS-based modeling workflows to large-scale data transformation using Snowflake and dbt. Vijay’s expertise sits at the intersection of advanced analytics and scalable data infrastructure, with a strong foundation in SQL, Python, SAS, and statistical machine learning.
## Sessions
- [From first models to AI-powered maturity: scaling data engineering with dbt at Verisk Underwriting](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-first-models-to-ai-powered-maturity-scaling-data-engineering-with-dbt-at-verisk-underwriting)
---
---
title: "Jeff Skoldberg"
description: "Founding Consultant, Green Mountain Data Solutions"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/jeff-skoldberg"
---
# Jeff Skoldberg
Founding Consultant, Green Mountain Data Solutions
After 12 years of working at Keurig, Jeff founded Green Mountain Data Solutions, with the goal of delivering analytics products in the most efficient way possible. For the last 5 years, Jeff has been focused on implementing Snowflake and dbt as the foundation for BI, Analytics & AI at a range of companies from Fortune 500 to startups.
## Sessions
- [Warming up to Iceberg: 2026 makes Iceberg easier](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/warming-up-to-iceberg-2026-makes-iceberg-easier)
---
---
title: "Jay Sobel"
description: "Data Platform Engineer, Ramp"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/jay-sobel"
---
# Jay Sobel
Data Platform Engineer, Ramp
Jay Sobel is a Data Platform Engineer at Ramp.
## Sessions
- [Ramp's internal AI stack: agents, sandboxes, and an AI-first BI tool](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/ramps-internal-ai-stack-agents-sandboxes-and-an-ai-first-bi-tool)
---
---
title: "Russell Spitzer"
description: "Principal Software Engineer, Snowflake"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/russell-spitzer"
---
# Russell Spitzer
Principal Software Engineer, Snowflake
Russell Spitzer received his Ph.D from UCSF after performing a lot of comparisons of protein binding sites. Following that, he became deeply invested in distributed computing and joined Datastax, a company using Apache Cassandra. While working at Datastax he was a key contributor to the DataStax Spark-Cassandra Connector and also worked on many other Apache projects. After leaving Datastax he worked at Apple growing the then nascent Apache Iceberg project where he worked on data file management and advancing the table format. Currently Russell is working on OSS software at Snowflake and is a PMC member of the Apache Iceberg project, and a PPMC member of the Apache Polaris (Incubating) project.
## Sessions
- [Keynote: Level Up](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/keynote-level-up)
---
---
title: "Pradeep Srikakolapu"
description: "Senior Product Manager, Microsoft"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/pradeep-srikakolapu"
---
# Pradeep Srikakolapu
Senior Product Manager, Microsoft
Pradeep Srikakolapu is a Senior Product Manager at Microsoft focused on Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse. He works closely with customers, partners, and the open-source data community to simplify analytics engineering and modern data warehousing. His current work focuses on connectivity, ecosystem integration, CI/CD, and enabling developers to use tools such as dbt and Fabric together to build modern, scalable analytics solutions.
## Sessions
- [Beyond the basics: Running dbt at scale on Microsoft Fabric](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/beyond-the-basics-running-dbt-at-scale-on-microsoft-fabric)
- [From data to AI: why Microsoft Fabric and dbt are better together](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-data-to-ai-why-microsoft-fabric-and-dbt-are-better-together)
---
---
title: "Akash Srivastava"
description: "Lead Software Engineer, Careem"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/akash-srivastava"
---
# Akash Srivastava
Lead Software Engineer, Careem
Akash Srivastava leads the Data Platform team at Careem (Uber).Akash is proficient in Java, Scala, Python, and cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), with proven success in leading large-scale data processing projects handling petabytes of data and building services serving millions of requests per second. Akash is adept at driving efficiency and scalability through innovative solutions, including patented technologies.
## Sessions
- [From prompt to PR: sandbox-validated dbt changes before human review](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-prompt-to-pr-sandbox-validated-dbt-changes-before-human-review)
---
---
title: "Britton Stamper"
description: "Field AI Enablement Director, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/britton-stamper"
---
# Britton Stamper
Field AI Enablement Director, dbt Labs
Britton is defining how the leaders in the Modern Data Stack will evolve to support the AI era. He’s been head of data, an entrepreneur and early stage employee dedicating his 15 year career to advancing how data drives businesses forward. Britton lives in Seattle, WA.
## Sessions
- [Data for everyone 360: Building empathy and alignment across the data stack](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/data-for-everyone-360-building-empathy-and-alignment-across-the-data-stack)
- [Fireside chat: What is Context Engineering and why does it matter for analytics practitioners](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/fireside-chat-what-is-context-engineering-and-why-does-it-matter-for-analytics-practitioners)
---
---
title: "Benn Stancil"
description: "Cofounder and Chief Analytics Officer, Mode"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/benn-stancil"
---
# Benn Stancil
Cofounder and Chief Analytics Officer, Mode
Benn Stancil is a cofounder and Chief Analytics Officer at Mode, a collaborative data platform that unites an analyst-centered workflow with modern business intelligence. Benn regularly writes about data and technology at benn.substack.com. While at Mode, Benn held roles leading Mode’s product, marketing, solutions, and executive teams. Prior to founding Mode, Benn worked on analytics teams at Microsoft and Yammer.
## Sessions
- [How to have ideas](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/how-to-have-ideas)
---
---
title: "Jessica Stayton"
description: "Resident Architect, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/jessica-stayton"
---
# Jessica Stayton
Resident Architect, dbt Labs
Jessica is an experienced data engineer with a passion for transforming complex data into actionable insights. Her journey into data began after a career as a Latin and Mythology teacher, where she discovered a love for the structure and logic that underpins both ancient languages and modern data architecture. With a strong background in both dbt and Snowflake, including experience as a Resident Architect at Snowflake, she is passionate about building and optimizing cloud-based data solutions. Specializing in data architecture, data modeling, and analytics, she builds scalable and efficient data platforms.
## Sessions
- [{SOLD OUT} Operationalize cost visibility in dbt](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-operationalize-cost-visibility-in-dbt)
- [{SOLD OUT} Governed & scalable AI-assisted analytics with dbt](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-governed-and-scalable-ai-assisted-analytics-with-dbt)
- [{SOLD OUT} Governed & scalable AI-assisted analytics with dbt](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-governed-and-scalable-ai-assisted-analytics-with-dbt-8bebec40)
---
---
title: "Anders Swanson"
description: "Senior DX Advocate, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/anders-swanson"
---
# Anders Swanson
Senior DX Advocate, dbt Labs
Anders works with the Fusion engine team at dbt Labs. He came to dbt Labs as a developer advocate after being very active in the dbt Core community for two years. Previously, he was a data scientist based in Seattle; before that, he was a high school math teacher in Xiamen, China.
When not at work, he’s parenting two little ones. Otherwise, you can find him deep in philosophy (Wittgenstein), sci-fi (Hyperion), and jazz fusion (BADBADNOTGOOD).
## Sessions
- [Summit Springboard](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/summit-springboard)
- [Open source tea leaves: Reading Iceberg’s proposed future](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/open-source-tea-leaves-reading-icebergs-proposed-future)
- [Live debate: Should you stop using introspection in your models?](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/live-debate-should-you-stop-using-introspection-in-your-models)
---
---
title: "Millie Symns"
description: "Senior Business Intelligence Analyst, Justworks"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/millie-symns"
---
# Millie Symns
Senior Business Intelligence Analyst, Justworks
Millie Symns is a Senior Business Intelligence Analyst at Justworks who uses data to make strategic business decisions and data assets for all to use. With 7+ years across non-profit, education, and tech, she has created and implemented data solutions for complex questions and needs.
As a dbt user for four years, she has been creating and managing hundreds of data models and always looks for more things to learn in the analytics engineering space. She is an avid part of the dbt community having won the dbt Data Analyst of the Year in 2025 and is a part of the founding dbt Champions cohort.
When not in the data space, you can find Millie dancing, doing some art, or enjoying nature in the park.
## Sessions
- [How to build a successful data career](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/how-to-build-a-successful-data-career)
- [Black in Data: Building connections and community during career growth](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/black-in-data-building-connections-and-community-during-career-growth)
---
---
title: "Yuna (Yunnan) Tang"
description: "Senior Analytics Engineer, Data, Mitti"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/yuna-yunnan-tang"
---
# Yuna (Yunnan) Tang
Senior Analytics Engineer, Data, Mitti
Yuna Tang is a Senior Analytics Engineer at Mitti with a background that started far from the data stack. She spent her early career in finance—first as a Commercial Finance Manager, then as a Portfolio Analyst—before making the leap into analytics engineering at AMP Capital. That pivot turned out to be a natural fit: she's been in the data world ever since, and has spent the last three years at Mitti turning messy pipelines into models people actually trust.
She's a firm believer that understanding the business behind the data makes you a better engineer—and that getting the right engineer and analyst structure in place is just as important as the models themselves when it comes to building a successful dbt project.
## Sessions
- [From 14-hour batches and poor documentation to AI-ready data: Mitti's dbt rebuild](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-14-hour-batches-and-poor-documentation-to-ai-ready-data-mittis-dbt-rebuild)
---
---
title: "Priya Tanwar"
description: "Principal Engineer, Nordstrom"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/priya-tanwar"
---
# Priya Tanwar
Principal Engineer, Nordstrom
Priya Tanwar is a Principal Engineer at Nordstrom, where she leads analytics engineering and data platform initiatives. She has extensive experience building large-scale data platforms, distributed systems, and real-time & batch data pipelines. Her work focuses on designing governed, scalable data platform, and enabling AI-ready data products & conversational analytics capabilities.
## Sessions
- [Governed by default: how data teams at Nordstrom turn dbt governance into an AI advantage](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/governed-by-default-how-data-teams-at-nordstrom-turn-dbt-governance-into-an-ai-advantage)
---
---
title: "Stephen Thibeault"
description: "Senior Resident Architect, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/stephen-thibeault"
---
# Stephen Thibeault
Senior Resident Architect, dbt Labs
Stephen has been a leader in the field of data analytics for close to a decade, specializing in helping organizations implement modern data practices with an attitude focusing on "making things work quickly, accurately, and efficiently". As a Resident Architect at dbt Labs, he helps guide some of dbt's most complex customers on their journeys into the modern data stack.
## Sessions
- [{SOLD OUT} Mastering data quality with dbt](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-mastering-data-quality-with-dbt)
- [From dbt Core to Fusion: How CarGurus unlocked dbt State and AI at scale](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/from-dbt-core-to-fusion-how-cargurus-unlocked-dbt-state-and-ai-at-scale)
- [Creating context with dbt MCP Server](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/creating-context-with-dbt-mcp-server)
- [{SOLD OUT} Mastering data quality with dbt](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-mastering-data-quality-with-dbt-957f01ac)
---
---
title: "Shania Thomas"
description: "Senior Technical Instructor, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/shania-thomas"
---
# Shania Thomas
Senior Technical Instructor, dbt Labs
Shania first fell in love with data as a middle school science teacher, using student data to improve outcomes. She later brought that passion to telecommunications as a data analyst and instructor to those wanting to use a range of tools to work with data, and now enthusiastically combines it all as a Senior Technical Instructor at dbt Labs!
## Sessions
- [{SOLD OUT} Getting started with dbt](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-getting-started-with-dbt)
- [Standardizing insights with the dbt Semantic Layer](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/standardizing-insights-with-the-dbt-semantic-layer)
- [Black in Data: Building connections and community during career growth](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/black-in-data-building-connections-and-community-during-career-growth)
---
---
title: "Jordan Tigani"
description: "CEO, MotherDuck"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/jordan-tigani"
---
# Jordan Tigani
CEO, MotherDuck
Jordan is co-founder and chief duck-herder at MotherDuck, a startup providing a serverless data
warehouse based on the open source DuckDB. This is the third cloud data analytics SaaS
service he’s helped create, and hopefully this time he’s getting it right. He helped start Google
BigQuery, spent a decade working on it as engineer, book author, engineering leader, and
product leader. Jordan has also worked at SingleStore, Microsoft Research, the Windows
Kernel team, and at a handful of star-crossed startups.
## Sessions
- [Keynote: Level Up](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/keynote-level-up)
---
---
title: "Matt Topol"
description: "Co-founder, Columnar"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/matt-topol"
---
# Matt Topol
Co-founder, Columnar
Hailing from the faraway land of Brentwood, NY and currently residing in the rolling hills of Connecticut, Matt Topol has always been passionate about software. Matt has worked in infrastructure and application development, has lead development teams, and architected large-scale distributed systems for processing analytics on financial data. Matt is a PMC member for the Apache Arrow project, frequently enhancing the Golang library among other enhancements and helping to grow the Arrow Community. He wrote the first book on Apache Arrow "In-Memory Analytics with Apache Arrow" and spent the last couple years working on the Apache Arrow libraries full time and growing the Arrow Golang community. Matt is now a member of the ASF and also a PMC member of Apache Iceberg. Matt is also a Co-Founder of Columnar, focusing on data connectivity using Arrow Database Connectivity (ADBC).
In his spare time, Matt likes to bash his head against a keyboard, develop/run delightfully demented games of fantasy for his victims--er--friends, and share his knowledge with anyone interested who'll listen to his rants.
## Sessions
- [Keynote: Community Keynote](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/keynote-community-keynote)
- [ADBC in production: zero-copy, non-zero problems](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/adbc-in-production-zero-copy-non-zero-problems)
---
---
title: "Trang Trinh"
description: "Senior Data Engineer, Kramp"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/trang-trinh"
---
# Trang Trinh
Senior Data Engineer, Kramp
Trang Trinh is a Senior Data Engineer at Kramp based in the Netherlands, with a background in Business and Applied Mathematics. She’s spent the past 5+ years building scalable data platforms on GCP and dbt, designing everything from end-to-end pipelines to KPI frameworks for large-scale organisations. Trang is especially passionate about platform engineering, infrastructure-as-code, and helping teams take ownership of their data through self-service and automation. Outside of her day-to-day work, she enjoys sharing her experiences at meet-ups and conferences, and connecting with others in the data community.
## Sessions
- [A practitioner's guide to federated dbt Mesh at scale with Data Project Factory](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/a-practitioners-guide-to-federated-dbt-mesh-at-scale-with-data-project-factory)
---
---
title: "Akash Trivedi"
description: "Lead Technical Instructor, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/akash-trivedi"
---
# Akash Trivedi
Lead Technical Instructor, dbt Labs
Akash has over a decade of experience in teaching and training at all levels, from the classroom to the boardroom. More recently, he has partnered with clients to support learners in upscaling in data analytics, and most importantly, to drive value for their teams or organizations by applying the skills taught. As a Lead Technical Instructor at dbt Labs, he is eager to share the strengths and capabilities that dbt has to offer.
## Sessions
- [{SOLD OUT} Becoming a dbt Architect](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-becoming-a-dbt-architect)
- [{SOLD OUT} Becoming a dbt Architect](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-becoming-a-dbt-architect-a4aa124e)
---
---
title: "William Tsu"
description: "Staff Analytics Engineer, Whoop"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/william-tsu"
---
# William Tsu
Staff Analytics Engineer, Whoop
William Tsu is a Staff Analytics Engineer at WHOOP, where he focuses on scaling analytics through strong data foundations and developer-friendly workflows. He has helped advance WHOOP’s use of dbt to enable analyst self-service while maintaining high standards for data quality, documentation, and governance.
His work emphasizes balancing autonomy and structure so teams can move fast without creating technical debt. Previously, William was an Analytics Engineer at Blend, where he supported Revenue Operations by modernizing data pipelines and improving access to business-critical insights. He brings a pragmatic approach to building scalable, high-impact data teams.
## Sessions
- [How WHOOP bridges dbt models and Snowflake semantic views](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/how-whoop-bridges-dbt-models-and-snowflake-semantic-views)
---
---
title: "Kyle Tuft"
description: "Resident Architect, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/kyle-tuft"
---
# Kyle Tuft
Resident Architect, dbt Labs
Kyle is drawn to the places where signals become stories, whether that's footsteps across a mountain, radio waves off the moon, or business signals hidden in everyday processes. As a Resident Architect at dbt Labs, he helps teams shape practical, maintainable analytics systems with dbt and modern data tools. His professional background spans consulting, data architecture, analytics engineering, and BI, and he's excited to help learners build confidence in their data work at this year's dbt Summit.
## Sessions
- [Scaling trusted self-service for dbt stakeholders](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/scaling-trusted-self-service-for-dbt-stakeholders)
---
---
title: "Kirk Van Arkel"
description: "Lead Solution Architect, Enterprise, Fivetran"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/kirk-van-arkel"
---
# Kirk Van Arkel
Lead Solution Architect, Enterprise, Fivetran
Kirk is a Lead Solution Architect at legacy-Fivetran / NewCo. He has been with Fivetran for 4+ years and specializes in programmatic interactions - anything from Fivetran’s REST API and Connector SDK to MCP Servers and AI Plugins. Kirk loves to automate processes and even more so loves enabling customers to do so themselves.
## Sessions
- [Build, test, evaluate, deploy: Coding plugins for Connector SDK](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/build-test-evaluate-deploy-coding-plugins-for-connector-sdk)
- [Build, test, evaluate, deploy: Coding plugins for Connector SDK](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/build-test-evaluate-deploy-coding-plugins-for-connector-sdk-6b381805)
---
---
title: "Koen Verburg"
description: "Lead Analytics Engineer, Greenpeace International"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/koen-verburg"
---
# Koen Verburg
Lead Analytics Engineer, Greenpeace International
Koen Verburg is the Analytics Engineer Lead for Greenpeace International, building the foundations of a global data platform. With 10 years of industry experience and 6 within the Greenpeace network, Koen (35) focuses on technical best practices that combine scalability, governance and reusability.
Koen views data as the ultimate puzzle; when he isn’t building dbt packages, he is likely tackling his next favourite challenge—whether on a table, a screen, or hidden within a dataset.
## Sessions
- [A dbt "logic mesh" with packages: standard model and metrics across 25 autonomous organizations](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/a-dbt-logic-mesh-with-packages-standard-model-and-metrics-across-25-autonomous-organizations)
---
---
title: "Niraj Vora"
description: "Principal Sales Engineer, Enterprise, Fivetran"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/niraj-vora"
---
# Niraj Vora
Principal Sales Engineer, Enterprise, Fivetran
Niraj Vora is a Principal Sales Engineer at Fivetran + dbt, where he helps organizations modernize their data infrastructure and unlock faster, smarter insights through automated data movement. With a strong background in cloud data architecture and analytics, Niraj blends technical depth with business acumen to design scalable, high-impact solutions. Passionate about innovation and data empowerment, he loves sharing practical strategies that help teams turn complex data challenges into measurable success.
## Sessions
- [Your dbt models deserve better data](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/your-dbt-models-deserve-better-data)
---
---
title: "Hope Watson"
description: "Product Manager, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/hope-watson"
---
# Hope Watson
Product Manager, dbt Labs
Hope Watson is a product manager working on Fusion adapters at dbt Labs.
A longtime dbt practitioner who became a highly opinionated user and eventually a PM, they've held many of the technical roles on their way to the job. Hope is the kind of whacko who doesn't mind reading 700 pages of documentation to learn how something really works.
## Sessions
- [All aboard: Rebuilding dbt in the open](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/all-aboard-rebuilding-dbt-in-the-open)
- [Product roundtable: Rebuilding dbt Core: Faster runtime, adapters, and docs v2](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/product-roundtable-rebuilding-dbt-core-faster-runtime-adapters-and-docs-v2)
---
---
title: "Will Weld"
description: "Senior Resident Architect, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/will-weld"
---
# Will Weld
Senior Resident Architect, dbt Labs
Will has spent the last decade architecting and building scalable data platforms and analytics products that power decision-making across teams and organizations. Equal parts engineer, architect, and tinkerer, he loves turning messy data problems into clean, modular solutions. He’s excited to share his passion for dbt, the modern data stack, and building with empathy as a Resident Architect at dbt Labs!
## Sessions
- [{SOLD OUT} Becoming a dbt Architect](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-becoming-a-dbt-architect)
- [{SOLD OUT} Becoming a dbt Architect](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sold-out-becoming-a-dbt-architect-a4aa124e)
---
---
title: "Alicia Williams"
description: "Developer Advocate, Google"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/alicia-williams"
---
# Alicia Williams
Developer Advocate, Google
As a Developer Advocate for Google Cloud, Alicia focuses on modernizing the developer experience through data-driven advocacy. She is particularly passionate about the practical application of Generative AI within data pipelines, whether making a smarter spreadsheet or weaving together complex narratives using SQL and machine learning. Her mission is to empower developers to bridge the gap between raw data and actionable, AI-powered insights.
## Sessions
- [SQL-first AI: bringing BigQuery AI into your dbt project](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/sql-first-ai-bringing-bigquery-ai-into-your-dbt-project)
---
---
title: "Jinze Xin"
description: "Analytics Engineer, Liftoff"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/jinze-xin"
---
# Jinze Xin
Analytics Engineer, Liftoff
Jinze Xin is an analytics engineer at Liftoff, where he works on analytics infrastructure for a mobile adtech platform. He built the core workflow and guardrails behind dbt-pico, an internal self-service dbt system that helps analysts move from idea to governed production pipelines without inheriting the full operational complexity of the stack. This is his first conference talk.
## Sessions
- [Shrink the surface: governed self-service for analyst-owned dbt pipelines](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/shrink-the-surface-governed-self-service-for-analyst-owned-dbt-pipelines)
---
---
title: "Zhen Xing"
description: "Data Architect / Data Engineer, 74software"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/zhen-xing"
---
# Zhen Xing
Data Architect / Data Engineer, 74software
Zhen Xing is a Data Lead and Strategic Technical Consultant with full-stack expertise spanning cloud infrastructure, data engineering, and AI product management.
With a track record at industry leaders including TotalEnergies, Ubisoft, and Axway (74 Software), Zhen has architected and implemented enterprise-scale platforms—ranging from deploying cloud infrastructure to building company-wide Feature Stores and MLOps pipelines. Zhen combines deep technical skills with strategic product vision, transforming raw data into high-impact business solutions.
## Sessions
- [Dismantling the vault: scaling to a data mesh during a 5x merger](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dismantling-the-vault-scaling-to-a-data-mesh-during-a-5x-merger)
---
---
title: "Ana Zapata"
description: "Senior Sales Engineer, Enterprise, Fivetran"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/ana-zapata"
---
# Ana Zapata
Senior Sales Engineer, Enterprise, Fivetran
Ana Zapata is a Solutions Engineer at Fivetran + dbt, where she's spent the past year helping organizations modernize their data stack, a role she stepped into after being a Fivetran and dbt customer herself. With over a decade of experience leading data engineering and analytics teams, Ana brings a practitioner's perspective to every conversation about data infrastructure. She's passionate about data governance, interoperability, and making enterprise data more accessible and actionable.
## Sessions
- [Your dbt models deserve better data](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/your-dbt-models-deserve-better-data)
---
---
title: "Iaroslav Zeigerman"
description: "Principal Software Engineer, Fivetran"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/iaroslav-zeigerman"
---
# Iaroslav Zeigerman
Principal Software Engineer, Fivetran
Iaroslav Zeigerman is a Principal Software Engineer at Fivetran and a lead developer of dbt State. Previously, he co-founded Tobiko, where he co-created SQLMesh, an open-source data transformation and development platform. Before that, he led data engineering teams at Apple and Netflix, building large-scale data infrastructure and analytics systems.
## Sessions
- [Optimizing your runs for lower compute, fresher data, and faster iteration with dbt State](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/optimizing-your-runs-for-lower-compute-fresher-data-and-faster-iteration-with-dbt-state)
- [Product roundtable: Optimizing your runs for lower compute, fresher data, and faster iteration with dbt State](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/product-roundtable-optimizing-your-runs-for-lower-compute-fresher-data-and-faster-iteration-with-dbt-state)
---
---
title: "Akis Zervas"
description: "Senior Analytics Engineer, Kaizen Gaming"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/akis-zervas"
---
# Akis Zervas
Senior Analytics Engineer, Kaizen Gaming
## Sessions
- [The principals' framework for consistent dbt at scale](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/the-principals-framework-for-consistent-dbt-at-scale)
---
---
title: "Jessica Zhang"
description: "Senior Data Engineer, Riot Games"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/jessica-zhang"
---
# Jessica Zhang
Senior Data Engineer, Riot Games
Jessica Zhang is a Senior Data Engineer at Riot Games, where she is building the next generation of autonomous data platforms. Operating at the scale of millions of global players, Jess is focused on shifting the data development lifecycle from manual oversight to agentic automation.
Her work centers on embedding AI agents directly into the engineering loop to handle logic validation, schema evolution, and self-healing pipelines, effectively removing the "toil" from the path to production. Jess has spent her career across various leading A/NZ tech organizations. She leverages a deep background in data infrastructure and cloud migration to help major brands build robust, scalable, and governed data ecosystems.
## Sessions
- [When skills meet scale: an agent assembly line for dbt](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/when-skills-meet-scale-an-agent-assembly-line-for-dbt)
---
---
title: "Aika Zikibayeva"
description: "Senior Product Marketing Manager, dbt Labs"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/aika-zikibayeva"
---
# Aika Zikibayeva
Senior Product Marketing Manager, dbt Labs
Aika Zikibayeva leads product marketing for dbt's engine, where she helps data teams navigate what's actually changing under the hood of their stack. Her background spans product marketing at fast-scaling SaaS companies like Shopify and Cockroach Labs, with a knack for translating customer challenges into compelling narratives, developing messaging that resonates, and organizing it all into launch moments that land. Originally from Almaty, Kazakhstan, she now calls New York City home.
## Sessions
- [What’s new in dbt v2](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/whats-new-in-dbt-v2)
---
---
title: "Scott Ziolko"
description: "Head of Data, Keep"
url: "https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/scott-ziolko"
---
# Scott Ziolko
Head of Data, Keep
Scott Ziolko is Head of Data at Keep, a Canadian fintech serving 5,000+ SMBs. He leads Data and Analytics, powering Keep's production credit decisioning platform, analytics engineering, and business operations — including the real-time dbt architecture at the heart of this talk. Scott has spent two decades building data science and engineering teams as a founder and early contributor to companies across fintech, edtech, and consumer tech, with roots in neuroimaging, radiology, and machine learning research.
## Sessions
- [$1B in transactions, 1 minute latency: dbt as production banking infrastructure](https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/sessions/dollar1b-in-transactions-1-minute-latency-dbt-as-production-banking-infrastructure)