In addition to creating batch and real-time data pipelines, understanding data warehouse design and implementation and API integration, data engineers at MobilityWare need to be proficient in troubleshooting.
As a matter of fact, Grace Ge, associate director of data engineering, said that the ability to troubleshoot in both technical and non-technical areas is the most vital skill for data engineers at the mobile gaming company to have.
“Our data engineers need to be able to troubleshoot on the fly to quickly figure out the root cause, via error logs or other means, to keep the data and minimize any interruptions to our business,” Ge said.
Built In LA caught up with Ge to gain a better understanding of her role as the associate director of data engineering, what her typical day entails and an interesting project she’s currently working on.
What’s a typical day like for you as a data engineer at MobilityWare?
A typical day for me begins with checking the alerts for the data integration automation jobs to see if I need to troubleshoot any issues or backfill data. If not, I will proceed to peruse the Jira tickets to identify tasks to add to my to-do list, such as data pipeline implementation, code review, production deployment, query performance tuning or data quality testing. Next is our team’s daily 15-minute sync to share development plans and identify any blockers that require immediate attention.
I work very closely with our CTO and CRO, along with the product, marketing, monetization and engineering teams. I do my best to truly understand each departments’ requirements and business goals so that I can design the most efficient systems possible. For the rest of the day, I focus on coding for our data lake and data warehouse projects or using Python for API integration projects. Once a week, we will have a design and code review meeting that helps us share fresh ideas and best practices. Whenever possible, I also schedule some time for self-improvement by learning new management and engineering techniques.
The opportunity to solve some of the challenges facing our teams is what excites me about coming to work (virtually) every day.”
What’s an interesting project you’re currently working on?
As a mobile gaming company, we have a lot of in-game events and third-party data across our titles and platforms. Having a 360-degree view of customer behavior with standardized KPI metrics is key to making informed business decisions. I’ve standardized our infrastructure and I’m working on a data-unification project with my team in which we are creating a standard framework to consolidate our customers’ data on a daily basis.
The challenge of this project is solving both the technical and process requirements simultaneously. We’re required to design an efficient system that is stable, scalable and secure to handle trillions of rows of data across in-house and cloud data platforms. Also, we need to streamline the processes among various departments to ensure that the newly created systems and frameworks are adopted properly. This project will not only provide a single source of truth for our customer view across our marketing, sales and finance departments, but it will also reduce hundreds of labor hours for our data and business intelligence teams. The opportunity to solve some of the challenges facing our teams is what excites me about coming to work (virtually) every day.
What’s the most important skill a data engineer needs to be successful in their role?
There are many skills required to be a successful data engineer at MobilityWare. Creating batch and real-time data pipelines, understanding data warehouse and data mart design and implementation, API data integration, communication and critical thinking are just some of the skills needed to succeed here. Above all though, I think the ability to troubleshoot in both technical and non-technical areas is the most vital.
At MobilityWare, you will have the opportunity to create a brand-new data pipeline and you will also be the first person to see it in production. Due to the complexity of the data sources, there will be unexpected data issues that come up frequently. You need to be able to troubleshoot on the fly to quickly figure out the root cause, via error logs or other means, to keep the data and minimize any interruptions to our business. One of our company values is to encourage team members to do the right thing. To do so, you need to keep your eyes open for potential issues and look for new ways to improve our systems so that MobilityWare may continue to bring joy to others one game at a time.
