About: What Is This Book?
The Data Foundry is a complete, free handbook for modern data engineering. It covers the full stack, from the foundational mindset of the profession through SQL, Python, orchestration, cloud warehousing, real-time streaming, and the major cloud platforms. It is written by practitioners at Morpheralabs who build and maintain data systems professionally, and it is given away without charge because the knowledge should be accessible.
Preface: Why Data Engineering, Why Now
There is a version of this preface that quotes a McKinsey report about data volumes doubling every two years and a LinkedIn report naming data engineer one of the fastest-growing jobs in the world. All of that is true. None of it is why we wrote this book.
Thesis: The Data Engineer's Argument
This book is built on a position. It is worth stating it clearly before the chapters begin, because it shapes every decision about what to include, how to teach it, and in what order.
Glossary
Terms used throughout The Data Foundry, defined once here for reference. Where a term is covered in depth in a specific chapter, that chapter is noted.