Every Sunday I sit down and ask myself four questions: What went well? What would I do differently? What did I learn? What am I carrying into next week? Here is this week honest reflection as a data engineer.
What Went Well: Automating the Unglamorous Stuff
I finally automated a data ingestion job that had been running manually for months. A Python script wrapped in an Airflow DAG, pulling from SFTP, transforming data, and landing it in BigQuery. It saved 2 hours of manual work per day — 500+ hours a year back to the team. The boring automations often have the highest ROI.
What I Would Do Differently: Ask Sooner
I spent four hours debugging a dbt model. After four hours I sent a Slack message. My teammate replied in five minutes with the fix. Four hours. Five minutes. Same result. Next week: if stuck for more than 30 minutes on something a teammate might know — I am asking. Full stop.
What I Learned: Airflow Dynamic Task Mapping
Airflow dynamic task mapping lets the number of tasks be determined at runtime using .expand() instead of being hardcoded. Once you stop fighting the syntax, it is incredibly powerful.
@dag(start_date=datetime(2026, 1, 1), schedule="@daily")
def dynamic_pipeline():
@task
def get_files() -> list:
return ["file_a.csv", "file_b.csv", "file_c.csv"]
@task
def process_file(filename: str):
print(f"Processing {filename}")
process_file.expand(filename=get_files())
dynamic_pipeline()What I Am Carrying Into Next Week: Collaborate First
The best moment of the week was a 15-minute call with a teammate who had seen a similar problem before. In 15 minutes we covered what would have taken me 2 hours alone. Intention for next week: collaborate first, solo-debug second.
The Habit Behind the Reflection
Try a weekly reflection — just 10 minutes on a Sunday. Four questions: What went well? What would I do differently? What did I learn? What is my intention for next week? Growth as an engineer is not just about learning new tools. It is about getting better at learning itself.
What is one thing you learned this week? Drop a comment below.
— Pushpjeet Cholkar, Data Engineer