# Ananth Packkildurai

> Ananth Packkildurai is a principal engineer, newsletter editor, angel investor, and advisor at the intersection of data engineering and community building. He founded Data Engineering Weekly, a Substack newsletter with 50,000+ subscribers covering vendor-neutral data engineering topics across 267+ issues. He built data pipeline observability at Slack during its hyper-growth years, shaped next-generation analytical platforms at Zendesk, and created Schemata - one of the earliest open-source data contract frameworks. He currently serves as Principal Engineer at Mural, while his newsletter and podcast continue to inform tens of thousands of data professionals worldwide.

- **Role:** Principal Engineer at Mural
- **Organizations:** Mural, Data Engineering Weekly, Dewpeche Private Limited
- **From:** India
- **Nationality:** Indian-American
- **Education:** B.Tech. in Information Technology, Anna University
- **Known for:** Founded and edits Data Engineering Weekly, reaching 50,000+ subscribers across 267+ issues, Built data pipeline observability and monitoring infrastructure at Slack during hyper-growth, Created Schemata - one of the earliest open-source data contract frameworks (261+ GitHub stars)

## Career timeline

- **2001-2005** — Studied Information Technology at Anna University, India
- **2005-2010** — Early career roles in software and data engineering
- **2010-2015** — Data engineering roles including Hotcourses and Evolv, Inc.
- **2015-2019** — Data Engineer at Slack - built data pipeline observability and monitoring infrastructure during Slack's hyper-growth phase
- **2018** — Delivered landmark talk 'Operating Data Pipeline using Airflow @ Slack' - became a widely referenced resource in the community
- **2019-2024** — Principal Data Engineer at Zendesk - built the next-generation customer analytical platform
- **2020** — Founded Data Engineering Weekly newsletter on Substack
- **2021** — Newsletter reached 2,000 subscribers; spoke at Crunch Data Conference on emerging trends
- **2021** — Created Schemata - one of the first open-source data contract frameworks
- **2022** — Launched Data Engineering Weekly podcast
- **2024** — Featured speaker at Databricks Data + AI Summit 2024; newsletter crossed 42,000+ subscribers
- **2024** — Joined Mural as Principal Engineer
- **2026** — Newsletter crosses 50,000 Substack followers at issue #250+; launches 'Data Engineering After AI' podcast series

## Achievements

- Founded and edits Data Engineering Weekly, reaching 50,000+ subscribers across 267+ issues
- Built data pipeline observability and monitoring infrastructure at Slack during hyper-growth
- Created Schemata - one of the earliest open-source data contract frameworks (261+ GitHub stars)
- Featured speaker at Databricks Data + AI Summit 2024
- Delivered widely-referenced Airflow @ Slack talk viewed by thousands of data engineers
- Published 30+ technical articles on data engineering, data contracts, and modern data architecture
- Angel investor and advisor for early-stage data startups
- Jury member for MDS Rocketship Awards
- Named 'Data Expert of the Week' by Modern Data 101 community (December 2024)
- Contributed to Apache Airflow ecosystem; 'awesome-apache-airflow' curated list
- Launched Data Engineering Weekly podcast with 21+ episodes

## Latest updates

- **2026-04** — Data Engineering Weekly newsletter surpassed 50,000 Substack followers, publishing issue #267+
- **2026-01** — Published 'LakeDB: The Next Evolution of the Lakehouse Architecture'
- **2025-12** — Named Data Expert of the Week by Modern Data 101 community
- **2025-06** — Launched 'Data Engineering After AI' podcast series exploring the post-AI data stack
- **2024-06** — Featured speaker at Databricks Data + AI Summit 2024
- **2024-01** — Joined Mural as Principal Engineer

## Links

- Website: https://www.dataengineeringweekly.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ananthdurai/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/ananthdurai
- GitHub: https://github.com/ananthdurai
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/vananth22

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/ananth-packkildurai
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-04-29