174: Does Your Data Stack Need a Semantic Layer? Featuring Artyom Keydunov of Cube Dev

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

• Artyom’s background in the data space (0:32)
• The growth and changes at Cube (5:58)
• Pain points of managing metrics definitions across different tools (9:39)
• Trade-offs between coupled and decoupled semantic layers (12:12)
• Making a case for implementing a semantic layer (14:17)
• The evolution of semantic layers (23:28)
• Challenges in designing a decoupled semantic layer (24:16)
• Different approaches to solving the interface problem (26:58)
• Implementing a SQL engine in Cube (35:58)
• Overhead and debugging in semantic layers (39:08)
• The semantic layer and its importance (46:26)
• The need for semantics in data products (47:34)
• What’s the future of semantic layers and user experience? (51:49)
• Final thoughts and takeaways (57:34)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.