Conceptual Every Record Counts: Data Engineering for Backend Engineers
Part 0: "The Field Guide" — How to Read This Series
Larkspur's quarterly review ends with three headline numbers and two answers for each. Rohan, a staff backend engineer, is asked to "just fix the queries". This field guide maps data engineering in 2026, introduces the retailer and its incident, starts the companion lab, reproduces all three disagreements with SQL, and states the design question the series teaches you to answer.