Paulo Kuong
Web Engineer
Joined The Orchard in July 2006
Hey Paulo! So, we know you’re hidden in your developer pen, and that you, well, develop, but that’s about it. Pray tell, what the #&@$ do you do?
My role changes from time to time, from back-end developer, front-end developer to data warehouse guy. I helped develop most of the sections in OA [our backend administrative system] — my first project was The Orchard’s user management page — and the Artist and Label Workstation [ALW], for instance old Release Builder, new Release Builder, Artist Builder, Analytics, etc. So, I have been maintaining, debugging, re-factoring and extending all these whenever is needed. Recently, my focus has been on data warehouse and Analytics, ETL’ing old/new data from all the stores that we distribute to.
Nice! What are you working on in regards to the data warehouse and analytics? And what does ETL mean for us non-developers?
It means “extracting, transforming and loading.” I make sure the data gets into our databases, and that the Analytics section in ALW and reports in OA that use these databases have accurate data and acceptable performance. And, if there is any business logic changes, I alter the databases to store different things in different ways or change the code to display the data in a different way.
I heard we just reached 1.7 billion rows of data. That sounds like a lot. What does that mean/entail exactly?
We will probably reach 3 billion rows of data after we’ve loaded all old Spotify data. Billions of rows means there are billions of activities (track downloads, streams, album downloads…) on the assets that we deliver out, meaning we are becoming more capable to show more accurate trends and statistics of how all the assets are doing across all the stores. The statistics and trends can help us make more accurate business decisions, and predict and discover new money-making opportunities…
On the technology side, it means we need a more powerful, more advanced database system to handle the queries, smarter user interfaces to present the data to users so that they can retrieve the data quickly and easily without hanging their browsers, re-factoring our web applications so that they can use the new database system…. Well, in short…. more work.
So about that developer pen, we hear lots of rumors… what do you guys do in there? Secret society? Give me some beef!
Not sure about what specific rumors you heard… =) We have a lot of small group meetings, conference calls everyday so we need a little space with walls to prevent our noisy tech conversations from disturbing the rest of the working areas. Secret society?? No…. You’re free to come by and say hi… We are friendly and open… And I’m still single.
Noted! I was told to ask you about iced tea… Long Island Iced Tea… Do I want to know? [Read: please tell me.]
Haha… It was the strongest iced tea I have ever had. I seldom drink, so I thought it was really just iced tea when my good co-workers handed it to me. I drank the whole glass. It took me a while to get home that night…
Thanks Paulo! You’ve just elucidated a lot of developer mysteries. Now, girlfriend and/or summer flings: coming right up!
favorite app: Google Maps
favorite TV show: The Big Bang Theory
most stupid thing you’ve heard: during tech meetings… “This is why we are here, this is why we are talking about this…” You can also find a lot here.
random: I’ve played guitar for a little band in some small-community-songwriting contests, and I’ve played for a lot of church friends’ weddings these past few years. And my name should be pronounced as “POW LO” or “Pa-wl-o”……. I think. And this.
