About Me

My name is Joe Billingham, I currently work as a Senior Data Engineer at a business intelligence consultancy called Purple Frog Systems here in Telford, UK

Before becoming a data engineer I was a data analyst, I have a background in computer science and have been using SQL Server for over 15 years.

I’m always looking for an opportunity to learn and teach and I currently hold a handful of Microsoft Certifications:

I’m an avid member of the data community having given talks at conferences such as SQL Bits and Data Relay and I also organise and host Microsoft Data Platform Group – Birmingham

If you haven’t guessed from the name of the blog, I’m also mad about all things guitar! I’ve been playing, collecting and honing my luthier skills over the last 3 years , my office has become more of a studio.

Why Data Luthier?

A few years ago, while stuck for inspiration I decided to learn to play the guitar. After a year or so, I decided paying for setup and maintenance was a cost I could avoid with a little time investment, so I started teaching ,myself some basic maintenance skills. After acquiring my 7th guitar, I realised none of them did the EXACT job I wanted them to, so I added building my own instrument to my bucket list and got underway!

I’d been working as a data engineer for a little over 3 years at this point and I realised there are a lot of parallels between guitar building and data engineering. There are tried and tested methods and “best practices”, there are industry experts and self-taught professionals writing blogs and shooting YouTube videos and there are different opinions on what tools should be used for each job. Each project poses new and unique challenges with more than one applicable approach and if there is nothing “off-the-shelf” that will do the exact job I need it to, I build my own solutions. That’s how I landed at Data Luthier!

Hopefully this blog will introduce you to some of the tools and techniques needed to create your own data instruments!