#89 SQLBits Unfiltered: DBT in Fabric, MLOps in Action & Copilot in Question

DataTopics: All Things Data, AI & Tech

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In this episode, we're joined by Sam Debruyn and Dorian Van den Heede who reflect on their talks at SQL Bits 2025 and dive into the technical content they presented. Sam walks through how DBT integrates with Microsoft Fabric, explaining how it improves lakehouse and warehouse workflows by adding modularity, testing, and documentation to SQL development. He also touches on Fusion’s SQL optimization features and how it compares to tools like SQLMesh.

Dorian shares his MLOps demo, which simulates beating football bookmakers using historical data,nshowing how to build a full pipeline with Azure ML, from feature engineering to model deployment. They discuss the role of Python modeling in DBT, orchestration with Azure ML, and the practical challenges of implementing MLOps in real-world scenarios.

Toward the end, they explore how AI tools like Copilot are changing the way engineers learn and debug code, raising questions about explainability, skill development, and the future of junior roles in tech.

It’s rich conversation covering DBT, MLOps, Python, Azure ML, and the evolving role of AI in engineering.

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1. Introduction to Data Topics (00:00:00)

2. Understanding DBT Fundamentals (00:03:30)

3. SQL Bits Conference Overview (00:19:19)

4. Sam's Talk: DBT with Microsoft Fabric (00:31:01)

5. Dorian's Talk: MLOps with DBT (00:42:18)

6. Data Lake Formats Battle (00:55:43)

7. Databricks Workshop Experience (01:06:40)

8. Junior Data Engineer's Journey (01:20:49)