I am excited to announce that we are growing our data team, and I am looking for talented individuals to join us in taking our data initiatives to the next level. As the first data hire at Pawp, I have had the unique opportunity to establish the company’s data infrastructure from scratch. It has been a challenging yet rewarding journey, and I am proud to have set up a robust data infrastructure that has become an integral part of the company’s operations 🫡
We’re now looking to hire a data/analytics engineer who will focus on improving and maintaining our data infrastructure. The main focus for that hire would be developing the transformation layer (our dbt pipelines). They will also get to work on real-time ETL, feature stores and metrics layers — all technologies we have previously explored and would like to incorporate in the future. That’s not all! We’re also looking to hire a data analyst to work by my side with product and business teams.
I. Background
When I first joined Pawp in April 2021, the company had just raised a series A. Over the past 2 years, we have built a robust data infrastructure that supports the company’s operations and decision-making processes. Our data infrastructure has helped us gain insights into customer behavior, improve product offerings, and make grounded decisions across the organization.
II. Setting up the Data Platform, while Servicing Ad-Hoc Requests
As an engineer, I am usually inclined to build long-term and robust solutions. Thankfully for me, our CTO Andrew, with whom I work very closely, had heard a ton about the “Modern Data Stack” and knew quite a bit about the leaders in that space. He granted me space and responsibility to build our stack. With time and iteration, I managed to build the best architecture for a highly-performant, cost-effective data platform. 🤑🏗
Today — this is what our data platform looks like:
… a classic MDS (modern data stack) pipeline using a mix of SaaS and open-source tools!
With that, we have reached a stable state where pipelines don’t break, requests are often self-served, and time-to-resolution is shorter. The adoption of our data tools has been excellent, which is also another indicator that our data efforts are paying off. We have seen a significant reduction in errors or discrepancies in turn creating more trust and more reliance on data. Overall, setting up the data infrastructure has been a significant undertaking, but it was well worth the effort.
III. Impact of Data at Pawp
I have just checked the number of queries ran in Hashboard (our BI tool) on 02/22/2023, and it turns out we ran 113 unique queries. Looking at those numbers, you start to understand the impact of your work: no human can run 113 queries in a day without messing them up. The benefits became clear to me overtime: composability, scalability and reliability.
As for the business value of data at Pawp — I’ll stick with the cliche answer: it has “enabled everyone to make data-driven decisions” … for real. Here are a few use cases and examples:
- 📊 Reporting: we have iteratively built 5 main dashboards for business, growth, product, risk and care. Each team has its own space where they can pull the numbers they need and do easy explorations. Here are a few examples:
a) Growth teams use our dashboards to calculate CAC, look at different campaigns and channels, understand performance in terms of conversion and retention and decide whether or not they want to invest more in a distribution channel or cut it out.
b) Ops teams use our dashboards for Veterinarian scheduling and resource planning.
c) Founders use our dashboards for ARR monitoring, investor updates and tracking. - 🗄 Data pulls: whether it is a simple excel list of active users or a list of conversations that have an average negative sentiment, data pulls are frequently requested. Thanks to our wide reporting tables, we don’t have to re-run long wide queries with many joins to get all the information needed.
- 🔄 Attribute syncs: we have built audiences and synced them to marketing tools and ad platforms to personalize every customer touchpoint. Email marketing, performance marketing and product teams all use the syncs and data pumps we have created to better target leads, reduce CAC and personalize communication with customers.
- ⁉️ Analysis and ad-hoc requests: finally, all the tools we have built allow us to quickly answer random questions like “how has retention improved?” with data. I constantly assist the founders with fundraising / investor material, the risk team with reporting and projections, and many others.
Being close to the numbers and the code base gave me the power to do more than just reporting and analysis: I have also been at the forefront of product management. Insights about usage/engagement, building MVPs, knowledge databases, building in-app data products, etc.
IV. Growing the Team
As Pawp continues to grow, it’s become clear that we need to expand our data team. To maintain the high quality of our data initiatives, we need to bring in new talent and expertise. So far, I’ve been wearing all hats: dataOps engineer, data engineer, analytics engineer, BI engineer, data analyst and data scientist. Now, specialization is needed.
At Pawp, we’re proud of the culture we’ve built. We believe that Pawp is a great place to work, and we’re committed to creating an inclusive and supportive environment that empowers our team members to do their best work.
Overall, we’re excited to be growing the data team and look forward to seeing the impact that new talent will have on our business.
V. Conclusion
We’re excited to bring in new talent and expertise to take our data initiatives to the next level. By growing the team, we can ensure that our data infrastructure remains scalable, accurate, and enables us to make data-driven decisions. By continuing to invest in data, we’re confident that we can be at the forefront of innovation in pet care.
Thank you for taking the time to read about my experience. We’re excited to continue our journey and are always on the lookout for new talent to join our team. If you’re interested in joining us or know someone who would be, please do not hesitate to reach out!
