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Analytics engineering, data quality and governance · Proficient · Lesson 70 of 99 · 19 min video, then about 1 hour of practice
Data contracts with upstream teams
After this you can explain what a data contract is and negotiate one with the team that produces the data your models depend on.
Why it matters
Most analytics breakages start upstream: an engineer renames a column or changes what a status means, and nobody tells the data team. A data contract is an explicit agreement about schema, semantics, quality and change notice between producer and consumer. Even an informal one (a shared document and a Slack channel for changes) prevents a large share of incidents.
How to use this resource
Chad Sanderson, who popularised the idea, on what data contracts are and why they matter.