Testing Like We Mean It: Bringing Software‑Grade Discipline to Data Engineering

I like to say that the first product of a data team isn’t a table or a dashboard—it’s trust. Trust is built the same way in data as it is in software: through tests that catch regressions, encode intent, and make change safe. If pipelines are code, then they deserve the same rigor as code. That means unit tests you can run in seconds, integration tests that respect the messy edges of reality, comprehensive tests that exercise the platform end‑to‑end, and user acceptance testing that proves the system answers the questions people actually have. Done well, this isn’t busywork; it’s the backbone of reliability and a pillar of governance.

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