Paving a Data Highway with Kafka Connect ft. Liz Bennett

The Stitch Fix team benefits from a centralized data integration platform at scale using Apache Kafka and Kafka Connect. Liz Bennett (Software Engineer, Confluent) got to play a key role building their real-time data streaming infrastructure. Liz explains how she implemented Apache Kafka® at Stitch Fix, her previous employer, where she successfully introduced Kafka first through a Kafka hackathon and then by pitching it to the management team. 

Her first piece of advice? Give it a cool name like The Data Highway. As part of the process, she prepared a detailed document proposing a Kafka roadmap, which eventually landed her in a meeting with management on how they would successfully integrate the product (spoiler: it worked!). 

If you’re curious about the pros and cons of Kafka Connect, the self-service aspect, how it does with scaling, metrics, helping data scientists, and more, this is your episode! You’ll also get to hear what Liz thinks her biggest win with Kafka has been.