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Data platform · Quality & Contracts

Observability for data

Hardplatform-17
observabilitymonitoringlineageanomalies

Question

What does data observability mean on a platform?

Solution

Data observability is continuous monitoring of whether data systems are healthy: freshness, volume, distribution, schema, lineage, and downstream impact.

Think of it as APM, but for tables and pipelines.

checks over time:
  row_count sudden drop?
  null_rate on email spiked?
  schema changed unexpectedly?
  dashboard SLA breached?

Practical stack pieces

  • Pipeline metadata (Airflow/dbt run results)
  • Table anomaly monitors
  • Lineage to find blast radius
  • On-call runbooks

Interview tip: List the pillars (freshness, volume, schema, distribution, lineage), then give one incident story shape: detect → triage lineage → fix → backfill.

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