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Core Python for Data Engineers

Progress0/25
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Getting Started

  • What is data engineering?10m
  • Why Python for data engineers?8m

Foundations

  • Variables, types & type hints8m
  • DE data structures12m

Flow, functions & files

  • Control flow & error handling10m
  • Functions, modules & imports10m
  • Strings and text10m
  • File I/O & data formats12m
  • Working with JSON10m

APIs, streams & objectsPreview

  • Working with REST APIs12m
  • Iterators & generators (yield)Free12m
  • OOP for pipeline engineering12m

Time & validation

  • Working with dates & timestamps10m
  • Data validation with Pydantic12m

Text & PatternsPreview

  • Regular expressions for logsFree12m
  • String encoding & unicode gotchas12m

Reliable Pipelines

  • Logging instead of print-debugging12m
  • Context managers & resource cleanup10m
  • Retries, backoff, and idempotency14m
  • Concurrency, asyncio, and the GIL14m

Packaging & Config

  • Config & secrets management10m
  • Dependency management & pinning10m
  • Building a pipeline CLI12m

Testing & Capstone

  • Unit testing data transforms12m
  • Capstone: ingest script end to end18m
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  1. Learn
  2. Core Python for Data Engineers
  3. Time & validation
  4. Working with dates & timestamps

Lesson 13 of 25 · Case study

Working with dates & timestamps

pythonintermediate10 min

Overview

Parse ISO timestamps in UTC and measure delay in hours.

Module: Time & validation

This section walks through the idea with a short example, then the trade-offs you should mention in an interview.

In practice you start from the raw rows, apply the transform step by step, and check the shape of the result before you move on.

A common mistake is to jump straight to the final query without naming the grain or the join keys that keep the result correct.

Once the core path works, you harden it for nulls, duplicates, and late data so the pipeline stays reliable under load.

The Pro write-up covers the full explanation, worked examples, and the code you can run in the studio.

# Locked example
result = transform(frame)
print(result.head())

This lesson requires Pro

This lesson is part of Time & validation. Pro opens the full lesson and the exercises.

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