Volume 1 of The Data Platform Interview Bible
Modern Data Engineering for Delivery Leaders
The Delivery Manager and TPM Field Guide to Cloud Data Platforms, Production Operations, Stakeholder Leadership and Interview Success
The next ten minutes
The dashboard is stale, the CFO is asking why, and three teams each think another team is investigating. What do you do?
Data programs rarely fail because of code. They fail because nobody owned the handoff between teams, the incident had no clear lead, the cloud bill grew without anyone explaining it, or an executive heard bad news from the wrong person.
If you are accountable for delivery, you need to understand the platform well enough to see these failures coming and stop them. You don't need to write a line of PySpark.
What you will learn
Eight skills that keep a data program on track.
Trace data from source to boardroom
Ingestion through lake, compute, warehouse and BI: who owns each layer, and how one failure spreads.
Run production like a pro
Severity models, Sev-1 playbooks, RCA templates and executive update formats.
Measure what matters
SLAs vs SLOs vs SLIs, KPIs that drive decisions, and cloud cost control without hurting service.
Prove data quality
Reconciliation rules, quarantining bad records, and when to stop a pipeline.
Speak the language of the technology
Azure Data Factory, ADLS and medallion architecture, Databricks, Snowflake, Power BI, security and compliance, multi-cloud migration.
Each with a PM Quick-Fire Vocabulary and Red Flags page.
Lead stakeholders with confidence
Conflicting priorities, delay messages, vendor dependencies and capacity trade-offs.
Win the interview
Model STAR answers, executive talking points and the story-bank method.
Every chapter ends with Executive Interview Readiness and its top 10 questions.
Plan your career
How scope and judgment grow from Delivery Manager to Program Leader.
Built to be used, not just read.
Same nine-part structure
Every chapter follows it, so you always know where to look.
Callout boxes
- Critical concepts
- Interview tips
- Common delivery failures
- Success behaviors
- Executive insights
Case studies and checklists
Ready for you to adapt to your own programs.
Jargon-light
Practical writing with no filler.
Whether you are preparing for your first data-platform role or your next senior panel, this guide helps you answer one question: “Can this person keep a complex data program on track and keep the business's trust?”
The book at a glance
- Published
- 22 Oct 2026
- Length Kindle print length
- 134 pages
- Language
- English
- Kindle Amazon.in · free with Kindle Unlimited
- ₹499
- Paperback Amazon.com · ISBN 9798163866137
- 6x9 in
Indian paperback coming soon.
About the author
Piyush Asthana
Piyush Asthana is a delivery leader and PMP-certified program manager who has spent his career keeping complex technology programs on track, and keeping the business's trust while doing it.
He has worked as a Scrum Master, Technical Program Manager and Delivery Manager across enterprise IT, including at LTIMindtree, and today leads delivery governance for data and analytics programs at a global consultancy.
He writes for the people accountable for delivery: practical, jargon-light field guides built from real incidents, escalations and interview panels. He is an active member of the PMI community in Pune and Mumbai, and lives in Pune, India.
Keep your next data program on track.
Kindle ₹499 or free on Kindle Unlimited. Paperback on Amazon.com.