Adrian Brudaru studied economics in Romania before concluding that the factual side of the field suited him better. He moved to Berlin at 25 and started as a business analyst. At 30, tired of startup life, he tried a corporation, quickly found it lacked the challenge he wanted, and turned to freelancing as a way to postpone the decision. That detour became a career: he spent the next five years as an independent data engineering consultant and never looked back.

Today, Adrian is a co-founder of a company in the data space that develops open source tooling, releasing the kind of tools practitioners actually use themselves. His technical work centers on data pipelines, including declarative data loading for Python developers dealing with volatile schemas, with the broader mission of democratising data engineering.

Adrian shares what he learns along the way through talks and writing on modern data engineering: choosing between Iceberg and Delta Lake for lakehouse architectures, integrating AI into ETL and ELT workflows, and pragmatic advice on pricing, client acquisition, and building a sustainable freelance or product business in data.