From Weeks to Minutes: how DBT + Airflow Reshape the Analyst’s Work and Speed Up Development Process

This talk presents a case study on overcoming a major bottleneck in analytical product development: the lengthy and complex process of moving logic from prototype to production. The integration of DBT and Airflow has become more than just a technical automation solution, but as a catalyst for profound transformation of processes and roles, cutting Time-to-Market (TTM) from weeks to minutes. At the centre of this transformation are the Systems Analysts. We will explore in detail how their role has shifted: moving the focus from coordinating manual transfers to designing self-service processes that accelerate development, deeply defining business logic and data quality requirements in DBT, establishing development standards (including tools like dag-factory and Cosmos), and managing “living” documentation.

Keywords: Systems Analyst, Time-to-Market (TTM), DBT, Airflow, Self-Service Analytics, Pipeline Automation, Requirements Management, Data Quality, Development Processes.