Alex Merced

amdatalakehouse.substack.com

Alex Merced is Head of DevRel for Dremio and co-author of "Apache Iceberg: The definitive guide" from O'reilly and has worked as a developer and instructor for companies like GenEd Systems, Crossfield Digital, CampusGuard and General Assembly. Alex is passionate about technology and has put out tech content on outlets such as blogs, videos and his podcasts Datanation and Web Dev 101. Alex Merced has contributed a variety of libraries in the Javascript & Python worlds including SencilloDB, CoquitoJS, dremio-simple-query and more.

Proposed Sessions for 2026

Apache Iceberg Data Analytics with Python

In this talk, we’ll explore how to unlock the full potential of Iceberg for data analytics in Python. From working with PyIceberg for low-level Iceberg table operations to leveraging Apache Polaris for catalog management, we’ll cover the essential tools and libraries available for Python users.

SQL For Everything: Structure, Unstructured, SQLServer, Onelake

Finally, the talk connects these ideas to the rise of agentic analytics, where both humans and AI agents rely on SQL as a shared reasoning layer over trusted enterprise data. Attendees will leave with a clear understanding of how “SQL for Everything” becomes a practical foundation for AI-ready analytics, not a distant future concept.