Anna-Maria Wykes

linkedin.com/in/anna-maria-wykes-31939454/recent-activity/posts

Anna is a veteran software and data engineer as well as a Microsoft AI MVP, boasting over 18 years of experience. She has undertaken various projects, including real-time analytics with Scala and Kafka, constructing Data Lakes with Spark, and applying engineering to Data Science. Anna currently serves as a RSA (Resident Solution Architect) and consultant, contributing to the development of Databricks and Neueda's data engineering and AI practice. With a genuine passion for data, she endeavors to bridge the gap between Software Development and Data Science. Anna's other areas of interest include DevOps (DataOps, MLOps, LLMOps), Agile methodologies, and organizing or participating in local Code Clubs.

Proposed Sessions for 2026

MCP Unleashed From “Huh?” to “Heck Yeah!” Building Smarter AI Knowledge Bases

Learn how the Model Context Protocol (MCP) is transforming AI integration. This beginner-friendly session introduces the core concepts and architecture of MCP, showing how it standardizes communication between AI models and applications. You’ll explore real use cases, understand why MCP matters, and get hands-on experience by building your first MCP server. Perfect for anyone looking to create smarter, more interoperable AI-powered tools.

Migrating the Mammoth

Based on a real enterprise case, this session details how a world-leading tech company modernized a massive, highly fragmented data platform—migrating RC, ORC, Parquet, and Avro datasets to Delta Lake as part of a multi-petabyte transformation. Attendees will learn how the team designed the architecture, automation framework, and migration tooling needed to orchestrate thousands of pipelines, validate data at scale, and handle complex edge cases such as multi-format tables, massive (>50 TB) datasets, and long-running legacy workloads. Discover the patterns, challenges, and hard-earned lessons required to execute a migration of this magnitude successfully.

What we Learned Migrating a Financial Giant from Hudi to Delta (and Why Iceberg was in the Mix)

A practical, vendor-neutral comparison of Iceberg, Delta Lake, and Hudi—grounded in real-world experience migrating a large investment-industry platform from Hudi to Delta. This session explores key architectural differences, the growing Iceberg–Delta race, and the challenges organizations face when moving off Hudi at scale.

From “Who Wrote This ETL?” to Databricks, Claude Saves the Day via Microsoft Foundry

Anthropic’s Claude is now available in Microsoft Foundry—opening new possibilities for enterprise data modernization. This session shares real-world experience using Claude to build intelligent agents that migrate legacy open-source Spark ETL pipelines to Databricks. We discuss how an approach originally developed using Claude via AWS can now be applied within Microsoft Foundry, along with practical lessons learned from production implementations.

Getting Started with Claude in Microsoft Foundry

Anthropic’s Claude—originally accessed by many teams through AWS—is now available in Microsoft Foundry, making it easier to build and experiment with powerful AI models directly within the Microsoft ecosystem. This zero-to-hero session introduces both Microsoft Foundry and Claude, and shows how to get started quickly. We’ll cover what Microsoft Foundry is, the core capabilities of Claude, and its key strengths and limitations. Through simple, hands-on examples, you’ll learn how to access Claude in Foundry, write effective prompts, and integrate it into basic workflows. By the end of the session, attendees will have a clear understanding of how to use Claude in Microsoft Foundry and the confidence to start building right away.

Previous Sessions

How to Run Code Clubs for Neurodiverse Children

Code Clubs offer an amazing opportunity to introduce our next generation to coding, with simple brightly colored drag-and-drop tooling to get them started, we are successfully inspiring many to join the tech industry. In this session I want to talk you through my journey setting up a Code Club for neurodiverse children, what I found worked, and what doesn’t. I hope that from this session you will be inspired to follow the same path I have, using your amazing tech experience to empower some of the most vulnerable children, enabling them to become inspired not just by coding, but the tech industry itself.

Introduction to the wonders of Azure DevOps

Azure DevOps is the leading deployment tool for build and release solutions end to end. It helps you plan your Agile project, manages Git code, and deploys solutions using Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) pipelines. In this session we will cover some of the core components of Azure DevOps and show you how to implement a secure deployment pipeline, using unit tests and gating with your CI builds and CD releases.

Automate the deployment of Databricks components using Terraform

Introduction into Terraform, Databricks provider and steps required to build an automated solution to provision Databricks workspace and resources into Azure cloud platform using Terraform.

So you want to be a Data Engineer?

An introduction to becoming a Data Engineer, Anna, Mikey and Ust will introduce the technology stack, tools and development skills needed for data engineering and show you how and where to go to learn them. We'll also show you how the skills you already have can kickstart your journey to becoming a Data Engineer.

Scala for Big Data the Big Picture

An opportunity to explore Scala, and why it is truly a “Data Engineers language”. Using Azure Functions, Data Factory, Azure Data Lake Gen2 and Databricks the basics will be explored, followed by real world examples