Raw Data with Rob Collie7 Mar 2023

Put Some Adventure On Your Taco, w/ Dan Battagin

Today's guest is Dan Battagin, a former program manager for Microsoft and the genius behind Adventure Taco! Dan has an impressive track record as the former lead developer of Microsoft's Power Query as well as experience with multiple other software programs. We're excited to have him on the show, especially since he only agreed to appear in order to learn about Rob's video background. But once the conversation gets going, you will realize that Dan has a wealth of expertise in data cleansing and transformation that we can all learn from.

As the conversation progresses, we also get a glimpse into Microsoft's hiring practices of the past. Remember those brain teasers and psychological questions that used to be all the rage? We discuss how these inane questions often resulted in great candidates being passed up, simply because they didn't fit into the expected answer patterns. Fortunately, times have changed and we get to hear the story of how Rob helped keep Dan on at Microsoft after his initial internship.

In addition, Dan brings with him stories of his internship at Microsoft and the stories of programs ending before their time. And, as frequently happens, the conversation takes a turn to DAX and unsurprisingly, Dan is another former Microsoft manager who is not a well-versed DAX user. As Rob points out, DAX is the most accessible language to come out of Microsoft which leads us to question why so few former employees embrace the magic.

All this and a few Lego and Age of Empire references you won't want to miss. And don't forget, if you enjoyed this episode be sure to leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform.

Also on this episode:

Brain Teasers for your next interview prep

Age of Empires

Ways to Fix Excel Not Recognizing Date Format

Adventure Taco

Fantasy Football

DAX Functions

Power Pivot and Power BI: The Excel User's Guide to DAX

Soda Machine Brain Teaser

12 Men on an Island Brain Teaser

LEGO Modular Buildings

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