Reflections on Quick Fixes in Data Engineering (Spoiler: it's Never Quick)
Lessons from a Data Engineer's Journey
I’ll set the scene.
It’s an average day. You’ve just wrapped up your morning stand-up, had a catch-up with your manager, and you have your plan for the day set out.
Let’s do this!
The plan: Do some morning checks, work on your project tasks, maybe grab a new Jira ticket — one that will be quick (an open and close case), hit a meeting or two, you know, a dead average day. You grab your coffee and get ready to go, but then your Slack pings. ‘Oh no,’ you think. An email pops up too, then Mr. Magoo comes past your desk. He has a ‘quick’ question — it’s never quick.
The alarms in your head start ringing.
Mr. Magoo likes all forms of communication. The three-prong attack is his strategy: Jira ticket, Slack message, email, and if you’re in the office, expect a visit too. There is no escape. The messages come all at the same time. He knows you’ve seen one of them.
You are trapped.
His request is normally signed and sealed, not with a kiss, but with a nice passive-aggressive sentence or two. Something like: ‘So-and-so, head of blah blah, needs this by the end of the day,’ or the classic, ‘People need this now.’
The Quick fix
A ‘quick fix’ comes in many disguises and always at the wrong time, or when you least expect it. They almost always start with something like ‘Do you have a minute?’, ‘I have a quick question’, ‘How hard would it be to…’, ‘What are you working on?’ or ‘Are you busy?’
Here’s the thing…
A quick fix is rarely quick, not in my experience anyway.
You are about to invest a great deal of time in helping this person. There is nothing quick about what you are going to do. Sure, it may well be quick to implement or execute, but it will be the gift that keeps on giving.
Remember, when you put that ‘quick’ fix into production, it isn’t coming out again anytime soon — trust me!
Don’t do it, here's why
Bad things happen when you take a casual approach to quick fixes.
❌ You are now the go-to person to maintain, oversee, and look after this little piece of brilliance. If it breaks, you need to sort it out — yes, you. If it works, you will be the person who ‘owns’ it. There is no upside to this. You will forever be the person who did the ‘fix,’ and you will be called to action again, and again, and again, for all sorts of temporary/ad hoc fixes.
❌ Your little fix will break. Maybe not this week, maybe not next month, but it will come back to bite you. This ‘fix’ will come back to haunt you like some relentless ghost, forever lurking in the shadows of your decisions, ready to remind you of the shortcuts taken and the corners cut. Quick fixes are ticking time bombs — period.
Solution
Be better than a quick fix.
Stand your ground. Do the right thing. Fix it once and for all.
This means thinking twice, taking a step back before doing anything.
Weigh the pros and cons (hint: there are no pros).
Ask yourself: Is this the right thing to be doing?
It might be a short-term win, but fixing something properly will pay off in the long run. You probably won’t be Mr. Nice Guy, but you know, and they know it too, fixing it properly is the right thing to do.
Doing this builds a stronger, more resilient pipeline, system, or process.
You’re also teaching people that you and the team are not going to jump and patch everything that breaks. You are a Data Engineer who values thoroughness and precision, ensuring each solution is not just a quick fix but a reliable and scalable one.
Final Thoughts
I've done my fair share of 'quick fixes' in my time. Sometimes there is no way around them, especially with the CEO breathing down your neck, but if you do it, make sure you at least document it and come back to fix it (you probably won't), but pretend you will.
Dealing with quick fixes or ad hoc requests is an art. Don't get me wrong, you need to weigh up the pros and cons, but you should never just jump in and do it - ever.
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