Hey, I’m Ben 👋
So here’s the thing — I spent over a decade making extreme sports documentaries and supervising post-production, then somehow ended up running live broadcast infrastructure in Monaco.
And now I’m learning data engineering.
Makes total sense, right?
What I Actually Do
I keep linear television on the air. Live encoding pipelines, distributed broadcast infrastructure, the kind of systems where “it’ll probably be fine” is not an acceptable answer.
Before that: 10+ years of cameras, deadlines, and the controlled chaos of TV production.
Turns out, broadcast infrastructure is basically ETL in disguise. You’re moving data (video streams, metadata, logs), automating workflows (transcoding, archiving, monitoring), and solving for scale — because live TV doesn’t buffer. 🤷♂️
Nobody tells you that when you’re carrying a camera up a mountain.
Why Data Engineering
I’ve been doing the concepts for years without the vocabulary.
So now I’m formalizing it: Python, SQL, proper data engineering practices. Same problems I’ve always solved, but with better tools and a clearer mental model of what’s actually happening under the hood.
Plus, honestly? It’s just fun to finally understand the why instead of just keeping things running.
The Stack
Learning right now:
- Python (fundamentals → pandas → automation)
- SQL (queries, optimization, data modeling)
- Git (yes, properly — not just
git push --forceand pray) - Data pipelines (cleaning, wrangling, ETL)
Already in the toolkit:
- VMware/vSphere infrastructure
- Docker, Linux, networking
- Broadcast systems (all the weird ones)
- Keeping live systems alive at 3am when everything breaks at once
What Drives Me
Systems thinking — How pieces fit together matters more than any individual tool.
Automation — If you do it twice, you should automate it. If you do it once, you should probably still automate it.
Learning by doing — Projects beat tutorials every time. You learn what actually breaks in production.
Reliability — “It usually works” is not a success metric. It’s an accident waiting to happen.
Find Me Here
- GitHub: BenWaraiotoko
- Email: bwonews@proton.me
- LinkedIn: Ben Waraiotoko
This site runs on Quartz v4 with Kanagawa colors. Inspired by ssp.sh.