ETL Pipelines: Architecture, Examples, and Where They Break

This post details the architecture, examples, and failure points of ETL pipelines, covering Extract, Transform, and Load stages. It contrasts ETL with ELT and broader data pipelines, provides five detailed examples (e-commerce, financial reporting, ML feature engineering, self-serve analytics, real-time inventory), and discusses processing modes (batch, streaming, CDC). It also touches on common ETL tools and the impact of AI on ETL pipelines.