SSP Data GmbH · Technical Writing & Data Engineering Services
Enhance your impact with developer-centric articles. I help you reach a wider developer audience through high-quality writing that is genuine and practical, backed by two decades of data engineering expertise and technical authoring as SSP Data GmbH.
writing publicly since 2015 · full-time since 2024
Where AI Agents Belong in Data Engineering: The Correctness Layerfor Altimate AI · 2026
Context, Semantics, and Ontology: A Primer for the Agentic Erafor MotherDuck · 2026 · shared by dbt Labs staff
Why Coinbase and Pinterest Chose StarRocksfor Rill · 2026 · lakehouse-native joins at terabyte scale
Services
five ways to work together · open-source data engineering · developer audienceQuality over quantity, evergreen over short-term hits, developer-centric insights over hype, value over marketing. These are the principles behind everything below.
Technical Blog Writing
per article · 2–4 weeks · rate on requestDeeply crafted articles, hands-on and genuine, published on your blog under my name and promoted to my audience.
- Essays, guides and explainer pieces
- Deep research through private Vault, drafting & revision rounds
- Multi-platform (9+) promotion & reshared on ssp.sh
- Evergreen here to stay, SEO-optimized writing
Coaching & Architecture Audits
monthly retainer or day workshop · rate on requestEvaluate tools and frameworks with your team. Open-source first, vendor neutral. Get an audit for your data stack, or pick my brain.
- Architecture audits and OSS tool evaluations
- Modern data stack design reviews
- Team upskilling and PoC support
- Pool of hours, e.g. two days a month
Website Banner Sponsorship
A simple, unobtrusive text banner across my blog and second brain, reaching data engineers, note-takers and terminal enthusiasts daily. Inspired by Simon Willison's model.
PoDE Book Chapter Sponsorship
Exclusive sponsorship of a chapter in Patterns of Data Engineering. Your brand next to a bottom-up approach to data engineering, while keeping the book free for everyone.
Sponsoring in detail: audience, packages, how it looks, past examples →
Haven't found your service?
Tell me what you need in the short form, or write me. A few lines are enough; I read and answer every message myself, usually within two working days.
See for yourself
each card links to pieces of my clients' work · all my work is public, check it first
The Art of Writing about Data Engineering
Joe Reis, author of Fundamentals of Data Engineering, and I talk for an hour about craft, second brains and writing for developers.
Clients & sponsors
18 clients and sponsors since 2023 · dedicated articles list →About
who writes this
Simon Späti
I'm a dad and family person from Biel with over twenty years in data engineering, from BI and data warehousing at Hewlett-Packard, Rohde & Schwarz and Satair/Airbus to open-source data engineering at Airbyte. In 2024, I turned the writing I had done on the side since 2015 into my job.
I'm the author of ssp.sh, curator of the Data Engineering Vault, and I'm writing a living book on Patterns of Data Engineering. My work has been featured on Hacker News, Towards Data Science, TLDR, freeCodeCamp, I've been a top writer on Quora and listed among the top 25 data engineering creators. Most of what I learn ends up in my public second brain. I write everything in Markdown, with Obsidian and Neovim.
More about me → · How I work → · Now page →Content that compounds
no paid promotion, everything is organicNotes become articles, articles become the book chapters. Social shares create a feedback loop and feeds back into the notes. Everything I publish comes out of my notes.
Testimonials
from clients, authors and readers · uneditedSimon is one of my favorite tech writers. He's one of the few tech writers whose work I consistently enjoy. He puts a lot of thought into his writing.
We love working with you, and your content has shown great results. Really appreciate the depth of your writing for the individual blog posts as well as discovery for the newsletter.
I've been trying to build my own mental model, and Simon Späti is who finally made most of it click for me.
By far the best article I've read in the last few weeks.
An important reference both in his pedagogical capacity, in the ease with which he synthesizes ideas and in how well he writes, with an adequate mixture of rigor and explanatory clarity.
The kind of knowledge that big corporations engage highly paid advisory firms for.
Such good content. Not just the free code and tutorial, but the quality and layout of the writing with visuals. 10/10.
Scrolling through my feed I figured this was going to be more AI slop to downvote. Then I saw who posted it and knew it wasn't crap.
Milestones
2003 → today · career, writing, reach- Computer science apprenticeship, Bern
- Bought sspaeti.com (2004)
- Hewlett-Packard: first data warehouse work
- BI consultant for clients in CH, DE, AT and DK
- First data article published (2015)
- Satair / Airbus, Copenhagen: data engineer
- Rohde & Schwarz: data platform behind new R&D products
- Writing for Towards Data Science, freeCodeCamp, Hackernoon
- Quora top writer in data engineering (2020)
- Airbyte, the San Francisco unicorn: data engineer and writer
- Top 25 data engineering creators on LinkedIn (Databand)
- Databricks TechTalk with Denny Lee
- Patterns of Data Engineering book launched, Hacker News front page
- Data Engineering Vault: 1,000+ connected terms
- Registered ssp.sh, 10K LinkedIn followers
- Founded SSP Data GmbH, writing full-time
- First clients: MotherDuck, Rill, Dagster, Cube
- 9× Hacker News front page
- Joe Reis podcast on writing about data engineering
- Talks at Google Zürich and Swiss Digital Days
- 927K Google impressions in 28 days
- 16+ clients, 39K followers, followed by Derek Sivers & DHH
Talks & podcasts
ten appearances · all with video, slides and notes →Swiss Digital Days · BFH & Stadtbibliothek Bieltalk · video · slides
Applied AI, Data & Analytics Meetup · Google Zürichtalk · video · slides
Let's Talk AI · with Thomas Bustospodcast · video
Frequently asked
anything else: simon@ssp.shFree resources
nine years of public work, no paywallBesides the paid services, there is a wealth of free resources if you want to follow along. Subscribe to the newsletter, or explore:
- Data Engineering Blog: Insights and perspectives from 20+ years in the field.
- Data Engineering Vault: A curated network of 1000+ interconnected terms, part of my Second Brain. Explore this Digital Garden of data engineering concepts.
- Patterns of Data Engineering Book: A living online book that evolves with your feedback. Discover how convergent evolution shapes our field and universal design patterns across the Data Engineering Lifecycle.
All articles written for clients are reshared on my page if wanted, see dedicated blog articles →
Interested in enhancing your developer-centric content strategy? Get my free checklist on how I increase reach and enhance developer-centric content: actionable insights, practical tips, and proven strategies from my 20+ years of experience.
Reach & audience
all platforms · live at stats.ssp.sh →Last updated: June 23, 2026
Social Media Sponsoring
one launch · 9 channels · rate on requestOne post about your release or product, in my words, after using it. Shared across LinkedIn, X, Bluesky, Substack, Mastodon, Threads, DailyDev & Reddit.