Bits on Disk

Bits on Disk is the freelance data engineering business of Alex Rasmussen, who works with startups and smaller companies on their data infrastructure. Since 2019 he has mostly been embedded with engineering teams at startups from seed to late stage, building new data systems and repairing struggling ones.

What Bits on Disk offers

• Fractional remote data engineer — senior data engineering on a part-time basis for teams that cannot yet hire or whose engineers are stretched.
• Custom data infrastructure — data systems a small team can maintain and extend later.
• Advisory consulting — guidance through a crowded data tooling market, whether building new or fixing an existing system.
• Team and vendor support — help setting a data engineering roadmap, interviewing engineers and negotiating with vendors.

Who it works with

Clients are startups and SMBs; Quizlet is one named client, where the work kept data science and analytics pipelines running and introduced dbt.

Key facts

• Working as: a freelance practice since 2019
• Education: doctorate in computer science from UC San Diego, undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley
• Background: early employee at several fast-growing startups, in roles from engineer to executive