Series · Books for Data Engineers
Data Modeling for Data Engineers
One Subscription Business, Modeled Four Ways — 3NF, Star, Vault, and One Big Table
For the senior data engineer who can build any pipeline but wants the modeling judgment — which shape of data survives five years of schema change, and which quietly rots.
10 chapters · planned · tool-agnostic · one domain modeled four ways
What you'll build
One subscription-commerce business — customers, plans, subscriptions, invoices, and usage events — modeled four complete ways across the book, so every trade-off is visible on the same data.
Conceptual
Entities and the business rules: what a subscription actually is.
Logical
Four shapes of the same truth: 3NF, star, vault, one big table.
Physical
Keys, partitions, and contracts on a real warehouse.
This is for you if
- ✓You've inherited a warehouse where every table is someone's quick fix, and you're the one fixing it.
- ✓You want to compare 3NF, star, Data Vault, and One Big Table on the same domain, honestly.
- ✓You need modeling arguments that persuade engineers, not just diagrams that pass review.
Not for you if
- —You're looking for a first introduction to databases or SQL.
- —You want a tool tutorial — the book uses SQL and diagrams, not a specific platform.
- —You need OLTP application schema design — this book models for analytics.
Sample
Be first to read it
Free sample chapters go up here the day writing starts.
Email signup opens soon. Until then, write to vincent@yzcworks.com.
Contents & progress
Production ledger
The planned chapter list — statuses go live when writing starts.
| Ch | Title | Status | Covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Why Modeling Still Matters | Planned | The lakehouse didn't kill modeling — it moved the cost of skipping it downstream. |
| 02 | Conceptual → Logical → Physical | Planned | The three-layer discipline, and the subscription domain we'll model all book. |
| 03 | Normalization & 3NF | Planned | Functional dependencies without the lecture, where 3NF still earns its keep. |
| 04 | Dimensional Modeling | Planned | Facts, dimensions, grain declarations, conformed dimensions across marts. |
| 05 | Slowly Changing Dimensions | Planned | SCD types that matter in practice, bitemporal pitfalls, late-arriving data. |
| 06 | Data Vault 2.0 | Planned | Hubs, links, satellites — and the honest math on when the overhead pays off. |
| 07 | One Big Table & Wide Denormalization | Planned | When OBT is the right answer, and the schema-drift bill that comes with it. |
| 08 | Modeling for the Lakehouse | Planned | Medallion layers meet dimensional design; file formats as physical modeling. |
| 09 | Semantic Layers & Metrics | Planned | Metric definitions as the new conformance layer, headless BI trade-offs. |
| 10 | Evolution & Governance | Planned | Schema change management, data contracts, versioning models without downtime. |
Pricing
Pricing
Not yet available for purchase
Sales open when the book is finished. Waitlist subscribers get 30% off during launch week.
Standard Edition
$19.90 USD, one-time
The complete book and everything that ships with it.
- —PDF + ePub + web (HTML) edition
- —Templates & checklists pack
- —Prompt pack for AI-assisted data-modeling work
- —Free updates within this major version
Purchase not yet open
Join the waitlistHow delivery works
- 01Checkout is handled by Lemon Squeezy, which acts as the merchant of record and handles sales tax and VAT.
- 02Right after payment you get a receipt email with download links for every file. The web edition is a zipped HTML folder you open in any browser. The same files stay available from your Lemon Squeezy order page.
- 03The case-study code is a separate public repository under the MIT license, free for everyone. It opens at launch.
- 04Updates within this major version are uploaded to the same order, so you download them from the same place.
Buying for a team? Email vincent@yzcworks.com for a team licence. See the refund policy and terms.
Proof
Every example runs — check for yourself
The full case-study project will be a public, runnable repository under the MIT license. It opens at launch.
https://github.com/vincentyin-dataVincent Yin
Senior Data Engineer
Vincent Yin is a senior data engineer with 18 years building data platforms across insurance and finance — enterprise data lakes, lakehouse migrations, dbt-modeled warehouses, and most recently production AI applications on the data stack. This series distills the judgment calls — not the syntax — that separate working pipelines from production-grade ones.
Refund policy & FAQ
30-day, no questions asked. Read the full policy.
Join the waitlist
Email signup opens soon. Until then, write to vincent@yzcworks.com.