​Can you achieve sub second queries with Apache Iceberg?

​Query performance issues in Apache Iceberg aren’t always about the query engine or compute size. In many cases, the real bottleneck starts much earlier - at the write layer.

​In this webinar, we’ll break down how writer-side decisions directly impact query performance, and why even well-configured Iceberg tables can still be slow if the data isn’t written correctly.

​Speakers

​John Kennedy / Product Engineering / Firebolt - the cloud data warehouse for sub-second analytics.

Previously Head of Databases at Aiven, he owned P&L for 60% of company ARR across 11 database products and led M&A initiatives including the EverSQL acquisition. His career spans leadership roles at Neo4j, Cloudera, and Verizon Digital Media Services. John holds an MBA from the Open University and a BEng in Rocket Science from Southampton.

​​Yuval Yogev / Co-founder & CTO, Ryft

​​Yuval Yogev is the Co-founder and CTO of Ryft, where he leads the development of real-time analytics infrastructure built on top of Apache Iceberg and modern data lakehouse technologies.

Ryft's Blog: https://www.ryft.io/blog
Ryft's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ryft/

​Based on our recent blog post, this session will cover:

• ​Common write patterns that lead to slow Iceberg queries

• ​The small files problem and why it still matters

• ​How file sizing, compression, and layout affect scan efficiency

• ​Practical writer optimizations that improve performance without changing your query engine

​The webinar will be led by speakers from Ryft and Firebolt, who will walk through real examples, explain what goes wrong in practice, and share concrete recommendations you can apply right away.

​If you’re working with Apache Iceberg and want faster, more predictable query performance, this session is for you.