Apache Spark NYC Meetup February 2026
We’re excited to kick off our first Spark meetup of 2026 with an in-person event right here in New York City.
Join us for an evening of practical technical sessions, real-world lessons from the field, and open discussions around how teams are deploying and optimizing Spark in production today.
It’s a great chance to hear from experienced practitioners, exchange ideas, and connect with others building large-scale data platforms.
Whether you’re deep into Spark already or just getting started, this meetup is a great way to start the year with the local Spark community.
🔔 Seats are limited, RSVP soon to secure your spot!
Agenda:
5:30 PM – Mingling, name tags, pizzas & beers
6:00 PM – Meetup begins
• Kickoff, intros, and logistics
•Meni Shmueli - Co-founder & CEO at DataFlint, "Distributed Computing Unpacked."
Distributed computing, especially with Apache Spark, can feel unnecessarily complex. But under the hood, it's a beautiful system of trade-offs. In this talk, we will walk through how distributed engines optimize for speed, fault tolerance, and scalability, and how understanding these mechanics can help you fix real-world performance issues in your Spark jobs.
• Andrzej Neścior - Cloud & Data Platform Engineer at Nielsen, ״Big Data FinOps Applied? ״
Deep dive into building cost-efficient data platforms on AWS. We will discuss best practices for using Savings Plans, handling Spot interruptions on Kubernetes, and automating cost management to maximize ROI for large-scale Spark workloads.
7:30 PM – Networking and mingling
8:00 PM – Wrap it up