How two phData people built community authority
Asked by the founder on 2026-09-27, as part of the credibility thread (goal: help phData sales; see memory project_credibility_for_phdata_sales).
Dakota Kelley. His title is Principal Solutions Architect in phData's 2025 post and "Director, Data Engineering @ phData" on LinkedIn. He won a 2023 dbt Community Award and was nominated for dbt Ambassador of the Year in 2025. His niche is dbt on Snowflake at enterprise scale. His channels:
- about 9 phData blog posts in his first year
- Coalesce talks in 2022 and 2023
- getdbt.com guest posts
- webinars and playbooks
phData amplified him heavily. Sources:
- https://www.phdata.io/blog/phdata-awarded-dbt-labs-2025-partner-of-the-year/ (verified)
- https://web.archive.org/web/2025/https://docs.getdbt.com/community/spotlight/dakota-kelley
- https://www.phdata.io/blog/beyond-the-data-dakota-kelley-sr-data-engineer/
A Snowflake Data Superhero status for Kelley is NOT confirmed.
Bruno Souza de Lima. Lead Data Engineer at phData. He won a dbt Community Award three years in a row (dbt Summit bio, verified) and was nominated for Organizer of the Year in 2025. His channels:
- daily answers in dbt Slack and the dbt forum
- a numbered "dbt tip of the day" LinkedIn series (#48 by July 2023)
- Medium posts
- dbt meetups in Brazil
- teaching through his own business, DataGym, while at phData (phData 2025 post)
In his own account, the community work led to the phData offer. Sources:
- https://www.getdbt.com/dbt-summit/speakers/bruno-lima (verified)
- https://web.archive.org/web/2024/https://docs.getdbt.com/community/spotlight/bruno-de-lima
Common pattern (inferred).
- One tool's community, not "data" broadly.
- Public, scheduled helping (Slack answers, numbered series).
- A conference talk.
- Employer amplification.
- Recognition came as an individual contributor, within 1-2 years.
Program facts.
- Snowflake Data Superheroes: applications reopen in November 2026, and nominations are accepted year-round. The criteria are blogs, videos, podcasts, forums, user groups, speaking, Snowflake expertise and certifications, and supporting other members (https://www.snowflake.com/en/data-superheroes/, verified 2026-09-27).
- Databricks MVP: nomination only, with a 1-year term (https://www.databricks.com/discover/mvps).
Transfer (Ray's recommendation, sent 2026-09-27 15:2x): make Snowflake's agent stack (Cortex / Snowflake Intelligence) his "dbt". It ties to the GES-C02 cert, to VP-of-Data buyers, and to phData as a Snowflake partner, with the November Superhero application as the target. The alternative is the Claude/Anthropic ecosystem. "Sweaty agents" could name a numbered LinkedIn series.
Snowflake Data Superheroes detail (added 2026-09-27 15:4x)
2026 class. 125 people from 25 countries. Source: https://cxotoday.com/media-coverage/snowflake-names-fifteen-india-data-leaders-to-the-2026-data-superheroes/ (verified). The 39 new / 86 returning split comes from the research subagent and was not verified by Ray.
Role mix and phData representation. From the directory scrape (subagent): about half work at consultancies or partners and about a third are customers. Priya Chauhan (Sr. Data Engineer) is the only phData Superhero on the current directory (https://www.snowflake.com/en/data-superheroes/, subagent Playwright scrape).
Last cycle's rules, per the Snowflake Medium post "Adopting the mindset of a Data Superhero" (403 to Ray, unverified).
- Contribution window: Dec 1 to Nov 30.
- Four categories: content, code and open source, community, and events.
- "Quality and impact matter more than volume."
AI niche. Several AI-leaning Superheroes already exist. Nobody clearly owns hands-on Cortex Agents in production (inferred).
Calibration. The November 2026 application is a stretch, since the contribution window is the prior year. The realistic target is the Nov 2027 cycle. Ray corrected his earlier "concrete target" framing to the founder.