Technical Talks

Hiren Patel currently heads Product Management at Firebolt, where he's revolutionizing data-intensive analytics. With a passion for building high-efficiency, low-latency solutions, he empowers organizations to scale analytics faster and more cost-effectively while keeping data expenses under control. Before Firebolt, Hiren spent over 12 years at Microsoft optimizing Cosmos, an exabyte-scale distributed compute platform. His work on the SCOPE compiler, optimizer, and scheduler helped scale petabyte computations while driving down operational costs by 10% annually. Hiren is a University of Waterloo graduate and over his career has combined exceptional technical expertise in distributed systems with strategic product thinking.

Cole Bowden is a Developer Advocate at Firebolt who brings a unique blend of technical know-how and community building to the data warehouse space. After working as a software engineer at Facebook and as a release manager at Starburst, he now helps others understand complex data technologies. Cole balances his tech career with a long-running role managing esports communities, drawing on his unconventional background combining an English degree from Vanderbilt with a Sport Management Master's from Michigan. Based in Seattle, he's currently gearing up for product announcements while speaking at industry events about data architectures like Iceberg, bringing both technical depth and clear communication to everything he does.