Leeds Databricks Meet Up

The Leeds Databricks Meet-up returns on Wednesday 10 June 2026 at Banyan Bar & Kitchen, City Square, with an evening focused on AI agents in the real world. Three connected talks cover the full arc: building enterprise agents with Databricks tooling, understanding what makes agents durable in production, and measuring whether they are actually working once deployed.

The first session looks at Genie Code, Databricks' autonomous AI partner for data engineering, with Ash Sultan (Senior Specialist Architect at Databricks) walking through how it fits into both business-user and technical workflows. Luke Thorp (Solutions Architect, Databricks) follows with a talk framed around what he calls Agentic Darwinism — the argument that as building agents becomes cheap, the real differentiator is fitness: reliability, cost, governance and measurable value. The final session, from Philip Mifsud (Solutions Architect at Transatlantix), covers Agent Ops as a data product, showing how Databricks Agent Bricks and Lakebase can turn raw agent telemetry into a governed, SQL-queryable observability layer with no ETL pipeline required.

The event runs 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM BST, with arrival and networking from 6:00 PM, talks from 6:30 PM, and a closing networking slot from 8:10 PM. Drinks and nibbles are included throughout. The organisers are clear that you do not need to be a Databricks user to attend — the content is aimed at anyone working across data, analytics, AI, cloud platforms, BI or data engineering.

The event is hosted jointly by Databricks and Transatlantix, a data and AI consultancy. Space is limited and registration is required via Meetup.

Why attend

All three talks are practitioner-led and cover production concerns rather than demos. If you work with AI agents or are evaluating them, the Agentic Darwinism and Agent Ops sessions address problems that rarely get covered honestly: what breaks in production, what it costs, and how you know if it's working.

Networking runs at the start and end of the evening, with drinks and food provided. The audience is data engineers, analytics professionals, cloud and BI practitioners across Leeds and the wider Yorkshire region. It's free to attend, but spaces are limited so an RSVP is needed.

Agenda

• 18:00–18:20 Arrival & networking
• 18:20–18:30 Opening remarks & introductions
• 18:30–19:00 Mastering the Data Engineering Agent for Enterprise ETL with Genie Code — Ash Sultan (Databricks)
• 19:00–19:30 Agentic Darwinism — Luke Thorp (Databricks)
• 19:30–19:40 Short break
• 19:40–20:10 Agent Ops as a Data Product: How Agent Bricks and Lakebase Turn Agent Operations into Enterprise Intelligence — Philip Mifsud (Transatlantix)
• 20:10–20:30 Networking & close

Speakers

• Ash Sultan — Senior Specialist Architect at Databricks; presenting on Genie Code and enterprise ETL agents
• Luke Thorp — Solutions Architect at Databricks; presenting on what makes agentic systems survive in production
• Philip Mifsud — Solutions Architect at Transatlantix; presenting on Agent Ops as a governed observability data product using Agent Bricks and Lakebase