A source-backed Rankhog guide to r/dataengineering: public rules, community context, posting fit, and startup-promotion risk before you publish.
By Anthony Riera, founder and operator of Rankhog.
Subreddit guides combine public Reddit source URLs, captured rules, visible verification dates, and Rankhog's account-safety workflow.
Current public stats
Rules can change, so Rankhog keeps verification dates and the original public Reddit sources visible.
This is a community for people who build and run data systems. The description covers data pipelines, databases, data formats, storage, data modeling, data governance, cleansing, NoSQL, distributed systems, streaming, batch, big data, and workflow engines. The people posting here are data engineers and the folks who work alongside them, so the talk is technical and practical. If your product or content touches how data moves, gets stored, or gets modeled, this is your room. If it does not, the moderators will point you to another community, because “Keep it related to data engineering” is enforced.
The rule that decides your fate as a founder is “Limit self-promotion posts/comments to once a month”, which allows self promotion one time per month, and counts every account tied to your organization against that limit. Then there is “No shill/opaque marketing”, which says the sub is not here to promote anyone, free or paid, and you must clearly state your relationship to whatever you are promoting, with the Brand Affiliate flag on posts. Opaque marketing gets a permanent ban, so this one is not negotiable. “No AI generated content/text” bans heavily AI generated or AI assisted posts, also with a permanent ban attached. “All links are reviewed” means every link goes into a moderator queue, and deleting or editing your post to force it through gets you permanently banned. “Keep it related to data engineering” and “No low effort content” filter out anything off topic or thin. “No recruiting, solicitation, or networking posts” kills feedback requests and tool pitches framed as questions. Finally, “Search the sub & wiki before asking a question” means your question post dies if the answer is already in the wiki.
A good post here is a plain text writeup about a real data engineering problem you worked on. Think a pipeline you built, a database choice you wrestled with, a modeling decision you regret, or a lesson from a migration. Give enough context that people can actually engage, which is what “No low effort content” asks for. If you are a founder, the honest play is to share what you learned building your data product and mention your relationship to it clearly, then wait for your once a month window. Write it yourself, in your own voice, because AI text gets you banned here. If you post a link, expect it to sit in a queue and leave it alone while the moderators review it.
Do not post job ads, referral requests, mentor requests, tester invites, or any version of “does anybody need this tool” or “looking for feedback”, because “No recruiting, solicitation, or networking posts” bans all of it. Do not post resume reviews, interview prep, or exam questions. Do not post technical errors or bugs, take those to StackOverflow. Never post AI generated or heavily AI assisted text, that is a permanent ban, and the rules even include a trap for language models to catch it. Do not hide that you work for the company you are promoting, because “No shill/opaque marketing” means a permanent ban. Do not delete or edit a link post to sneak past the review queue, that is also a permanent ban. And do not be a jerk, even when someone criticizes your tool.
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Yes, but only once per month, and you must clearly state your relationship to the company, use the Brand Affiliate flag on posts, and follow the opaque marketing rule. If you work for a company, the once a month limit covers every account linked to that organization.
No. The rules explicitly ban “does anybody need this tool?” and “looking for feedback” type posts under the recruiting and solicitation rule.
No. Heavily AI generated or AI assisted content is banned and gets you permanently banned, so write the post yourself.
No. All links go into a review queue, and deleting or altering your post to get it published faster counts as circumventing link checks and leads to a permanent ban.
No. Technical error and bug questions are not allowed here, so take them to StackOverflow or a more specialized subreddit.
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