Computer · Software Development

Real-Time Data Pipeline (Kafka → Spark → Dashboard)

Intermediate 6 weeks 40-60 hours

Build end-to-end data pipeline: collect data → message broker → stream processing → visualization. Real-time analytics dashboard with multiple data sources.

Major

Computer

Focus area

Software Development

Total hours

40-60 hours

What you'll need

  • Software only - Docker, Kafka, Spark (free), Grafana, Python

Steps

  1. Pick 2 or more public data sources, like weather or transit feeds.
  2. Set up Kafka in Docker and write producers that stream the data.
  3. Process the streams in Spark.
  4. Store the results and connect them to Grafana.
  5. Build a real-time dashboard with multiple charts.
  6. Document the architecture diagram and dashboard for your portfolio.

What to photograph for your portfolio

  • Real-time dashboard
  • data flow architecture diagram
  • throughput metrics
  • latency analysis
  • system monitoring

Resume bullet starters

Copy one, then swap in your own numbers.

  • Designed and built a real-time data pipeline using Apache Kafka, Spark streaming, data engineering

  • Applied Docker and data visualization to implement, test, and validate the system end-to-end

  • Quantified performance with [insert your result, such as accuracy, error reduction, response time, or load capacity] after iterative tuning

Skills you'll show off

Apache KafkaSpark streamingdata engineeringDockerdata visualizationPython/Scala

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