--- title: Most of Your Backfills Didn't Have to Happen | daily.dev description: Most data pipeline backfills are preventable, not inevitable. The post categorizes backfills into three types: bug backfills (Type A, avoidable), schema-change... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/most-of-your-backfills-didn-t-have-to-happen-x6ihnsvq5 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Most of Your Backfills Didn't Have to Happen | daily.dev og:description: Most data pipeline backfills are preventable, not inevitable. The post categorizes backfills into three types: bug backfills (Type A, avoidable), schema-change... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/most-of-your-backfills-didn-t-have-to-happen-x6ihnsvq5 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/x6iHNSVq5.png og:image:alt: Most of Your Backfills Didn't Have to Happen og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Most of Your Backfills Didn't Have to Happen **[iamluminousmen](https://daily.dev/sources/luminousmen)** · 6 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Most data pipeline backfills are preventable, not inevitable. The post categorizes backfills into three types: bug backfills (Type A, avoidable), schema-change backfills (Type B), and new data reconstruction (Type C). Type A backfills — the most common — stem from five root causes: non-idempotent pipelines, no raw data replay layer, missing schema validation at ingest, downstream tables that have drifted from their inputs via manual edits, and absent correctness monitoring. A practical test is proposed: measure how long and how many people it takes to regenerate a partition from three months ago. The answer reveals whether a team has a real data platform or just a collection of scripts that happened to work once. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Engineering for the Inevitable: Managing Downstream Failures in Security Data Pipelines](https://daily.dev/posts/engineering-for-the-inevitable-managing-downstream-failures-in-security-data-pipelines-yfalmb0zn) · Security Boulevard · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#backend](https://daily.dev/tags/backend), [#data-engineering](https://daily.dev/tags/data-engineering), [#data-quality](https://daily.dev/tags/data-quality) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/most-of-your-backfills-didn-t-have-to-happen-x6ihnsvq5) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Most of Your Backfills Didn't Have to Happen","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/most-of-your-backfills-didn-t-have-to-happen-x6ihnsvq5","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/most-of-your-backfills-didn-t-have-to-happen-x6ihnsvq5"},"datePublished":"2026-07-28T06:25:53.625Z","dateModified":"2026-07-28T06:26:13.089Z","description":"Most data pipeline backfills are preventable, not inevitable. 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