Summer Internship @ RVNG

🎧 Intro: Data with Soul

Now Playing: “Running” by Helado Negro

When I joined RVNG Intl., I didn’t just walk into a record label — I entered a world where creativity and intuition drive every decision. RVNG is known for its experimental spirit, where the line between art and data often blurs. Yet behind every record, every story, there were numbers waiting to be heard — scattered, unstructured, and silent.

My goal was simple: give those numbers a voice.

Situation & Task

RVNG’s data lived across Shopify, Bandcamp, and Secretly Distribution — three platforms with different formats, time zones, and reporting standards. Without a centralized system, it was difficult for the team to see how their music was performing globally — financially, culturally, and artistically.

I was brought in to unify this ecosystem: to build a backend architecture and analytics workflow that could transform fragmented data into insight — a system that musicians and executives alike could intuitively understand.

Action

📦 Building the Foundation: Data Pipeline & ETL

I began by automating monthly data ingestion into Google Cloud Storage, creating a pipeline capable of processing over 130MB+ of raw revenue and streaming data per batch.

Using Python, pandas, and MySQL, I standardized fields such as currency, product IDs, and territory codes, ensuring consistency across platforms.

To maintain reliability, I implemented Cloud SQL pipelines with scheduled bash tasks and version-controlled schemas — effectively building a living, breathing data backbone for the label.

🧱 Designing the System: Relational Database Architecture

Next, I designed a normalized relational database, connecting previously isolated tables —

digital_revenue_all, physical_sales, streaming_lookup, track_artist_album — into one cohesive schema.

Each key was intentional: designed not for machines, but for people — so that anyone could trace a song’s journey from catalog to sale.

📊 Visualizing the Story: Looker Studio Dashboards

With the foundation in place, I built interactive dashboards to visualize:

💰 Net revenue per platform (Shopify, Bandcamp, DSPs)

🌍 Geographic performance by country and region

🔁 Track-level trends over time

Optimized SQL queries and pre-aggregated summary tables reduced response times and turned static data into dynamic exploration.

🔍 Collaborating for Meaning

Beyond infrastructure, I collaborated closely with Matt (Founder) and Warren (COO) to experiment with new integrations — including Luminate APIs and Mailchimps — bridging data science with creative storytelling.

🌱 Result

By the end of the internship, RVNG had a unified data infrastructure connecting all sales and streaming sources into a single relational system.

The new Looker Studio dashboards offered immediate visibility into revenue, territories, and performance trends — empowering the label to make informed, art-driven business decisions.

This project wasn’t just about data pipelines or dashboards — it was about designing a framework where art and analytics could speak the same language.

💡 Reflection

RVNG reminded me that data can be soulful — it carries rhythm, pattern, and emotion.

Every spike on a chart is a listener somewhere, connecting with sound.

And my job, as both a data scientist and a musician, is to make that connection visible.