Kim Da-eun
Lead SQL Instructor
Twelve years across retail and operational SaaS estates. Still rotates through on-call so the labs do not drift from the texture of a real overnight shift.
Studio profile
Five operators, one quiet practice in Seoul.
QueryPilot Academy began in 2021 as a six-person evening program inside a Seongdong logistics company. The format was simple — small cohorts, mentor-reviewed labs, and an explicit refusal to teach what could not be practised inside the available calendar. The structure has not really changed since. We have grown by adding tracks, not by widening cohorts.
Today we run cohorts from a studio in Jongno, supported by a small standing team and a rotating roster of guest mentors who still rotate through on-call in their day jobs. The work that is most ours — the autovacuum worksheets, the verification report template, the incident bridge tempo workshop — was built from observations made on real shifts, then quietly polished until it survived a third cohort’s questions.
Team
How the work is organised.
A small org chart. Lines reflect mentorship, not approval flow.
Lee Min-jae
Program Director
Sets the pacing of every cohort and quietly defends the curriculum against scope creep. Former platform reliability engineer who learned the discipline of small, measurable changes the long way.
Park Jihoon
Database Lab Engineer
Maintains the cohort sandboxes and breaks them on purpose so participants can practice repairing them. Believes a good lab fails in instructive ways.
Choi Areum
Learner Success Manager
Pairs cohort members with the right mentor and the right scenario. Coordinates paired drills, post-program check-ins, and the small follow-ups that make a difference.
Jung Hyun
Content Producer
Writes the cohort notes, edits the lab transcripts, and quietly insists that the recordings have proper captions. Keeps the published voice of the program consistent.
Practice principles
Three things we do differently.
- 01
Measurement before opinion
We change as little as possible until the measurement says something specific. The default is to wait, instrument, and then act with a small step.
- 02
Calm at speed
The right tempo on an incident bridge is slower than feels comfortable. We rehearse that tempo until it stops feeling unnatural.
- 03
Quiet documentation
A runbook that nobody opens at 03:00 was not really a runbook. We write for the half-asleep operator, not for the architect at noon.
- 04
Scoped honesty
We tell cohort members what is outside scope as clearly as what is inside. The boundary is part of the curriculum.
Studio timeline
Three turning points.
-
2021
First cohort in Seongdong
A six-person evening program for operators inside one logistics company. The structure of mentor-reviewed labs comes from these early sessions.
-
2023
Recovery Leadership program added
After two years of running technical cohorts, we added the program on incident leadership and post-mortem practice — the human side of the work.
-
2025
Corporate engagements formalised
Six engagements during the year convinced us to make the team-by-team format a first-class offering with a dedicated mentor and closing review.