Month: 2026-04 Overview: Focused on data integrity and reliable data representation for Debezium's Kafka production streams. Delivered a targeted bug fix in ByLogicalTableRouter to preserve real NULL values, added regression coverage, and validated changes through local end-to-end checks and cross-team collaboration. Key achievements: - Bug fix: Preserve null values in ByLogicalTableRouter to avoid nulls being replaced by schema defaults in Kafka records; enables correct null semantics for downstream consumers. Commit: f19265aa29d976248ddf571b245256db8f582cdc. - Regression test: Added test coverage for nullable fields with non-null schema defaults on both key and value paths to prevent regression. - Validation and collaboration: Verified fix via local fork deployment and end-to-end checks; co-authored work with Claude Opus to investigate and draft the fix. Impact and business value: - Improves data fidelity and trust in Kafka streams, ensuring downstream systems see precise null semantics and reducing data-quality debugging time. - Aligns with Confluent AvroConverter behavior for nullable fields, mitigating runtime surprises in serialization/deserialization. Technologies and skills demonstrated: - Java, Debezium codebase, and ByLogicalTableRouter internals (Struct.getWithoutDefault usage). - Regression testing, code review, end-to-end validation, and cross-functional collaboration. - Concrete, measurable delivery with a single, traceable commit.