1. I'm on the product engineering side rather than data, but from what I know, Scala is still heavily entrenched. New projects are all in Java; other languages are effectively disallowed.

2. I learned a fair amount in the 2017-2019 time frame but with the pandemic and increased specialization my pace has decreased. Lunchtime talks are just not as fun to attend on Zoom. Another possible explanation is that my curiosity has been satisfied, and someone with more curiosity could get more out of it.