Do you have Time for a Date? Understanding Time Zone Offsets in Timestamps

As a Data Engineer or a Data Analyst you are working with dates and times constantly.

Have you ever wondered what those pesky four numbers at the end of a datetime value mean?

Wonder no more! Because I will tell you.

Take a look at the following timestamp: 2025-05-03 23:06:06.164 -0700

Notice there is a -0700 at the end of the timestamp. This tells you what time zone this timestamp “originates” from (the “local” time).

In this case, it is 7 hours in westward direction from UTC. With other words, the local time is 7 hours behind UTC.

To get UTC, add 7 hours to the local time.

The picture below gives a graphical representation of the explanation above.

As for why AWS_US_EAST_2 is located in the middle/west of the US instead of the actual east of the US? There is probably a perfectly reasonable explanation available that I do not know 😁