Explore the concept of type safety in Scala and learn how to leverage macros for efficient data handling in this conference talk from Scala Days Chicago 2017. Dive into the challenges of maintaining type safety when interacting with external systems, databases, and file inputs. Discover how compile-time reflection can be utilized in a library for schemaless key-value databases, and understand the benefits of implementing macros in production systems. Follow along as the speaker demonstrates practical implementations, including storage functions, key wrappers, and bin browsers. Gain insights into why macros are a powerful tool for automating routine tasks and enhancing type safety in Scala applications.