Random musings on
life, tech, and anything else
Buy me a hot
chocolate! | About Me
Alex Narayan (Data Engineer)
Summary:
Pragmatic and capable engineer with over 10 years of experience in
data engineering. I have worn many hats over the years: Database
Adminstrator, Python Developer, Site Reliability Engineer, Data
Engineer, and Lead Data Engineer. All of my experience from those
previous roles has shaped me into a well-rounded and capable engineer
that seeks solutions that are managable, cost-effective, and practical.
Alongside technical skills I am a leader and enjoy building performant,
happy teams.
Skills: SQL; Python; Amazon Web Services (AWS);
Google Cloud Platform (GCP); S3; Airflow; ETL; ELT; Kafka; Git; Shell
Scripting; Linux; K8s; Documentation; Training; Data-Modeling; Public
Speaking
Experience:
Data Platform Engineer Blacklane GmbH October 2024 -
Current
- Led a team of 2 data engineers building out data infrastructure via
Terraform on AWS to support Snowflake and Analysts using dbt-core
- Assisted in the migration of dbt project from EMR/Hive/Presto to
Snowflake
- Monitored and Maintained >20+ python source integrations (legacy)
and >20+ sources in Fivetran
- Developed tooling around Snowflake to make development easier
(permission aware database cloning)
- Authored new and improved existing Airflow DAGs for use with
dbt-core
- Championed documentation and knowledge sharing
- Led internal trainings
- Mentored junior engineers and analysts
- Proactively found and fixed issues as they came up
- Participated in code reviews, data architecture planning
Lead Data Engineer Smartbroker AG Nov 2023 - Oct
2024
- Led a team of 4 senior data engineers in a multi-cloud (AWS &
GCP) environment, delivering operational dashboards for stakeholders
(reduced delivery time by >70%).
- Championed data democratization by designing & implementing a
central BigQuery data warehouse (Snowflake-style), reducing new insight
delivery from days to hours.
- Ensured GDPR compliance through BigQuery Data Catalog & data
masking.
- Owned data engineering best practices: source control, code
linting/formatting, & development workflows.
- Fostered a collaborative environment with regular retrospectives,
documentation, & mentorship.
- Collaborated with stakeholders on cross-team initiatives (e.g.,
customer deduplication service for improved support success).
Senior Data Engineer Delivery Hero GmbH Jun 2020 - Nov
2023
- Designed & operationalized in-house Google Analytics
replacement
- Coordinated with teams to define key metrics via RFC & ad-hoc
investigations. Created GDPR-compliant schema for event ingestion.
- Designed, implemented, deployed, & documented CI/CD pipeline for
AWS Lambda functions using Github Actions (HR Data Analysts). Prototyped
design without production data access.
- Migrated >5TB Datawarehouse from Redshift to BigQuery. Validated
requirements & migrated core fact and dimension tables. Optimized
partitioning & clustering. Migrated Airflow DAGs.
- Championed performant & cost-effective BigQuery practices.
Reviewed code for efficient queries & identified anti-patterns.
Enforced partition filtering where applicable.
- Improved interview process: replaced take-home projects with
pair-programming coding challenges in Python & SQL during technical
interviews. Reduced offer time from 1-2 months to 3 weeks.
- Increased code documentation to >95% for critical infrastructure
& models with a code review checklist & requirement for
Confluence documentation.
- Created internal Git & Github guides (written & video) & conducted training
after identifying engineer struggles.
- Helped to design and operationalize an in-house replacement for
Google Analytics.
- Educated Analysts from other teams on how to best use our
datasets.
Site Reliability Engineer Finleap Connect Oct 2019 - Mar
2020
- Assisted other SREs in building DevOps culture & improve
cloud-native deployment.
- Created monitoring dashboards & consulted on SLAs. Helped
maintain Kubernetes infrastructure.
- Developed datalake consuming streaming data (Pub/Sub & Cloud
Functions) using BigQuery to reduce operational overhead & increase
reporting capabilities by >5X.
Python Software Engineer Finleap Connect (Formerly Figo GmbH)
Nov 2018 - Oct 2019
- Migrated >1TB core product database to Kubernetes using
CockroachDB. Wrote scripts for data export & validation. Saved days
of engineering time & enabled seamless scaling.
- Developed features for the flagship Fintech banking API service in
Flask/Python.
Datawarehouse Engineer CorVel Corporation Sep 2017 - Apr
2018
- Managed, extended, & triaged internal ETL tool (C# &
SSIS).
- Designed & deployed extensions to existing dimension and fact
tables.
- Identified & fixed data quality issues.
- Ran, extended, and triaged internally designed ETL tool written in
C# that leveraged Microsoft SSIS APIs.
Database Administrator CorVel Corporation Aug 2013 - Sep
2017
- Assisted Senior DBAs in configuring, securing, & performance
testing SQL Servers.
- Reviewed SQL queries & fixed bottlenecks.
- Owned database object deployments (21+ databases across 3
environments) & daily production deployments.
- Provided on-call support.
- Maintained source control (TFS) & trained engineers in best
practices.
- Developed Python & C# tools to aid DBAs.
Education: BSc. Financial Economics - Brigham Young University -
Idaho 2009-2013
References: Available on request
Feedback
Go Back Home
Copyright Alex Narayan - 2024