Niraj Zade
Senior Data Engineer | Software Engineer
What I do
I help companies build centralized data lakehouses - by gathering data from disparate sources (APIs, databases, tools etc) - to enable AI, Data Science & Data Driven Business Decisions.
All this while not breaking the bank.
This work includes:
- System architecture based on business needs & constriants
- Designing and building systems for data ingestion, processing, storage
- Serving data to other teams through APIs
- Optimizing existing systems for cost and performance
The technical advantage I bring is particularly on 2 fronts:
- Rapid prototyping for initial problem-space exploration
- Building synthetic load simulations (testbenches), to check and prove architectural/systemic feasibility
My solutions generally come with proofs of correctness - reports with hard numbers, not intuitions with feelings.
My edge
Beyond the technical stuff, I am an extremely strong communicator - am very good at meeting people and figuring out actual requirements, aligning stakeholders etc.
I generally get contacted by other engineers and execs when:
- They are starting out new projects, and don't exactly know where to start and who to call.
- They are in some hairy problem, and need some pointers on how to approach it (cut down noise and arrive at the root cause).
Nature
I truly come alive in the face of unknown - when the problem is open ended/ambiguous, and there is no clear path to solution. Ideal for 0 to 1 product buildups.
I'm a fun loving guy, and am easy to work with. Keep things pretty chill within the teams.
Am a self-sufficient person and typically don't need oversight and hand-holding. Can manage execution and delivery as required. Am good at things like setting direction, and talking to stakeholders to set development priorities. A term for this is "Manager of one".
I care deeply about engineering and take intensive care about things like tech debt, maintainability, on-boarding speed, extensibility, performance etc.
Hire
Want to connect or hire? email me - niraj[at]theniraj[dot]com
I'll suggest that you interview me as if you're dealing with a consultant - simply state your problem, and judge me by how I design the system, and how I build up parts of it.