Niraj Zade
Senior Data Engineer | Software Engineer

I help companies build centralized data lakehouses, by gathering data from disparate sources (APIs, databases etc), to enable AI, Data Science & Data Driven Business Decisions.

All this without breaking the bank.

Tech I most frequently work with: Spark, FastAPI, Python, SQL, Azure (and also AWS), Airflow, Docker

CONTACT

I simply enjoy computers. A LOT. Way too much actually.
If computing wasn't a career - I'd be doing some other job in the day, and be glued to computers at the night.
Haven't found any other line of work that's so (frustratingly) loveable. I'm glad that the world has a path to turn software engineering into a career.

Blog posts

Articles

I learn through writing. Most of these are ever evolving pieces.

sqlserver

sqlserver // 2025 Jul 10 | 2m (519 words)

SqlServer reference - All date & time formatters

SqlServer time formatters, to use in convert() function. Used to convert date time objects into string of appropriate formats.

Contents:

spark

spark // 2025 Oct 16 | 26m (4801 words)

Spark Microbook

A collection of spark knowledge - AQE details, join strategies

Contents:
spark // 2026 Jan 03 | 12m (2267 words)

Delta Lake - performance optimization and maintenance

Delta lake optmization and maintenance techniques

Contents:
spark // 2025 Oct 11 | 4m (887 words)

Spark performance optimization compendium

Speed up data reads from sql databases, joins, column generation

Contents:
spark // 2024 Jan 22 | 13m (2450 words)

Spark join strategies

Spark join strategies

Contents:

python

python // 2024 May 06 | 7m (1303 words)

Unicode string normalization schemes in Python

Universally applicable string comparison in python. For string comparisons, and for de-duplication in datasets.

Contents:
python // 2023 Sep 17 | 5m (1058 words)

Python gotchas compilation

Variable scope leakage, global variable read-write issues

Contents:

linux

linux // 2024 Sep 22 | 2m (417 words)

SSH notes

SSH tunneling templates, how to diagnose errors, quick fixes for usual errors

Contents:

career

career // 2024 Oct 14 | 1hr18m (14441 words)

Lecture - You and your research by Dr. Richard Hamming

The lecture by Richard Hamming

Contents:
career // 2025 Oct 13 | 6m (1253 words)

Why charge more as an engineer

Why you should charge more as an engineer

Contents:

resources

resources // 2025 Aug 25 | 1m (239 words)

Catalyzing research within India

Ongoing notes and opinions on creating an ecosystem for research within India

Contents:
resources // 2025 Jun 15 | 3m (586 words)

Links collection

An ever evolving list of links. Will keep on getting cleaned, organized, appended, disorganized.

Contents:
resources // 2025 Jun 02 | 3m (715 words)

Papers, books, talks etc

A centralized collection of papers, talks, lectures around computer science, engineering, and the overall industry

Contents:

webtech

webtech // 2024 Apr 02 | 12m (2321 words)

JWT - a quick overview of its working and encryption algorithms

A quick overview on the workings of JWT

Contents:

Tools

Engineering tools:

Other tools:

© Niraj Zade 2025 - Website, Linkedin
Website was autogenerated on 13 Jan 2026
Whoever owns storage, owns computing