Rafael Ortiz

Senior Data Engineer specializing in modernizing complex data architectures, optimizing cloud spend, and untangling intricate legacy pipelines. Whether working as an independent contractor or as part of a full-time team, I take deep ownership of my projects from architecture to deployment.

I thrive in challenging environments, taming undocumented ERPs, restructuring Snowflake costs, and building scalable lakehouses. I work fast, meet clients wherever they are (AWS, Azure, GCP), and deliver robust platforms with a focus on maintainability.

Recent wins:

• Cut a US retail client's Snowflake costs by $60K/month by replacing Workato + full-refresh ETL with Airflow + CDC and a medallion lakehouse on ClickHouse.

• Migrated ~1,350 data objects from Snowflake to ClickHouse in ~5 days using custom Python + Gemini/Claude tooling I built for dialect translation, DDL generation, and error debugging.

• Built a Microsoft Fabric lakehouse at HONOR replacing fragile Excel-based reporting across 1,200+ retail stores, with Row-Level Security, DAX-driven dashboards, and a Flask + PostgreSQL internal app for approval workflows.

• Shipped a Python + Azure Functions pipeline cataloging 300+ cloud assets for a Microsoft Silver Partner, closing the ownership loop that drove decommissioning of ~15% of idle infrastructure.

Stack I live in: ClickHouse, Snowflake, Airflow, dbt, Redpanda, Kafka, Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Python, SQL, AWS, Azure, GCP, BigQuery, Docker, Git/CI-CD. Also hands-on with Go for event pipelines and analytics (kafka-go, pgx, BigQuery).

Open to senior/lead roles with teams building serious things. Comfortable remote, across time zones.