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Brandon Scolaro
Verified Expert in Engineering
AI and Data Engineer Developer
Sarasota, FL, United States
Toptal member since March 9, 2026
Bio
Brandon is a full-stack cloud engineer with 15+ years of experience designing secure, scalable AWS solutions for enterprises, government, and SaaS. An expert in data engineering with Spark and Airflow, full-stack development with Spring Boot, React, and Kubernetes, DevSecOps with Terraform, CI/CD, and NIST compliance, he solves challenges through cloud innovation. Brandon's delivered $500,000+ in savings, led migrations, built apps for millions of users, and used AI to speed delivery by 5–10x.
Portfolio
CDS Global
Python, Spark SQL, Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow (MWAA)...
Consultancy Comapany
Python, Go, Elastic, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Architecture...
Oracle
Cursor AI, Python, Java, React, Oracle Cloud, Architecture...
Experience
- Java - 18 years
- Software Development - 16 years
- Hadoop - 16 years
- Cloud Infrastructure - 15 years
- AWS IoT - 15 years
- Python - 12 years
- Spark SQL - 10 years
- Agentic AI - 4 years
Preferred Environment
MacOS
The most amazing...
...thing I've built is custom Terraform modules to lift, shift, and fully auto-deploy a core data processing app to another cloud account in the London region.
Work Experience
Senior Cloud Data Engineer
2019 - 2026
CDS Global
- Led the migration of multi-petabyte data lakes to AWS. Modernized processing with Apache Spark and Delta Lake, then re-architected to retire EMR and standardize on Glue and Athena, reducing cost and operational overhead.
- Optimized AWS architecture and storage design, delivering $500,000+ in annual cost savings while enforcing least-privilege IAM via custom Terraform modules.
- Built and maintained a multi-tenant CCPA compliance application serving 1+ million active users with AWS Lambda, SQS, and DynamoDB.
- Developed Python-based PCI compliance tooling using BeautifulSoup to automate evidence collection across thousands of brand websites, enabling successful PCI DSS assessments.
- Orchestrated terabytes of daily ETL workflows with Apache Airflow. Co-developed SQL-first wrapper to auto-generate DAGs and simplify pipeline authoring for faster delivery.
- Led migration of data science pipelines from Snowflake to Amazon SageMaker. Implemented CI/CD pipelines using GitHub, Jenkins, ECR, and EKS across multiple projects.
- Leveraged agentic AI for greenfield development, large-scale refactoring, and automated test generation, shortening SDLC by 5–10x and boosting engineering throughput.
Technologies: Python, Spark SQL, Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow (MWAA), Data Engineering, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Architecture, Data Lakehouse, Snowflake, Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Senior DevSecOps Consultant
2022 - 2025
Consultancy Comapany
- Led client efforts to achieve NIST 800-171 compliance via comprehensive security assessments and targeted remediation strategies for a satellite imagery and geospatial company.
- Identified coverage gaps and contributed enhancements to AquaSecurity/DefSec and TFSec repositories to complete NIST 800-171 framework support for AWS resources.
- Deployed and integrated DefSec/TFSec and Trivy scanning tools into local dev environments and CI/CD pipelines, strengthening infrastructure security posture.
- Utilized Wiz and complementary security tools to identify and remediate thousands of cloud misconfigurations and vulnerabilities across multiple environments.
- Guided and supported migration of all mission-critical geospatial imagery workloads off Cloud Foundry under tight deadlines, preventing significant client financial penalties.
- Implemented Elastic Common Schema (ECS) for standardized logging across all client systems. Rolled out Elastic Agents to Kubernetes clusters and configured Synthetics Monitors for infrastructure and services.
- Designed and deployed an automated monitoring solution using Elastic Synthetics across all client environments. Built custom Elastic ingest pipelines and enabled Fleet Server agents for streamlined observability and endpoint management.
- Replaced legacy AWS log collection architecture with a cost-efficient, serverless alternative, reducing operational overhead and maintenance complexity.
Technologies: Python, Go, Elastic, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Architecture, Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Senior Software Engineer
2017 - 2019
Oracle
- Served as a team lead for security and management. Built internal tools that streamlined day-to-day workflows and improved team efficiency.
- Delivered internal innovation projects that directly informed and shaped new Oracle Cloud features and service offerings.
- Co-developed Hyperledger Fabric auditing solution using Go chaincode for a banking client, enabling secure and compliant transaction monitoring.
- Built AI-powered chatbots on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to automate customer support and accelerate knowledge retrieval for end users.
- Applied agentic AI and coding copilots (Cursor and GitHub Copilot) to accelerate development velocity, enhance code quality, and shorten delivery timelines.
- Co-built and maintained React Native mobile interface for an Oracle Cloud Security product, delivering seamless cross-platform user experience.
Technologies: Cursor AI, Python, Java, React, Oracle Cloud, Architecture, Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Senior Software Engineer III
2014 - 2017
NextGear Capital
- Served as a full-stack developer for the core web application. Authored key components in Spring Boot API and Angular front-end while championing back- and front-end communities of practice (COPs) at different times.
- Developed multiple web applications leveraging Spring Boot with Angular or React front ends to deliver robust, modern user experiences.
- Acted as a technical interviewer, assisted with college campus recruitment, served as a mentor to engineers, and won the Cox Hackathon competition.
- Led Hadoop initiatives. Procured and configured local clusters, mentored teams on the ecosystem. Redesigned analytics pipeline with Scala/Kotlin and Spark SQL. Partnered with Databricks on Tungsten enhancements, improving processing time by over 50%.
- Built a responsive sales analytics web app using D3.js visualizations and optimized small payloads, enabling effective strategy optimization in low-connectivity environments.
- Joined as a founding member of the architecture tools team at NGC. Delivered code, technical guidance, and leadership to agile teams. Drove the transition to a Spring Boot microservices architecture using Netflix OSS and Kubernetes.
Technologies: Java, Spring 5, JavaScript, React, Hadoop, Data Engineering, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Architecture, Data Lakehouse
Senior Consultant
2011 - 2014
Booz Allen Hamilton
- Provisioned Hadoop clusters on EC2 for CDC, EPA, and FDA big data projects. Designed and implemented ETL pipelines to enable downstream analytics and insights.
- Defined and expanded an automated test library using Ruby and Watir for a classified DoD web application. Enabled comprehensive functional, regression, boundary, and performance/load testing scenarios.
- Refined Python-based clustering algorithm for malware detection across multimillion-sample datasets. Implemented MapReduce jobs on Accumulo tables to enhance processing efficiency.
- Reverse-engineered selected viruses in an air-gapped environment using Ghidra and supporting tools to support malware analysis and threat intelligence efforts.
- Contributed to real-time packet inspection project on network devices (routers) utilizing Apache Storm topologies for high-velocity data processing and analysis.
- Conducted comprehensive testing of a large-scale US Treasury finance application. Analyzed requirements to develop exhaustive test scenarios/use cases. Executed automated/manual tests with SoapUI and SQL validation. Documented and retested defects.
- Developed a custom Cataloger for a large-scale Hadoop-based cloud analytics infrastructure. Built an API and UI for data aggregation and authored Pig scripts for analytics on Accumulo tables to improve data discoverability and usability.
Technologies: Java, Python, Hadoop, Apache Storm, Ruby, Ghidra, Testing, Data Engineering, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Architecture
Experience
Crypto Shuffler
A TypeScript-based web app utilizing React and Tailwind. It allows users to anonymize various crypto wallets. Created from scratch with Monte Carlo randomization for natural patterning and Markov Chain timing for realistic-looking delays, it also has a real-time dashboard to monitor progress.
Privacy Communication App
Hush is a privacy-focused voice chat application prioritizing end-to-end encryption, high-quality audio, effective noise reduction, simplicity, and strong security.
It enforces E2EE by default using the Noise Protocol and libsodium. Audio is processed via an Opus codec (20ms frames and fixed packets) with CPAL I/O, RNNoise for noise suppression, and optional WebRTC AEC/NS components for clarity.
I built it for cross-platform use on Windows, Linux, and macOS, including Apple Silicon M4. Hush features a minimal Svelte and TypeScript UI wrapped in Tauri. The Rust-based audio and transport stack delivers high performance, supporting QUIC (quinn) or UDP, DTLS, STUN/TURN NAT traversal, and relay-only mode for IP privacy.
A Rust relay/signaling service ensures reliable connectivity. Hush offers secure, low-latency voice communication without bloat or data collection, ideal for privacy-conscious users.
It enforces E2EE by default using the Noise Protocol and libsodium. Audio is processed via an Opus codec (20ms frames and fixed packets) with CPAL I/O, RNNoise for noise suppression, and optional WebRTC AEC/NS components for clarity.
I built it for cross-platform use on Windows, Linux, and macOS, including Apple Silicon M4. Hush features a minimal Svelte and TypeScript UI wrapped in Tauri. The Rust-based audio and transport stack delivers high performance, supporting QUIC (quinn) or UDP, DTLS, STUN/TURN NAT traversal, and relay-only mode for IP privacy.
A Rust relay/signaling service ensures reliable connectivity. Hush offers secure, low-latency voice communication without bloat or data collection, ideal for privacy-conscious users.
Education
2007 - 2011
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
Purdue University - West Lafayette, IN, USA
Certifications
DECEMBER 2023 - DECEMBER 2026
AWS Solutions Architect Associate
AWS
Skills
Libraries/APIs
React
Tools
Spark SQL, Elastic, Apache Storm
Frameworks
Hadoop, Data Lakehouse, Spring 5, Ghidra
Languages
Python, Snowflake, TypeScript, Go, Java, JavaScript, Ruby, Rust
Paradigms
Testing
Platforms
MacOS, AWS IoT, Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Storage
Oracle Cloud
Other
Architecture, Software Development, Cloud Infrastructure, Agentic AI, Cursor AI, Data Engineering, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Security, Networking, Cryptography, Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow (MWAA)
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