Nima is available for hire
Hire NimaNima Zolghadr
Verified Expert in Engineering
Data Engineer and Developer
Sydney, Australia
Toptal member since September 3, 2026
Bio
Nima has spent 13 years building enterprise data platforms across financial services, insurance, energy, and government sectors. His toolkit centers on Databricks, PySpark, and Azure for large-scale data engineering. While at Bupa, Nima delivered Databricks Lakehouse pipelines serving over 500 million records and led urgent data integrity restorations under tight deadlines.
Portfolio
Bupa
Databricks, PySpark, Spark SQL, Python, SQL, Git, GitHub Copilot, SAS, Oracle...
Bupa Australia
Databricks, Data Analytics, Big Data, Analytics, ELT, SQL
EnergyAustralia
AWS Lambda, Redshift, AWS Glue, EMR, Amazon Athena, Apache Kafka...
Experience
- Data Engineering - 14 years
- Engineering - 8 years
- Data - 8 years
- Talend - 8 years
- Azure Databricks - 5 years
- Databricks - 5 years
- Python 3 - 5 years
- PySpark - 5 years
Preferred Environment
Databricks, Azure DevOps, AWS IoT, Git, Tableau
The most amazing...
...solution I've built is a Databricks Lakehouse, modernizing complex enterprise data pipelines and improving the reliability of critical analytics and reporting.
Work Experience
Data Engineer
2023 - PRESENT
Bupa
- Partnered directly with business and product owner stakeholders to gather data product requirements across insurance, healthcare claims, optical, and referral domains, and designed Bronze, Silver, and Gold data access layers.
- Owned end-to-end QA, validation, and production deployment for healthcare claims datasets exceeding 500M records, ensuring data quality and integrity while mentoring engineers throughout delivery.
- Resolved an urgent data integrity failure across 3,000+ columns by redesigning the schema and building 53 standardized data access views plus an automated pipeline within one week, restoring downstream reporting within a tight deadline.
- Redesigned and re-engineered the HCM platform's shared libraries and transformation logic, delivering 35 validated business-logic tables and 38 production pipelines to meet evolving business requirements.
- Led discovery, lineage analysis, and reverse engineering of legacy SAS logic, translating business rules into scalable PySpark data pipelines and troubleshooting dependency failures during migration.
- Designed and delivered the Bupa Optical Data Hub, a production-grade data access layer integrating multiple source systems that remains in active use.
- Provided technical leadership during organizational restructuring, onboarding engineers, and maintaining delivery continuity, including oversight of system processes in the absence of a dedicated squad lead.
- Managed large-scale BAU ingestion of 70+ SAI360 tables from an external catalog into governed Lakehouse layers, monitoring pipelines for quality and availability.
- Used GitHub Copilot to accelerate SAS analysis and PySpark development, independently validating all generated code and transformation logic before production release.
Technologies: Databricks, PySpark, Spark SQL, Python, SQL, Git, GitHub Copilot, SAS, Oracle, SQL Server, Data Analytics, ETL, Big Data, Analytics, ELT, Microsoft Power BI, Microsoft Fabric
Data Engineer
2023 - PRESENT
Bupa Australia
- Designed and delivered production-grade data pipelines on Databricks using PySpark and Delta Lake, integrating multiple enterprise data sources into scalable, governed data platforms.
- Partnered with business stakeholders, analysts, and engineering teams to translate complex requirements into scalable data solutions and deliver production-ready outcomes.
- Implemented automated testing, reconciliation, and validation processes across development and pre-production environments to identify data discrepancies before production release.
- Developed reusable ETL/ELT frameworks and data quality controls that improved consistency, maintainability, and reliability across production data workflows.
- Built and optimized complex SQL and PySpark transformations for large-scale datasets, supporting downstream analytics, reporting, and business-critical data products.
Technologies: Databricks, Data Analytics, Big Data, Analytics, ELT, SQL
DataOps & Data Engineer
2021 - 2023
EnergyAustralia
- Designed historical and incremental CDC data pipelines using AWS DMS, S3, Lambda, and Redshift, building data access layers over Oracle, API, Kafka, and file sources.
- Developed metadata-driven Python Lambda functions applying business logic and schema validation, converting incoming data to Parquet for downstream QA and processing.
- Migrated 4 EMR and AWS Glue workloads into a reusable, metadata-driven Redshift data warehousing framework, improving processing efficiency and reducing cloud costs.
- Built an automated ingestion pipeline for email attachments, APIs, and file-based sources, streamlining data delivery into AWS processing layers.
- Built and deployed Redshift tables, views, and Airflow DAGs across customer data sources within tight production release windows.
- Provided DataOps production support across CI/CD deployments, access management, system troubleshooting, and performance monitoring, resolving incidents to keep pipelines running.
Technologies: AWS Lambda, Redshift, AWS Glue, EMR, Amazon Athena, Apache Kafka, Apache Airflow, PySpark, Python, SQL, Oracle, Azure DevOps, Data Analytics, ETL, Big Data, Analytics, ELT
DataOps & Data Engineer
2021 - 2023
EnergyAustralia
- Designed and delivered scalable Databricks data pipelines using PySpark and Delta Lake to support enterprise reporting, analytics, and operational data requirements.
- Developed and enhanced ETL/ELT processes, integrating data from multiple source systems, improving the reliability and maintainability of downstream data products.
- Implemented data reconciliation, validation, and unit testing across development and pre-production environments to identify discrepancies before production deployment.
- Built reusable data transformation and data quality patterns that improved consistency across multiple datasets and reduced duplicated engineering effort.
- Worked closely with business stakeholders, analysts, architects, and engineering teams to translate complex energy-sector requirements into reliable production data solutions.
Technologies: Data Engineering, Data Analytics, ETL, Big Data, Analytics, Python, SQL
Data Engineer
2021 - 2021
Transport for NSW
- Implemented data validation, reconciliation, and error-handling processes to improve the accuracy and reliability of transport-related data products.
- Designed and delivered scalable data pipelines to integrate transport and operational data from multiple source systems for reporting and analytics.
- Developed reusable ETL components and transformation logic to support consistent ingestion and processing of high-volume operational datasets.
Technologies: Talend, Oracle, PostgreSQL, Amazon Athena, Amazon RDS, EC2, Data Analytics, ETL, Big Data, Analytics, Microsoft Power BI, SQL
Data Engineer | Talend MDM Specialist
2020 - 2021
Suez
- Designed and delivered an end-to-end Talend MDM and Data Quality solution to cleanse, deduplicate, and govern customer and account data before SAP migration.
- Designed a high-volume asynchronous REST API integration between Talend MDM and SAP, reducing processing time for thousands of records from approximately 20 minutes to under 20 seconds.
- Integrated Google Address validation APIs and implemented Golden Record and survivorship workflows for complex customer and account hierarchies.
Technologies: SAP, Salesforce, SQL Server, REST APIs, Data Analytics, Big Data, SQL
Data Engineer
2019 - 2020
Essential Energy
- Built a metadata-driven Talend ingestion framework across 32 source systems (Oracle, SQL Server, PeopleSoft, CSV) in four days, replacing repetitive source-by-source development.
- Developed 35+ ETL workflows supporting regulatory RIN reporting, network asset metrics, financial reporting, and government submissions.
- Designed JSON and API submission pipelines for secure third-party government regulatory reporting.
Technologies: SQL Server, Oracle, Java, REST APIs, SQL
Software Engineer | BI & Data Integration Developer
2012 - 2018
Infopro (Banking & Risk)
- Developed enterprise modules for Anti-Money Laundering (AML), KYC, Basel II, and Credit Risk solutions used by financial services clients across multiple markets.
- Independently executed a full database migration of Basel II and Asset Liability Management platforms from MySQL to Oracle, converting Java modules, ETL jobs, and 20+ risk reports.
- Optimized the AML engine by introducing customer-level alert deduplication in Oracle PL/SQL, reducing thousands of repeated transaction alerts into a smaller, actionable review set.
- Provided primary production support and PL/SQL performance tuning for a major banking platform operating across 700+ retail branches, troubleshooting and resolving system failures.
- Built dynamic multilingual reporting frameworks for Maybank London and Hong Kong using Java/JasperReports to handle multi-currency and multi-script formats.
- Participated in R&D initiatives integrating Big Data frameworks (Hadoop, Hive, MongoDB) for high-volume banking transaction analytics.
Technologies: Java, PL/SQL, Oracle, MySQL, Talend, JasperReports, Hadoop, Apache Hive, MongoDB, JSP, Java Servlets
Experience
Enterprise Databricks Lakehouse Modernization
Designed and delivered a scalable Databricks Lakehouse solution for enterprise data processing and analytics. I built production-grade PySpark pipelines, implemented Delta Lake architecture, data quality controls, and automated deployment processes to improve reliability and maintainability.
Education
2011 - 2015
Master's Degree in Software Engineering
University of Malaya - Malaysia
2006 - 2010
Bachelor's Degree in Information Systems
Multimedia University - Malaysia
Certifications
JULY 2026 - JULY 2028
Databricks Certified Generative AI Engineer Associate
Databricks
JUNE 2026 - JUNE 2028
Databricks Certified Machine Learning Engineer Associate
Databricks
JUNE 2026 - JUNE 2028
Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional
Databricks
DECEMBER 2024 - PRESENT
Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals (AI-900)
Microsoft
DECEMBER 2023 - PRESENT
Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals
Microsoft
NOVEMBER 2023 - NOVEMBER 2025
Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate
Databricks
DECEMBER 2020 - PRESENT
Talend API Services Certified Developer
Qlik
MAY 2020 - PRESENT
Tableau Desktop Specialist
Tableau
MAY 2020 - MAY 2022
Talend Big Data Developer Certified Practitioner
Qlik
AUGUST 2019 - PRESENT
Talend DI V7
Qlik
Skills
Libraries/APIs
PySpark, REST APIs, JasperReports, Java Servlets
Tools
Apache Airflow, Microsoft Power BI, Spark SQL, Git, GitHub Copilot, AWS Glue, Amazon Athena, Tableau, Terraform, Microsoft AI
Languages
SQL, Java, Python, Python 3, SAS, Snowflake
Frameworks
Apache Spark, Hadoop
Paradigms
ETL, Azure DevOps
Platforms
Databricks, Talend, Azure, Microsoft Fabric, Oracle, AWS Lambda, Apache Kafka, Salesforce, AWS IoT
Storage
Microsoft SQL Server, Data Integration, Data Lake Design, Redshift, PostgreSQL, MySQL, PL/SQL, Apache Hive, MongoDB
Other
computer sceince, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Data Engineering, Azure Databricks, Engineering, Data, Delta Lake, Production Support, Data Analytics, Big Data, Analytics, ELT, Talend Open Studio for Big Data, Medallion Architecture, Unity Catalog, Databricks Workflows, Data Governance, Data Lineage, CDC, Data Quality, T-SQL, CI/CD Pipelines, DataOps, Databricks, Azure, AWS, PySpark, Python, SQL, Delta Lake, GitHub, Azure DevOps, VS Code, Azure AI Services, talend API, Artificial Intelligence (AI), SQL Server, EMR, Amazon RDS, EC2, SAP, JSP, DMS, ADLS Gen2, Kafka, Regulatory Reporting, AML, Know Your Customer (KYC), Basel II, Credit Risk, information system engineering, talnd, Machine Learning, Talend ESB, tablue
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