
Shahid Thaika
Verified Expert in Engineering
SQL Developer
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Toptal member since October 11, 2018
Shahid designs and develops systems and databases, presents data with stunning visualizations to easily see the big picture, and performs deep-dive analysis to make key decisions. A US MSIT and MBA dual-degree graduate, he is fluent in English and has 12 years of professional experience across many industries. Shahid focuses on understanding requirements and identifying root causes to plan and execute the best course of action for business needs.
Portfolio
Experience
- Microsoft Excel - 18 years
- SQL - 16 years
- Data Engineering - 12 years
- Data Warehousing - 8 years
- MySQL - 7 years
- Google BigQuery - 5 years
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP) - 4 years
- Microsoft Power BI - 4 years
Preferred Environment
Microsoft Power BI, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Azure, Data Engineering, Microsoft Fabric
The most amazing...
...project I've worked on was to implement end-to-end systems successfully for a company where many other big brand IT companies failed for over 10 years.
Work Experience
Senior Data Engineer
Jun Group
- Built data pipelines to support business analysis and reporting for a digital advertising company, using Airflow on GCP Composer for regular workloads and Apache Beam on Google Dataflow for higher-throughput workloads at a terabyte scale.
- Created prototypes and evaluated multiple reporting platforms before driving adoption of Holistics as a more cost-effective, semantic-layer-based alternative to Looker for scalable enterprise reporting.
- Designed and developed a new star-schema data model in BigQuery, replacing a legacy architecture with hundreds of report-specific tables and simplifying maintenance.
- Optimized queries to reduce processing overhead, pipeline failures, and backfill requirements, and implemented built-in error checks and alerts to improve pipeline reliability.
- Migrated legacy Looker Studio reports to Holistics and built new dashboards as needed.
- Proactively designed analytical solutions that enabled deeper user analysis, expanded segment targeting, and predictive modeling population by 6x, and supported adaptation to new PII regulations.
Power BI Data Engineer
BCG Gamma
- Built Power BI reports that were embedded in a broader UI to compare predicted vs actual pricing strategy for a retailer with 9,000+ stores. Data sourced from Azure Data Lake and PostgreSQL.
- Coded and optimized SQL views that populated the Power BI model, benchmarked performance, and improved load times by reducing query count and limiting inefficient DirectQuery usage.
- Integrated and aggregated data from CSVs, Spark outputs, application data, and modeling outputs.
Senior Data Engineer
Heimstaden
- Designed and implemented Power BI dashboards for a leading European real estate company.
- Optimized reports and data models, reducing report count and improving performance and size.
- Consolidated data across multiple countries and reporting frequencies into simplified structures, and implemented time intelligence with change-based loading to reduce unnecessary data writes.
- Planned tasks and oversaw two junior developers, while leading knowledge transfer and cross-team discussions to resolve reporting and information systems issues.
Power BI Data Analyst
Yara International
- Aggregated data from multiple product solutions, developed SQL and dbt transformations, and built a reporting database in Amazon Redshift for a global agricultural solutions company.
- Remodeled and optimized Power BI data structures by simplifying multiple fact tables into a star schema, improving performance, reducing file size, and enabling new metric calculations.
- Used Tabular Editor to streamline measures and implement reusable time-intelligence calculations, including YoY, YTD, monthly, and all-time views.
Redshift Query Specialist
The Hustle
- Developed reports using Sisense for an online email-based newsletter business.
- Wrote queries against a Redshift database used by the company against the Sisense cache.
- Optimized existing queries that the business users already wrote.
MySQL Database Administrator
Jun Group
- Diagnosed performance bottlenecks in a high-traffic production MySQL v5.7 RDS instance and partnered with developers to implement fixes that reduced database load by 20%.
- Optimized MySQL server configuration using InnoDB engine analysis, reducing disk reads to one-third of prior levels, increasing write requests before flushing by 2–3x, and improving buffer pool utilization.
- Built a custom monitoring solution and analyzed query logs to identify high-frequency queries, caching opportunities, and indexing gaps, improving query efficiency and reducing aborted connections.
- Planned and executed an automated 60-step migration using dynamic queries and Bash scripts to move the production database from a 4.4 TB to a 2.5 TB RDS instance with zero downtime.
- Further reduced database size by at least 250 GB (10%) by removing redundant indexes and correcting oversized field definitions, collations, and non-scalable table designs.
- Built a load-aware online schema change solution using triggers and procedures to alter large production tables with millions to billions of rows with zero downtime.
Data Engineer
Decentral Park Capital
- Designed and built the data warehouse and reporting systems for a digital assets fund management company.
- Aggregated data into MS Azure SQL Database using PHP scripts to consume APIs from various third-party data vendors.
- Designed and developed various dashboards and reports and transformed and modeled the data using a combination of SQL queries, Power BI modeling, and DAX.
- Built regression models and charts based on user inputs to help analyze trends in crypto trading markets and make informed investments.
SQL Developer
SelectQuote Insurance Services, Inc.
- Migrated legacy SQL Server procedures to MariaDB and developed new ones required by the business.
- Optimized procedures, reducing execution times in some cases from 20–40 minutes to 2–3 minutes.
- Developed ETL packages using SSIS to process and export data for marketing and sales campaigns.
- Analyzed historical sales data and developed applications to identify upsell opportunities.
- Delivered reports and dashboards using AWS QuickSight, Microsoft SSRS, and Power BI, including real-time streaming datasets populated via PHP APIs.
- Developed JavaScript and PHP applications for customer communications and third-party vendor data exchange and deployed them on AWS using EC2 and Secrets Manager.
Business Consultant
One Affiniti
- Designed and implemented a data warehouse integrating in-house and third-party data, and wrote queries to analyze subscriber behavior across 50,000+ campaigns and support invoice attribution.
- Evaluated multiple reporting tools before delivering solutions using Domo and Microsoft SSRS.
- Analyzed marketing and operational data to improve subscriber conversion and resource allocation.
Business Analysis Advisor
Dell International Services
- Delivered sales and marketing analytics for Dell’s Global Demand Center, providing reports and insights that improved sales funnel visibility and helped increase lead conversion and revenue.
- Independently designed and launched Leakage Reports, a dynamic dashboard that visualized the sales funnel and highlighted lost revenue opportunities, helping drive pipeline growth.
- Streamlined and automated recurring deliverables, reducing manual effort by hundreds of hours.
- Introduced Microsoft SSAS within the team to reduce report file sizes and improve report delivery.
- Developed a campaign planning tool with data validation and auto-correction, and established a process used by 25 users across seven countries for forecasting, resource allocation, and CRM loading.
- Received two awards for performance and contributions, including a Partner Silver Award.
Senior IT Executive
Coastal Energy Private Limited
- Served as a member of a team that implemented enterprise systems modernization across a multinational group with five subsidiaries using Microsoft business platforms, helping standardize business processes.
- Implemented Microsoft Dynamics CRM – contact management, activity tracking, sales opportunity and quotation, and integration with Microsoft Dynamics NAV and in-house logistics systems.
- Played a techno-functional role translating complex business scenarios into technical design and worked with business users to refine processes and improve adoption, usability, and business value.
- Served as task lead and primary liaison with channel partner for MS Dynamics NAV implementation, including completing one subsidiary rollout independently after the initial go-live phases.
- Developed CRM/NAV enhancements using ASP.NET and JavaScript for custom user requirements.
Experience
Simple Password Manager
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.shahidthaika.android.simplepassmgrHave trouble remembering your numerous passwords? Now, remember only the master password for Simple Password Manager, and the application will remind you of the other passwords you store within.
This application uses Password-Based Key Derivation and AES Encryption to securely store your passwords and gives you full control and visibility into the encryption method used.
Note: Due to the application's security design, it is not possible to retrieve a lost master password.
CRM Lead Lifecycle Visualization
https://imgur.com/a/9rzDRivSupply Chain Planning and Visualization Tool
Education
MSIT + MBA Dual Degree in Management Information Systems
Bentley University - Waltham, MA
Master of Commerce Degree in Banking and Finance
Sydenham College - Mumbai, India
Bachelor of Commerce Degree in Business Management
Sydenham College - Mumbai, India
Skills
Libraries/APIs
JSON API, REST APIs, Wufoo API, Campaign Monitor API, jQuery UI, jQuery, Google API
Tools
Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power BI, Excel 2016, Power Query, Domo, Microsoft Access, Power Pivot, Amazon QuickSight, BigQuery, Apache Beam, Apache Airflow, Visual Studio, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Tableau, Sisense, Google Cloud Composer
Languages
SQL, PHP, Excel VBA, Transact-SQL (T-SQL), Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), Java, CSS, HTML, JavaScript, Python, C#, Bash Script
Paradigms
Database Development, ETL, Business Intelligence (BI)
Platforms
Windows, Linux, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Salesforce, Amazon EC2, Azure, Android, Azure Synapse, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Holistics, Microsoft Fabric
Storage
MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Azure SQL Databases, MariaDB, SQL Server 2016, Databases, JSON, SQL Stored Procedures, SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), Database Administration (DBA), SQL Server DBA, Azure SQL, SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS), SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), Data Pipelines, Relational Databases, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Redshift, PostgreSQL, Google Cloud Storage
Frameworks
.NET, Bootstrap 3, ASP.NET, Yii 2
Other
Data Engineering, Excel Macros, JSON REST APIs, Web Extensions, Dashboards, Data Visualization, DAX, APIs, API Integration, ETL Pipelines, Data Warehousing, Google Data Studio, Data Analysis, Data Architecture, Data Modeling, Data Warehouse Design, Chrome Extensions, Inventory Management, Business Analysis, Amazon RDS, Google BigQuery, Database Optimization, Integration, ELT, Finance, Business Management, Data Build Tool (dbt), Encryption, Azure Data Lake, Google Cloud Dataflow, Looker Studio, Pub/Sub
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