Brandon Waters
Verified Expert in Engineering
Data Engineer and Developer
Towson, MD, United States
Toptal member since November 6, 2024
Brandon is a data professional with a STEM background. He has extensive experience with relational and NoSQL data sources, data pipelining, master data management (MDM), analytics, AI development, and data integration. Brandon's leadership and customer-facing expertise have impacted team culture and development, skill building, and process implementation. He is a US citizen with excellent communication skills, extensive hands-on technical expertise, and an active secret security clearance.
Portfolio
Experience
- Data Engineering - 13 years
- Independent - 13 years
- IBM Information Management System - 13 years
- SQL - 10 years
- Thought Leadership - 10 years
- Big Data Architecture - 8 years
- MDM - 7 years
- Informatica - 4 years
Availability
Preferred Environment
Python, SQL, IBM Information Management System, Informatica, Big Data, Data, MDM, Data Engineering, Data Mesh, Data Integration
The most amazing...
...thing about my career is that I ended up in a growing billion-dollar industry and thrived by enhancing my skills to serve my clients as the industry evolves.
Work Experience
Data Product Portfolio Lead
ALKU
- Created and implemented the strategy, roadmap, and messaging for developing data products and data mesh architecture for the DoD personnel and readiness domain.
- Produced reusable customer-facing content—such as product briefings, case studies, data product FAQs, and product lifecycle management curriculums—for government and contracting leads, operations staff, data consumers, and the CDAO customer.
- Handled the team design, development, and implementation of the data quality feedback loop for inclusion in all products implemented by all data product teams.
- Led the team through developing 18 enterprise data products, simplifying user workflows, improving data understanding and quality, and increasing accuracy in data access requests, accelerating time to delivery by up to 400%.
Solutions Architect
Informatica
- Developed and implemented the intelligence community's data strategy for customer data management protocols.
- Mapped the homegrown data management infrastructure to the Informatica COTS solution.
- Served as a thought leader for government points-of-contact, presenting the developed solution's technical value and adoption strategy to their internal customers.
- Provided guidance on best practices for data cataloging, metadata management, and data curation for the MDM solution's development to work in the unique intelligence environment.
Software Solutions Architect
IBM
- Created and pitched data-centric solution architectures for on-prem, cloud, and hybrid infrastructures based on stakeholder and customer requirements for federal civilian, DoD, and intelligence community customers.
- Managed the solution's data layer, including multithreaded data ingestion, storage, and performance management, enabling a multisource analytics effort that discovered the bad actors, i.e., doctors, driving the US opioid epidemic for the DEA.
- Handled the pilot oversight of the Oracle data warehouse migration to a Hadoop-based data lake, including data ETL and ingestion, SQL query data validation, data optimization, verification, and performance-tuning for the US Defense Logistics Agency.
- Operated the Hadoop-based data lake on an IBM POWER architecture, providing an operational support system for a complete IBM software and hardware e2e solution for ETL, MDM, storage, optimization, and analytics to meet throughput performance goals.
- Reduced vehicle breakdowns by nearly 70% and vehicle downtime by nearly 50% for the US Army by collaborating with IBM Consulting to collect, organize, and analyze data, leading to the development of a predictive maintenance solution.
- Appointed as the federal business unit's representative for testing, debugging, updating, and delivering new cloud-native technical assets for field technical sellers in the US.
- Developed repeatable demonstrations of cloud-native offerings in data analytics, governance, and integration for technical and non-technical staff reuse, empowering extended teams to deliver more effective client briefings.
Experience
Implementing IBM InfoSphere BigInsights on IBM System x Servers
https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg248077.pdfEducation
Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering
Virginia Tech - Blacksburg, VA, USA
Certifications
Client Technical Professional
IBM Open Group
Skills
Tools
IBM Information Management System, MATLAB, Jira, Informatica PowerCenter
Storage
Data Integration
Languages
SQL, Python, C++
Paradigms
Agile
Platforms
Databricks
Frameworks
Spark
Other
Big Data, Data, Data Engineering, Data Mesh, Thought Leadership, Technical Design, Technical Competence, Independent, Documentation, Data Management, Big Data Architecture, Data Warehousing, Technical Writing, MDM, IT Project Management, Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure, Data Analytics, Informatica, Networking, Signal Processing, Digital Signal Processing
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