Brian is available for hire

Brian Shurley

Verified Expert in Engineering

Relational Database Services (RDS) Developer

Englewood, CO, United States

Toptal member since June 18, 2020

Expertise

Data Engineering Data Warehouse Data Visualization ETL AWS SQL SSIS Business Intelligence Development Hadoop

Bio

Brian is an AWS cloud architect and engineer with 10+ years of AWS experience. He excels in data architecture, data engineering, and database engineering across many platforms and technologies. Fortunate to have a rich history and experience delivering solutions at a professional level in many technologies and problem domains, he's now taking a break from full-time corporate life in 2024 to focus on part-time projects across different domains.

Portfolio

Procare Solutions

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Python, PostgreSQL...

Procare Solutions

Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS Glue, Amazon Athena, AWS Step Functions...

DHI Group Inc

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Attunity Replicate, Redshift, Oracle...

Experience

Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 11 years
Database Modeling - 10 years
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) - 10 years
Relational Database Services (RDS) - 8 years
SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) - 8 years
Python - 8 years
Data Warehousing - 6 years
Microsoft Power BI - 5 years

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Python, Microsoft Power BI, Amazon Athena, AWS Glue, AWS CloudFormation, Terraform

The most amazing...

...experience is looking back at all the interesting, challenging, and diverse projects I've been a part of and the impact they have had!

Work Experience

Principal Cloud Engineer

2022 - 2024

Procare Solutions

Steered and contributed to stabilizing and modernizing an AWS-based childcare management web app, increasing application availability from 99.8% to 99.99% in one year.
Adopted complex infrastructure into AWS CloudFormation IaC and enabled automated deployment of infrastructure and code to over a dozen environments.
Developed a multi-region disaster recovery strategy for a petabyte of data stored in Amazon S3, achieving a 15-minute recovery point objective (RPO) and zero recovery time objective (RTO).
Transitioned Amazon S3 infrastructure-as-code from AWS CloudFormation to Terraform/Terragrunt and implemented a CI/CD pipeline for Terraform-based infrastructure.
Resolved incidents and troubleshooting across the entire tech stack, solving problems in PostgreSQL, Redis, S3, ALB, ASG, EC2, CloudFront, Route53, Ruby on Rails, Puma, and Sidekiq.
Led the migration of the PostgreSQL database from Amazon RDS to Aurora, eliminating downtime caused by database I/O contention, and spearheaded a plan for stabilizing and scaling a quickly growing Postgresql database.
Expanded use of New Relic for observability, alerting, and application performance monitoring.

Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Python, PostgreSQL, Relational Database Services (RDS), Amazon Aurora, AWS CloudFormation, Terraform, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), New Relic, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Linux, Bash, AWS IAM, Docker, Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR), Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS)

Director of Engineering, Data Platform

2020 - 2022

Procare Solutions

Developed robust data pipelines ingesting terabyte-scale data from multiple dissimilar sources into an S3-based data lake, using AWS Step Functions and Glue jobs (Spark).
Built a data warehouse with S3, Athena LakeFormation, and PowerBI dashboards, facilitating analysts' access to curated datasets for ad hoc analysis across the organization.
Delivered initial business value only three months after starting, with an analysis of the impacts of COVID-19 on the childcare industry.
Built and managed a high-powered team of AWS data engineers by training and mentoring developers with no previous cloud experience.
Provided organization-level guidance on AWS architecture and best practices for enterprise-wide AWS migration efforts.
Evaluated MDM solution product selection and proof of concept using Informatica MDM and Semarchy xDM to match and merge customer data across five separate sources.
Designed and delivered customer-facing product allowing large childcare enterprises access to their data for ingestion into their own data ecosystems, leveraging Azure AD (now Entra ID) for federated auth, Athena, and LakeFormation.
Followed DevOps best practices such as automated testing and deployments using CodeBuild and CodePipeline, as well as observability and monitoring using CloudWatch.
Partnered with economists at the Federal Reserve Bank to provide anonymized childcare attendance data for academic papers.

Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS Glue, Amazon Athena, AWS Step Functions, Microsoft Power BI, Azure Active Directory, AWS CodePipeline, AWS CodeBuild, Informatica Master Data Management (MDM), Semarchy MDM, AWS Lake Formation, Docker, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), AWS IAM, AWS Lambda, Python, Salesforce

Data Architect and Cloud Engineer

2018 - 2020

DHI Group Inc

Enlisted to help build a high-performing data engineering team and design their next-generation data and analytics platform using the AWS cloud and steered the overall enterprise data strategy.
Developed software patterns and best practices around data pipelines, data lake and warehousing, big data, containerized workloads, data modeling, and data privacy and security using technologies including AWS, Airflow, Redshift, Docker, and Python.
Advocated for DevOps practices and served as a scrum master.
Designed and developed a serverless API to ingest and validate streaming data from DHI's numerous applications and microservices into a data lake while protecting sensitive data in transit, using AWS Lambda, API Gateway, Kinesis Firehose, S3, and Glue.
Implemented Apache Airflow server to orchestrate data pipelines and other workflows, hosted using Docker and Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS).

Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Attunity Replicate, Redshift, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, Python, PostgreSQL, Data Modeling

Data Architect

2015 - 2018

Freelance

Contributed to the development of the CTO dashboard for DHI Group. Designed and built data pipelines using Python-based data pipelines and Tableau Server dashboards showing IT operational metrics.
Led cloud database migration for DHI Group from an on-premise data lake to the AWS cloud. Assisted the DBA team in migrating the multi-terabyte dice.com OLTP database from on-premise to Amazon RDS.
Managed commission system integration for Vail Resorts. Designed and built data integrations enabling the implementation of a new cloud-based commission system using Microsoft SQL Server, SQL Server Integration Service (SSIS) and C# .NET.
Directed data lake implementation for DHI Group. Designed and implemented near real-time replication between active OLTP sources hosted on MySQL, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL Server, targeting an MSSQL-based data lake.

Technologies: Tableau, Python, Relational Database Services (RDS), Microsoft SQL Server, Qlik Replicate, SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), AWS Database Migration Service (DMS), C#.NET

Consultant

2012 - 2015

Slalom

Engaged in several project-based contract work for various Colorado companies.
Implemented restaurant master data management (MDM) for Chipotle Mexican Grill. Led the implemented MuleSoft Mule ESB and Anypoint Platform suite of products to integrate data between source systems and Semarchy MDM.
Developed customer analytics data warehouse for Vail Resorts. Built a modern enterprise data warehouse focusing first on customer and transaction data, replacing legacy data marts.
Delivered solar program enrollment and reporting for Xcel Energy, including data migration, integration, and reporting solutions for a Salesforce. com-based web application being built by our team.

Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Master Data Management (MDM), RESTful Web Services, Java, Mule ESB, Microsoft SQL Server, Salesforce, SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS), SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), REST APIs

Data Architect

2010 - 2012

onTargetJobs Inc. (now part of DHI Group Inc/Dice Holdings)

Provided architectural direction over the continuous development of four high-traffic websites with over 3 million unique visitors monthly.
Designed and guided the implementation of enterprise-wide information factory and business intelligence applications.
Modeled and implemented a data warehouse using Microsoft SQL Server and anchor modeling techniques. Developed dimensional data marts, SSAS multidimensional cubes, and various BI applications using SSAS Tabular databases and Power View.
Functioned as a top-tier technical troubleshooter and data analyst. Solved problems of a critical and complex nature.
Acted as the company-wide thought leader, educating developers, defining best practices, and improving supply chain management (SCM) processes. Advocated for technologies to improve efficiency and performance.
Used various data mining and unstructured data analysis tools to generate adaptive autosuggest search terms and explored better ways of connecting employers and job seekers using predictive analytics.

Technologies: .NET, C#, SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), Microsoft SQL Server, SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS)

Experience

Amazon S3 Replication and Observability Enhancements

As part of Procare Solution's disaster recovery efforts, I replicated almost 2 billion Amazon S3 objects, a petabyte of data, to another AWS region and enabled ongoing replication to keep data consistent between buckets. Additionally, I enabled querying of S3 request logs (over 1TB a month) and detailed inventory of S3 objects using Amazon Athena. This was implemented using Terraform/Terragrunt for infrastructure as code.

Certifications

MARCH 2024 - MARCH 2027

AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional

Amazon Web Services Training and Certification

MARCH 2023 - MARCH 2026

AWS Certified Database – Specialty

Amazon Web Services Training and Certification

FEBRUARY 2023 - FEBRUARY 2026

AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional

Amazon Web Services Training and Certification

Skills

Libraries/APIs

REST APIs, Terragrunt

Tools

Git, Microsoft Power BI, Amazon Athena, AWS Glue, AWS CloudFormation, Terraform, AWS Step Functions, AWS CodeBuild, Informatica Master Data Management (MDM), Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Tableau, Qlik Replicate, AWS CodeDeploy, Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR), AWS IAM, Amazon CloudWatch

Languages

SQL, T-SQL (Transact-SQL), C#, Python, Bash, Java, C#.NET

Paradigms

Entity-relationship Diagrams, Business Intelligence (BI), Scrum, ETL, Agile Software Development, Load Testing, Test-driven Development (TDD), DevOps

Platforms

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Salesforce, Azure, Mule ESB, Linux, Oracle, New Relic, Docker, AWS Lambda

Storage

Microsoft SQL Server, Attunity Replicate, SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), Database Modeling, Data Integration, Database Administration (DBA), SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS), SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), Master Data Management (MDM), Azure SQL Databases, Teradata, Redshift, PostgreSQL, Semarchy MDM, Amazon Aurora, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Azure Active Directory, Relational Databases

Frameworks

Windows PowerShell, .NET, NHibernate, OAuth 2, Ruby on Rails (RoR)

Other

Data Warehousing, Data Visualization, Data Modeling, Relational Database Services (RDS), Data Engineering, Database Optimization, RESTful Web Services, Performance Optimization, AWS CodePipeline, AWS Lake Formation, AWS Database Migration Service (DMS), CI/CD Pipelines, Identity & Access Management (IAM)

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