Christina is available for hire
Hire ChristinaChristina E. Taylor
Verified Expert in Engineering
Big Data Developer
Location
Delray Beach, FL, United States
Toptal Member Since
December 19, 2022
Christina is a motivated, resourceful, and proactive achiever known for taking the initiative, solving problems, and empowering analytics. She has a strong startup mentality and mastery of architectural design, pipeline implementation, and technical communication. Christina has a track record of success in exceeding expectations and goals. Recognized as a highly intelligent and effective engineer, intensely curious quick learner, and a warmly collaborative team leader, she is ready to help you.
Portfolio
Carvana
Python, Scala, Databricks, Snowflake, BigQuery, Google Cloud Composer...
Bread Financial
Scala, Databricks, Snowflake, Apache Airflow, Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disney Streaming Services
Python, Spark, EMR, Databricks, Snowflake, Apache Airflow, Redshift, GDPR
Experience
Availability
Part-time
Preferred Environment
MacOS, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
The most amazing...
...pipeline I've designed and implemented uses a schema registry and structured streaming for real-time event analytics.
Work Experience
Senior Engineer II, Special Projects
2022 - PRESENT
Carvana
- Designed and implemented data ecosystems with medallion architecture. Built bronze, silver, and gold data layers to support comms analytics, machine learning operations (MLOps), and data science.
- Modernized and scaled a multi-cloud (AWS, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Azure) big data pipeline with high quality. Solved speed, efficiency, and reliability challenges for massive conversation, AI, and marketing campaign datasets.
- Transformed proprietary streaming workflows into open-format, open-source Spark streaming applications. Demultiplexed events to simplify near real-time analytics.
- Established CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure as code (IaC) patterns. Brought software engineering discipline to analytics.
- Reduced GCP cost by $500,000 a year. Improved team throughput by 50-100% a month.
Technologies: Python, Scala, Databricks, Snowflake, BigQuery, Google Cloud Composer, Kubernetes
Staff Data Engineer
2020 - 2022
Bread Financial
- Partnered with core engineering on data streaming strategy and architecture. Set up event schemas created and managed within a schema registry service. Established contracts between service and data layers.
- Developed and productized a change data capture framework. Processed streaming data for three tenants, and five deployments. Included up to terabytes of data and 20 databases each.
- Revamped daily and partition based batch ingestion of semi-structured response data to streaming trigged autoloader ingestion.
- Onboarded Databricks, Snowflake, and Astronomer core infrastructure to build a green field data platform.
- Worked with vendors to proof of concept (POC) data encryption and retention policies to secure client data and ensure compliance.
Technologies: Scala, Databricks, Snowflake, Apache Airflow, Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Data Engineer
2019 - 2020
Disney Streaming Services
- Scaled Apache Airflow, ECS, and Elasticsearch stack to control workflow, monitor job status, and perform log analytics.
- Ingested, validated, and cleansed streaming Amazon Kinesis data to create raw data archives on Amazon S3 (AWS S3) and Delta Lake.
- Batch-extracted, loaded, and transformed data from various input sources to provide an analytics data layer in Databricks, AWS Glue, and Snowflake.
- Contributed to core platform development. Automated deployment via Jenkins. Managed cloud infrastructure and data schema by code, configured Datadog monitoring, alerting, and PagerDuty integration.
- Executed vacuum and personally identifiable information (PII) handling processes to optimize storage and comply with GDPR.
Technologies: Python, Spark, EMR, Databricks, Snowflake, Apache Airflow, Redshift, GDPR
Senior Manager, Engineering, and Data Science
2018 - 2019
Zeno Group
- Wrote Python programs to extract and reshape social engagement data. Used vendor APIs (Newswhip, Crimson Hexagon, Similar Web, Adobe Analytics, Twitter, and CrowdTangle).
- Researched, designed, and implemented the newest cloud solutions (ECS, AWS Lambda, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Apache Airflow, and Serverless Framework). Improved efficiency, increased transparency, and minimized costs.
- Built Slack and Kibana applications to provide real time social media insight for existing clients and new businesses.
- Architected a data pipeline and warehouse to store PR performance data and tracked client content.
- Set up Trello and Asana integration to manage junior team member, plan projects, and monitor progress.
Technologies: Elasticsearch, Kibana, Tableau, Python, SQL
Manager, Data Strategy, and Analytics
2017 - 2018
Discovery
- Led initial development on target definition and audience segmentation to transform linear advertising.
- Designed Redshift and Tableau server data architecture to expand a centralized data repository.
- Articulated requirements and developed technical approach to execute data projects.
- Created effective visualization for stakeholders to drive actionable advanced advertising strategy.
- Instantiated automated processes and cloud computing solutions to scale up ongoing projects.
Technologies: Tableau, Python, Redshift
Analyst, Business Operations
2015 - 2016
Comcast
- Built MySQL schema and configured a Tableau server. Compiled data collection, managed business intelligence (BI), and standardized metrics.
- Wrote Python and R scripts to extract, transform, and integrate Salesforce, Jira, Zendesk, UserVoice, and monetization rights management system data.
- Created executive and managerial Tableau dashboards to answer complex business questions. Delivered insightful analytics and informed business decisions.
- Developed Looker data models and spearheaded Slack integration. Enabled instantaneous and cost-effective access to a single source of company facts across seven departments.
- Trained classification, regression, and textual analysis models. Segmented clients, forecasted revenue, measured program return on investment (ROI), and evaluated customer feedback.
Technologies: MySQL, Python, Excel VBA, Tableau, Looker
Analyst, Reference Data
2014 - 2015
Alacra
- Strategized mapping projects to achieve concordance across data sources of up to 240 million records.
- Queried databases of over 300 information providers to report on data quality and client service status.
- Researched financial identifiers and data dictionaries to define entity matching rules for $600,000 projects.
- Conducted rigorous controlled experiments and analyzed output statistics to evaluate entity name matchers. Suggested changes and increased speed by a factor of ten and automation by 15%.
- Developed dynamic web applications with C#, ASP.NET, JavaScript, and HTML. Visualzied data, provided transparency, and informed about the reference data product roadmap.
Technologies: SQL, JavaScript, HTML, C#, .NET
Marketing Associate (Contract)
2011 - 2013
Fisher Pei LLC
- Performed market research and localized marketing collateral to identify and engage international clients.
- Assisted with preparing quantitative analysis and ROI presentations to secure high-end contracts.
- Coached and chaperoned international students to facilitate assimilation and admission into elite colleges.
Technologies: Presentations, Tutoring
Adjunct Faculty/Career Advisor
2010 - 2013
TCI College of Technology
- Selected and referred graduates to satisfy employer hiringneeds. Exceeded placement goals by 15-20%.
- Reviewed career documents and conducted tests and interviews. Assessed qualifications and set goals.
- Advised individuals, revised training manuals, and facilitated seminars to provide career guidance.
- Assessed urban students’ special needs and designed curricula accordingly to suit diverse learners.
- Integrated organizational skills, time management, practical writing, and Blackboard workshops. Enriched students’ personal growth and social prosperity.
Technologies: University Teaching
Experience
Near Real-Time Analytics with Event Streaming, Live Tables, and Delta Sharing
https://youtu.be/77uypRVYslgMicroservices is an increasingly popular architecture much loved by application teams, allowing services to be developed and scaled independently. Data teams, though, often need a centralized repository where all data from different services come together to join and aggregate. The data platform can serve as a single source of company facts, enable near real-time analytics, and secure sharing of massive data sets across clouds.
I created a viable microservices ingestion pattern with change data capture using AWS Database Migration Services or Debezium. CDC proves to be a scalable solution ideal for stable platforms. Still, it has several challenges for evolving services: Frequent schema changes, complex, unsupported DDL during migration, and automated deployments, are but a few. An event-streaming architecture can address these challenges.
I created a viable microservices ingestion pattern with change data capture using AWS Database Migration Services or Debezium. CDC proves to be a scalable solution ideal for stable platforms. Still, it has several challenges for evolving services: Frequent schema changes, complex, unsupported DDL during migration, and automated deployments, are but a few. An event-streaming architecture can address these challenges.
The Future is Open: Data Streaming in an Omni-cloud Reality
https://youtu.be/1_7Q3cGF0nEThis talk begins with data warehouse trivia and lessons learned from production implementations of multi-cloud data architecture. You will learn to design future-proof low latency data systems that focus on openness and interoperability. You will also gain a gentle introduction to Cloud FinOps principles that can help your organization reduce compute spend and increase efficiency.
Education
2015 - 2019
Master's Degree in Data Science
CUNY - New York, NY
2008 - 2010
Master's Degree in English Education
Columbia University - New York, NY
2004 - 2008
Bachelor's Degree in Automotive Engineering
Tsinghua University - Beijing, China
Certifications
AUGUST 2022 - PRESENT
GCP Professional Cloud Architect
Udemy
JUNE 2020 - PRESENT
AWS Certified Solutions Architect
A Cloud Guru
Skills
Tools
Google Cloud Composer, Apache Airflow, AutoCAD, Photoshop CS6, BigQuery, Kibana, Tableau, Looker
Frameworks
Spark, Hadoop, .NET
Languages
Python, Scala, Snowflake, SQL, JavaScript, HTML, C#, Excel VBA
Platforms
Databricks, MacOS, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Apache Kafka, Kubernetes
Paradigms
Data Science, Agile Project Management
Storage
Redshift, Elasticsearch, MySQL
Other
Containers, University Teaching, Engineering, Design, EMR, Machine Learning, Presentations, Tutoring, GDPR, Delta Lake
Collaboration That Works
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