Neil Schwalb, Developer in Black Mountain, NC, United States
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Neil Schwalb

Verified Expert  in Engineering

Bio

Neil is an experienced data engineer focused on helping businesses make the most of their data by making informed decisions. He specializes in ETL processes, especially the transformation step that helps others focus on what matters in their work.

Portfolio

Google Fiber
Apache Airflow, BigQuery, Google BigQuery, Business Intelligence (BI), SAP...
Mailchimp
BigQuery, Business Intelligence (BI), Agile, Apache Airflow, Looker...
States Newsroom
Looker, Google Data Studio, Google Sheets, Web Analytics, Google Analytics...

Experience

  • Python - 8 years
  • SQL - 8 years
  • ETL - 7 years
  • Google Cloud Platform (GCP) - 7 years
  • Apache Airflow - 7 years
  • Business Intelligence (BI) - 6 years
  • Looker - 6 years
  • DB - 5 years

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Apache Airflow, Python, SQL, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Linux

The most amazing...

...thing I've developed is a custom data pipeline that transforms 50+ TB of data into analytics-first tables that drive company-wide reporting and analysis.

Work Experience

Business Intelligence Architect

2024 - PRESENT
Google Fiber
  • Designed the end-to-end business intelligence platform in GCP for the business, building pipelines, data models, and custom Looker reports for all (10+) business verticals.
  • Developed 30+ finance and supply chain data models to support key operational and month-end close reporting.
  • Designed combined ETL and RETL pipeline to ingest data from three sources along with manual vendor input, transform it, and push it back to source systems to support build management project reporting.
Technologies: Apache Airflow, BigQuery, Google BigQuery, Business Intelligence (BI), SAP, Dataplex, Looker, Looker Modeling Language (LookML), Looker Studio, Python, SQL, Terraform, Dataform, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Data Engineering, ETL, Data Visualization, Data Analysis, Data Architecture

Data Engineering Manager

2022 - 2025
Mailchimp
  • Led the expansion of our governed and centralized data layer that processed 100TB+ daily and was used by 72% of all analytical workloads and 100% of all data science models.
  • Led a team of 20 engineers, working across 10+ initiatives. Built 6-month and 1-year road maps to help plan near and mid-term technical strategy.
  • Managed and governed our Looker instance with 1,400+ users and 300 dashboards which processed TBs of data each day.
  • Drove the development of our core sales and customer success lead data pipelines, helping reduce high-value customer churn by 30% and increase ARR by $20 million.
  • Spearheaded the implementation of Spark for data processing, speeding up time to insight by 30% and reducing processing costs by 20%.
  • Led the data pipeline and modeling team at Mailchimp, providing ETL services and integrations to teams across the organization.
  • Managed partnerships and relationships with business units across Mailchimp and parent company Intuit to ensure smooth and efficient work.
Technologies: BigQuery, Business Intelligence (BI), Agile, Apache Airflow, Looker, Cloud Dataflow, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Python, SQL, Google BigQuery, Dataform, Data Engineering, ETL, Data Visualization, Data Architecture

Looker/Data Studio Developer

2023 - 2023
States Newsroom
  • Designed custom pipelines and data models to combine 30+ GA4 instances into a single source of truth.
  • Reconciled and unified GA4 and GA360 data to provide a unified source across 30+ instances.
  • Redesigned 30+ market dashboards into a single dashboard with row-level security, ensuring markets only had access to their data.
Technologies: Looker, Google Data Studio, Google Sheets, Web Analytics, Google Analytics, Data Engineering, Looker Studio, Dataform, BigQuery, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Google Analytics 4, ETL, Data Visualization, Data Analysis, Data Architecture

Senior Data Software Engineer

2019 - 2022
Mailchimp
  • Designed and built in-house BI transformation pipelines in Airflow and Google Dataflow to surface analytics-focused tables in BigQuery for our analysts, data scientists, and strategy teams to derive insights from.
  • Led and managed the implementation of Looker as our BI platform and continued to lead Looker engineering and modeling work, helping drive data-informed decision-making.
  • Developed and implemented internal data security models and tools with Terraform, Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), Google Cloud Platform, and Looker APIs.
  • Co-led data governance efforts to centralize analytics output and content creation for senior leadership.
Technologies: Apache Airflow, Cloud Dataflow, Google BigQuery, Google Analytics, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Google Data Studio, Looker, Dataform, Node.js, Business Intelligence (BI), Data Analysis, ETL, SQL, Python, Reporting, BI Reporting, Tableau, DB, Data Engineering, Data Visualization, CSV, Paid Advertising, Google Sheets, Web Analytics

Developer

2021 - 2021
Teknicks LLC
  • Architected dynamic Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) dashboards to support multiple clients' engagement reporting.
  • Developed BigQuery ETL pipelines to enable product reporting for new product launches.
  • Built dashboards on top of transformed reporting data for executive consumption.
Technologies: Google Data Studio, CSV, Data Engineering, Google Analytics, SQL, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Data Visualization, Data Analysis

Data Researcher

2017 - 2019
Mailchimp
  • Managed and executed short- and long-term, data-driven research projects that informed company direction and application development.
  • Built and maintained data pipelines using Apache Airflow and Beam to consolidate structured and unstructured data from self-hosted SQL and Elasticsearch instances into BigQuery for analysis and warehousing, as well as data cleansing and curation.
  • Used statistical algorithms such as linear and logistic regression and decision trees to extract correlations from large datasets and drive business strategy.
  • Embedded multiple product teams to establish and maintain KPIs, forecast use of and perform A/B tests on new products, and prioritize work based on perceived impact.
  • Designed, executed, and ran A/B content experiments that led to a 2% increase in site engagement and a 9% increase in campaign creation.
  • Managed company-wide KPIs and reporting used to drive strategic direction using a custom-built website.
Technologies: Python, R, Google Data Studio, PostgreSQL, Apache Airflow, Google Analytics, Elasticsearch, BigQuery, Apache Beam, SQL, Data Analysis, Looker, Reporting, Data Visualization, CSV, Paid Advertising, Google Sheets, Web Analytics, Google BigQuery, ETL

Senior Digital Analyst

2015 - 2017
Accenture
  • Led the development of big data analytics projects to provide clients with unique insights into operating efficiencies and delivered value.
  • Manipulated and aggregated client data with tools like Hive and R to feed into big data analytics platforms and BI dashboards.
  • Led offshore and onshore development teams to deliver visualization dashboards and mobile applications.
Technologies: R, SQL, Agile, Microsoft Power BI, Data Visualization, CSV, Business Services, Google Sheets, Data Analysis

Experience

SQL Scheduler and Dependency Manager

Designed an analyst-friendly wrapper around Apache Airflow that enables non-engineers to upload queries to a repository and have them automatically run on a set schedule. Dependencies between queries in their repository and other core tables are programmatically parsed out and set in Airflow to ensure tables are refreshed with the most up-to-date data. This has enabled many analysts and marketers around Mailchimp to build custom reports and tables that are automatically kept in sync with our main ETL jobs without requiring dedicated engineering resources.

BI Data Transformation Pipeline

A bespoke data transformation pipeline that generates raw application, log, and other 3rd-party data into analytics and reporting-focused data sets. It processes over 50 TB of data every day and produces 30+ different tables. The transformed data provides governed, cleaned, and curated data that provides analysts and data scientists with accurate and compliant data. The data is used across all company dashboards and machine learning models. It was built using Airflow, a custom YAML template, and BigQuery.

Looker Implementation

Implemented Looker at Mailchimp as the core data visualization tool. I modeled and developed 50+ explores using data from 100+ tables to enable data democratization. I also established a governed metric layer to align all business units on a single source of truth for reporting. I hosted and developed Looker training and data schools to enable peers across the business to use and build with Looker. Our Looker instance was used by 1400+ users and processed TBs of data every day.

Education

2016 - 2017

Post Baccalaureate Degree in Computer Science

University of Florida - Gainesville, FL

2010 - 2015

Bachelor's Degree in Biological Engineering

University of Florida - Gainesville, FL

Certifications

NOVEMBER 2019 - PRESENT

MicroMasters in Statistics and Data Science

MITx on edX

Skills

Libraries/APIs

Node.js

Tools

Looker, BigQuery, Google Sheets, Apache Airflow, Google Analytics, Tableau, Cloud Dataflow, Apache Beam, Microsoft Power BI, Terraform

Languages

SQL, Python, R, YAML, Looker Modeling Language (LookML)

Paradigms

Business Intelligence (BI), Agile, ETL, MEAN Stack

Platforms

Linux, Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Storage

PostgreSQL, MySQL, DB, Elasticsearch, Google Cloud

Frameworks

Flutter

Other

Google BigQuery, Dataform, BI Reporting, Data Engineering, Data Architecture, Data Visualization, CSV, Google Data Studio, Linear Regression, Data Analysis, Reporting, Web Analytics, Machine Learning, Paid Advertising, Business Services, SAP, Dataplex, Looker Studio, Google Analytics 4

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