
Shahzaib Saleem
Verified Expert in Engineering
Full-stack Developer
Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Toptal member since May 7, 2017
Shahzaib is a senior AI and data architect with 20+ years of experience designing enterprise-scale data platforms and the last 6+ years focused on applied AI, LLMs, and generative AI systems. He specializes in retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), AI agents, conversational AI, and large-scale data pipelines, building production-grade AI systems used across automotive, healthcare, finance, retail, and HR domains.
Portfolio
Experience
- ETL - 16 years
- Business Intelligence (BI) - 15 years
- Microsoft Power BI - 8 years
- Azure AI Services - 6 years
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) - 6 years
- Large Language Models (LLMs) - 4 years
- AI Agents - 3 years
- Retrieval-augmented Generation (RAG) - 3 years
Preferred Environment
Python, ChatGPT, .NET, Microsoft Power BI, C#, Large Language Models (LLMs), Claude, Cursor AI, Visual Studio Code (VS Code)
The most amazing...
...: I built enterprise data & AI platforms, including 30+ ETL & LLM solutions processing 20M+ records/day with real-time analytics & GenAI-driven decision-making.
Work Experience
Senior AI Engineer
Self-employed
- Deployed LLM-powered solutions that integrate structured and unstructured data, enabling accurate, explainable, and scalable AI experiences. This includes intent orchestration, agent workflows, and secure cloud-native AI deployments on Azure and AWS.
- Partnered with CXOs, product leaders, and global engineering teams, translating business problems into high-impact AI systems and mentoring teams to deliver production-ready GenAI solutions.
- Designed and delivered production-grade RAG and agentic AI systems using LLMs to power conversational experiences across automotive service workflows.
- Handled big data, artificial intelligence, and data analytics projects.
Senior AI/ML Engineer
Volvo Car USA
- Built RAG-based conversational AI systems using LLMs to retrieve and generate accurate responses from PDFs, databases, and knowledge bases.
- Collaborated cross-functionally within the Volvo Cars Core Data Platform AI Team, contributing to infrastructure, APIs, and tooling.
- Integrated OpenAI/LLM services and developed scalable Python-based AI pipelines for intent handling, prompt orchestration, and multi-turn conversations.
- Implemented API integrations and deployed AI solutions on Microsoft Azure, ensuring secure, scalable, cloud-native operations.
Data Engineer (AI-focused)
Noetica Inc.
- Designed and built a scalable data integration service that connects to the S&P Capital IQ API and mirrors relevant data.
- Developed efficient data synchronization processes with appropriate scheduling mechanisms.
- Created a reliable data mirroring system with proper error handling, logging, and notifications.
Senior Data Engineer
University of Washington
- Upgraded the legacy systems and optimized performance.
- Provided strategic consultancy on upgrading the entire environment to the latest standards.
- Created documentation and shared best practices with the junior development team to ensure smooth ongoing maintenance.
- Restored and configured a new Amazon EC2 environment to host the SQL Server.
Data Engineer
Beiersdorf AG
- Integrated data for EMEA countries for 62 product categories across 12 countries having hundreds of brands in various segments. Established ETL data pipelines, developed reporting solutions, and built forecasting modules.
- Led the development of centralized data pipelines and ingestion frameworks in Databricks to standardize structured data intake amid fragmented data spread across multiple regional systems.
- Implemented centralized governance and enforced secure, role-based data access across teams.
- Built dashboards in Power BI and Excel templates for different stakeholders.
- Collaborated with the CXOs' data analysts to perform in-depth data analysis and present reports so they could define measurable goals for the next fiscal year.
Data Engineer
Deckers Brands
- Built a centralized and scalable reporting solution in compliance with GDPR policies. They operated 150+ physical stores worldwide.
- Developed data pipelines, a central data warehouse, and an end-to-end reporting solution using Databricks and Tableau. I designed an event-driven ingestion architecture that reduced data latency to 15 minutes across regions.
- Led the data analytics initiatives and proposed different solutions for their reporting and analytical needs. Built quick demos and optimized the performance of legacy solutions.
- Collaborated with the business analyst, product manager, and technical team to define the requirements into actionable deliverables. Provided regular updates on assigned tasks and managed the team's deliverables.
Senior Data Engineer
Orion180
- Developed a dozen BI dashboards using Microsoft Power BI and custom charts with ApexCharts.js.
- Established a data ingestion process, cleaned bad data, and improved the existing system's performance.
- Tracked and fixed bugs reported on Jira and Azure boards.
Senior .NET Consultant
Vertex Software
- Developed the AI module. The method takes a precise approach to creating a personalized wellness plan with the user's body as its guide.
- Built digital workspace maturity self-assessment solutions based on ESG research for Dell.
- Built AT&T Cybersecurity Consulting Services to perform a comprehensive assessment.
Solution Architect
Strategic Systems International
- Led teams to build enterprise applications and platforms for clients in multiple domains, including business intelligence, financial, healthcare, and software services.
- Engaged with data giants, including Thomson Reuters, Mercy, Krones, and Amazon, and worked with large databases with terabytes of data and millions of records per table.
- Contributed to database design, data mining, data warehousing, and ETL projects. Built two enterprise-level ETL tools.
- Led the development team for a startup and built a number of tools for brand management. Later, it was acquired by Omnicom Group for $835 million.
- Handled SQL and NoSQL databases, including query optimization, performance tuning, data cleansing, data management, and related activities.
Software Engineer
MicroTech Industries
- Developed a GSM-based messaging system for electric meters in C# and SQL Server.
- Provided support and added new features for a payphone admin software using Borland Builder.
- Worked on embedded systems (PICS, microcontrollers) for GSM engines (Nokia, Siemens, etc.).
Experience
DSB AI Pilot
My work included implementing API integrations and deploying AI solutions on Microsoft Azure, ensuring secure, scalable, cloud-native operations. I also collaborated with global teams and mentored junior AI/ML engineers, promoting best practices and accelerating project delivery.
Credit Risk & Rating Platform
https://www.noetica.ai/My work included developing reusable agent capabilities for data retrieval, normalization, and scoring logic, enabling faster iteration across financial use cases. I also implemented robust monitoring, logging, and error-handling for AI-driven workflows in production.
Azure Open AI Chatbot
University of Washington—Child Well-being Data Portal
https://www.washington.edu/NIVEA—Brand Management & Forecasting Solution (eCommerce & Retail)
https://www.beiersdorf.comCustomer Retail Engagement Service Tool—CREST (Retail, eCommerce)
Business Intelligence Reporting (Insurance)
https://orion180.com• Performing data analytics and implementing business intelligence solutions using Microsoft Power BI.
• Complying with project plans and industry standards.
• Thriving in an agile, scrum development team.
• Providing work-completed demos on a bi-weekly basis to stakeholders.
• Providing timely updates on the progress.
Business Intelligence Solutions (Financial)
https://www.thomsonreuters.com/enAmazon eCommerce Solution (Digital Agency)
https://www.flywheeldigital.comIntegrated Sourcing and Solutions (Healthcare)
https://www.mercy.com/I was part of a 15+ person engineering team. The focus was building a secure, HIPAA-compliant data platform for healthcare analytics. I built a master data management solution on Databricks for cost analysis and contract management, processing 20 million records daily while maintaining strict data governance and compliance standards.
Falcon (Data Mining and Text Analysis)
Tools and Technologies: C#, MVC, jQuery, SQL Server, Lucene/Solr
Supply Chain Management (Healthcare)
Tools and Technologies: C#, ASP.NET, Infragistics, SQL Server, SSRS
Krones Data Management (Manufacturing)
Krones is a German packaging and bottling machine manufacturer. It is the world's leading manufacturer of lines for filling beverages in plastic and glass bottles, as well as beverage cans.
IC Group LP Reporting Solution
https://www.icgroupinc.com/Tools and technologies: SQL Server, SSRS, T-SQL
Virtual Private Learning
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
Punjab University Collage of Information Technology - Lahore, Pakistan
Certifications
Project Management: Essential Management Skills for Aspiring Team
People Excellence
Project Management: Scrum for Professionals
Akai Ideas
Implementing a Data Warehouse with Microsoft SQL Server 2012/2014
Microsoft
Skills
Libraries/APIs
REST APIs, Amazon API, Entity Framework, API Development, jQuery, Vue, PyTorch, SQLAlchemy, PySpark, GraphQL API
Tools
SSAS, Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, SQL Server BI, Microsoft Access, Power BI Embedded, Power BI Desktop, Microsoft Excel, Git, Microsoft AI, Azure OpenAI Service, Tableau Embedded Analytics, AWS Step Functions, Claude, GitHub Copilot, Jira, AWS Glue, Amazon Elastic MapReduce (EMR), ChatGPT, Apache Airflow, Pytest
Languages
SQL, Transact-SQL (T-SQL), C#, Python, C#.NET, Power Query M, R, Snowflake
Frameworks
ASP.NET MVC, .NET, LangGraph, Data Lakehouse, AngularJS, .NET Core, Alembic
Paradigms
Scrum, Business Intelligence (BI), ETL, Agile, HIPAA Compliance, Role-based Access Control (RBAC), Agile Software Development
Platforms
Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), SharePoint, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Microsoft Fabric, AWS Lambda, Databricks, Azure AI Search, Amazon EC2, Azure Functions, Shopify, Docker, Kubernetes
Storage
SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), Microsoft SQL Server, SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), PostgreSQL, Databases, Azure SQL, Data Pipelines, MySQL, Database Management, Database Architecture, Azure SQL Databases, SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS), MongoDB, Redshift, JSON, NoSQL, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Amazon DynamoDB, Azure Blobs, Azure Cosmos DB
Industry Expertise
Healthcare, Project Management
Other
Data Analytics, Data Engineering, Data Visualization, Data Analysis, Analytics, Dashboards, Database Analytics, Reporting, APIs, BI Reporting, BI Reports, Azure Data Factory (ADF), Reports, API Integration, Data Architecture, Data Modeling, Data Cleansing, ETL Tools, Finance, Data Warehousing, Data Science, eCommerce, Large Language Models (LLMs), Financial Systems, Infrastructure, Data, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Medallion Architecture, Data Transformation, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), Retrieval-augmented Generation (RAG), Agentic AI, AI Agents, Azure AI Services, Microsoft Foundry, Semantic Search, ETL Pipelines, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Sprints, Software Engineering, Azure Data Lake, RESTful Services, Amazon RDS, Big Data, Excel 365, Machine Learning, Scraping, DAX, Real Estate, LangChain, Cursor AI, Prompt Engineering, Vector Databases, Conversational AI, OpenAI, Data Build Tool (dbt), IT Project Management, Team Leadership, Data Quality Analysis, Airtable, Amazon Vendor Central, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Azure Databricks, Forecasting, Clustering, Models, Finance APIs, FastAPI, CI/CD Pipelines, OpenTelemetry
How to Work with Toptal
Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.
Share your needs
Choose your talent
Start your risk-free talent trial
Top talent is in high demand.
Start hiring