Gustavo Santos

Lead Data Engineer / Engineering Manager

About Myself

I'm an IT enthusiast which works typically fulfill the roles of Lead Data Engineer and Data Project Manager with a strong focus on managing deliveries through critical challenges and deadlines, managing stakeholders expectations, teaching and leading technical teams.

I have switched between technical, business and management roles, giving me a broad vision of a company needs.

My current target area of expertise is around Complete Data Solution Delivery, Data Team Management, Stakeholders Guidance and Data Governance.


Skills

Technical

  • Python
  • Databricks
  • SQL
  • Worflow Orchestration
  • Data Governance
  • DevOps

Management

  • DeliverManagement
  • Scrum Master
  • Stakeholder Management
  • Cross-Functional Collaboration

Projects

Snowflake Migration

2023-2024

An extensive migration project from Azure to Snowflake, involving the transition of multiple data pipelines

As a Project Data Manager, I led the team through the migration process, ensuring that all data quality, testing, governance, and documentation standards were met.

Data Quality, Project Management, Data Governance, Power BI, Agile, Stakeholder Management

Kate Coin

2022-2023

KBC creates a first in Europe with the Kate Coin, its own digital coin based on blockchain

As Lead Data Engineer, my primary responsibility was to architect, orchestrate, develop and implement a batch data ingestion pipelines and ensure they functioned smoothly in production

Python, Spark, SQL, Jenkins, Workflow Orchestration, Data Quality, Data Governance, Agile, SaFe

Kate

2021-2023

KBC Mobile is a perfect and efficient banking app for everyday needs and one of the most innovative with some interesting extras.

As a Data Engineer, my primary responsibility was to design, develop and implement a batch data ingestion pipelines

Python, Spark, SQL, Jenkins, Workflow Orchestration, Hadoop, DataOps, Data Governance, Agile

Rework Exclusions

2022

The most important Kate pipelines with over 400GB of data being processed daily

My main objective was to create a faster, well-documented, and easy-to-understand codebase that could be easily shared and maintained

Python, Spark, SQL, Workflow Orchestration, Hadoop, DataOps, Agile, SaFe

Experience

    Lead Data Engineer, 07/2024 to current

    Elia Group, Belgium

    • ...

    Project Data Manager, 06/2023 to 06/2024

    Toyota Motor Europe, Brussels, Belgium

    • Leading a team through a strategic transformation, lead the transition to Agile and strict Data Governance policies during a migration from Azure to AWS/Snowflake. Orchestrated workshops, aligned Agile practices with Data Governance principles, and meticulously managed the migration to ensure operational continuity in collaboration with key IT stakeholders, including enterprise architects, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and application teams. Established a dedicated Data Governance team, developed a comprehensive data catalog with Collibra. Focused on enhancing metadata management to ensure the consistency, accuracy, and discoverability of data assets, implementing stringent data quality rules and metadata standards. This initiative resulted in enhanced project delivery efficiency, successful platform migration within budget and timeline, and a significant improvement in data quality and reliability, underscoring the leadership in driving technological advancements and governance excellence.

    Data Engineer, 06/2021 to 06/2023

    KBC – Leuven, Belgium

    • As the Lead Data Engineer for the blockchain project Kate Coin, serving over 1.8 million clients, spearheaded the development of scalable data pipelines, managing daily processing of over 60 Terabytes. Delivered robust, scalable ETL solutions, emphasizing reusability and efficiency. Role involved driving the adherence to data engineering standards through collaborative reviews and mentoring junior engineers on best practices, documentation, and deployment. Documented the pipeline architecture and led training sessions for the customer's data team on Agile and SAFe methodologies, ensuring alignment with continuous improvement practices for data governance. This leadership not only advanced data processing capabilities but also fostered a culture of excellence and collaboration within the team

    Key Achievement: Rework the most important pipelines in Kate that receive over 10 Terabytes daily, and improved readability but drying the code in more than 80% and increasing processing speed by over 120%

    Business Intelligence Analyst, 09/2019 to 06/2021

    Louis Delhaize – Brussels, Belgium

    • Develop Power BI intelligence-sharing dashboards, providing company-wide access to collected data
    • Synthesize current business intelligence data to produce reports and polished presentations, highlighting findings, and recommending changes
    • Draft strategic business intelligence roadmap, complete with data governance policies and tactical information safeguards
    • Map current business and operational processes and recommended areas for improvement

    Key Achievement: Based on predictive analyses and customer segmentation, made a study allowing the company to change more than 1000 products in the stores increasing the profit margin by 11%.

    Parliamentary Assistant, 03/2016 to 06/2019

    City Council – Franca, Brazil

    • Explained technical information in clear terms to non-technical individuals to promote better understanding.
    • Manage and supervise public projects.
    • Create and manage deals between government, population, and business.
    • Responsible for communication enhancing political and civil support.

    Key Achievement: Successful political campaign even with the political party losing more than 50% of the votes.

Languages

  • Portuguese: Native language
  • English: Fluent
  • French: Advanced
  • Dutch: Basic

Education

Certifications