Zsolt Szalai

CV Facelift Demo v9 (szalai.ai/cv)

Curriculum Vitae

About me

I'm a Data & Software Engineer with 7+ years of experience building and maintaining scalable data systems, on-premises and in the cloud.

I live in the Greater Toronto Area and work as a Senior Data Engineer at SEON, where I'm building event-driven data processing as well as real-time pipelines, and the platform for fraud analytics. Most recently I brought natural-language querying to our Snowflake warehouse, so people can ask it questions in plain English.

My specialities are data warehousing, data modeling, and automation. I pick whatever tool fits the problem, and solve complex technical problems for finance, insurance, telco, and SaaS to deliver value and customer success. I care about good engineering, AI, working with people around the globe, and I support sustainability initiatives.

I love spending time on my computer or outdoors, and sometimes both.

Zsolt Szalai

Work Experience

SEON Technologies
Senior Data Engineer
2025/10 – Present
  • Enabled querying for an enterprise Snowflake warehouse with Snowflake's native Cortex AI tools: semantic views that ground the model in governed business definitions, and evaluation suites that track and improve accuracy of LLM answers for less technically fluent collaborators, who can ask the warehouse questions in plain English.
  • Developed event-driven big data pipelines with dynamic schema evolution for analytics and AI.
  • Modeled and implemented a multi-region Snowflake warehouse, from Data Vault 2.0 to Medallion and Star Schema
  • Rolled out internal RBAC structure, data governance tooling and company-wide domain roles for internal data tools in a cross-functional setting
  • Brought data processing and cloud infrastructure to new AWS regions, all through Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)
Tech stackTechnologies: Snowflake, Snowflake Cortex AI, semantic views, LLM evals, dbt, Apache Spark, Apache Iceberg, AWS Glue, Apache Airflow, Terraform, AWS, Atlan. Snowflake Snowflake Cortex dbt Spark Iceberg Airflow Terraform AWS Atlan
Deutsche Telekom IT Solutions
Data Engineer
2023/11 – 2025/08
  • Migrated an Oracle on-prem data warehouse project to a full lakehouse architecture on Azure with Databricks and dbt, the flagship modernization of the department
  • Retired SAP Business Objects and built the new reporting platform for analytics in Power BI on Azure
  • Developed a high-security data and interface management and archival system, plus the data-centric RESTful web apps around it
  • Used Delta Lake for orchestrated, scalable B2B data pipelines and streamlined company processes
Tech stackTechnologies: Azure, Databricks, Delta Lake, dbt, Oracle, Power BI, SAP Business Objects, PySpark, Azure Data Factory, Kestra, Oracle APEX. Azure Databricks dbt Oracle Power BI SAP PySpark Kestra
Allianz Technology
Data Infrastructure Engineer
2022/01 – 2023/11
  • Built the ingestion layer for actuarial finance data in an enterprise warehouse, and developed transformation models for actuaries and finance to run their numbers on
  • Designed, automated and optimized data acquisition pipelines using SQL, Shell scripts, PL/SQL and Python
  • Automated data quality checks for actuarial datasets and downstream analytics on AWS
  • Managed platforms and interfaces across multiple systems with shell scripts and SAS jobs
Tech stackTechnologies: Oracle, PL/SQL, Python, SQL, Shell, AWS Lambda, AWS Glue, S3, Redshift, SAS. Oracle Python AWS Shell SAS
IBM Data Storage Systems
Database Developer
2018/09 – 2021/12
  • Built data-driven RESTful BI web applications end to end with Oracle APEX, APIs and PostgreSQL
  • Automated data warehousing solutions for BI using Oracle and PL/SQL
  • Worked on multi-cloud projects for containerized application and database deployment
  • Developed data pipelines and onboarded service management systems in ServiceNow
  • Improved and automated a plug-and-play SaaS product catalog for our clients and internal teams
Tech stackTechnologies: Oracle, PL/SQL, Oracle APEX, PostgreSQL, Docker, MCMP, ServiceNow, Fivetran, REST APIs. Oracle PostgreSQL Docker Fivetran ServiceNow

What I'm bringing to the table

Transforming Data Into Business Value with:

$ zsolt run value-pipeline
✓extract_raw_dataevents, APIs, files, streams0.4s
✓orchestrate_pipelinesingest + transform, end to end2.3s
✓load_warehouse_aiSnowflake + lakehouse, Cortex AI on top1.8s
▸deliver_business_valueinsight people actually use∞
runs_on: [cloud + IaC, quality_checks, governance, monitoring]
✓ pipeline succeeded · 4 tasks · scheduled: every single time :)

Technical skills

Cloud Platforms

Azure AWS Databricks Snowflake Atlan

Data Engineering

Spark Terraform Kafka dbt Iceberg Airflow

Data Analytics & AI

Oracle PostgreSQL DuckDB Tableau Sigma Snowflake Cortex
-- data engineer skillset SELECT * FROM zsolt.skills;

Cloud Platforms

SnowflakeAWSAzureDatabricksHybrid & on-prem

Data Engineering

Spark / PySparkdbtKafkaIceberg & Delta LakeAirflow · Kestra · ADFTerraform

AI on the Warehouse

Snowflake CortexSemantic viewsLLM evalsNatural-language queryingVector databases

Analytics & BI

Oracle & PL/SQLPostgreSQLDuckDBPower BISemantic layers

Governance & Quality

AtlanUnity CatalogData ownershipQuality frameworksHigh-security systems

Domains

Fraud preventionInsurance & financeTelcoSaaS

Certifications

Microsoft Azure

Azure Cloud Fundamentals

AZ-900 · Microsoft Certified
Achieved 2024
  • Distributed computing
  • Networking
  • Cloud storage
Snowflake

SnowPro Core

COF-C03 · Snowflake
In progress
  • Architecture & virtual warehouses
  • Performance & cost management
  • Data loading, sharing & security
Anthropic

Claude Certified Developer

Anthropic
Achieved 2026
  • Agentic workflows & tool use
  • MCP & API integration
  • Prompt engineering & evals

Soft Skills & Professional Attributes

Core Strengths

Allianz
Analytical Thinking Actuarial dataset analysis and automated data quality checks
TelekomIBM
Problem Solving Oracle warehouse migrated to a lakehouse; multi-cloud deployment problems solved
IBMAllianzTelekomSEON
Adaptability Four companies, four stacks: private multi-cloud, AWS, Azure, and Snowflake
Telekom
Proactive Approach Started the pipeline automation push and drove the retirement of legacy SAP systems
SEONTelekom
Collaboration B2B delivery and governance rollout across global, cross-functional teams
Telekom
Continuous Improvement SAP BO to Power BI; on-prem warehouse to cloud-native lakehouse

Work Style & Values

Allianz
Data-Driven Decisions Quality frameworks that keep downstream analytics trustworthy
TelekomIBM
Stakeholder Communication B2B project delivery and ServiceNow-managed integrations for many stakeholders
AllianzTelekom
Agile Mindset Comfortable with change: shell scripts to serverless, on-prem to cloud
IBMTelekom
Quality & Documentation RESTful data tools on Oracle APEX; automated, documented data frameworks
IBMAllianzTelekom
Knowledge Sharing Onboarded systems and mentored teammates across global teams
SEON
Ownership Driving the data ownership culture and governance adoption

Domain Expertise

SEON
Fraud Prevention & RegTech Data platform behind real-time fraud prevention and AI analytics
Allianz
Financial & Insurance Analytics Two years of actuarial datasets, risk analytics and financial pipelines
Telekom
Telecommunications Telco-scale data solutions and secure infrastructure
IBM
SaaS Platforms SaaS product catalog and workflow integrations
TelekomSEON
Data Governance Unity Catalog, Atlan rollout, high-security hybrid-cloud data management
SEON
AI & MLOps Cortex natural-language analytics, LLM evals, PySpark pipelines, vector databases

What drives me forward?

 Creating something new every day. I love building digital solutions that help people and businesses grow and thrive. I believe "the best project you'll ever work on is you," which keeps me constantly learning and exploring new ways to solve challenges.

Find me on social media.
"Always leave people better than you found them."