Principal Data Engineer & Databricks Architect

BENJAMIN SHELTON

PRINCIPAL DATA ENGINEER DATABRICKS AZURE DATABRICKS DATA PLATFORM

ARCHITECT

***********@*****.*** 678-***-****

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

Principal Data Engineer and Data Platform Architect with 25+ years of enterprise data experience spanning healthcare, retail, and aerospace/defense. Extensive experience designing, engineering, optimizing, and governing enterprise data platforms with a strong focus on Databricks, Azure Databricks, Apache Spark, Python, Databricks SQL, SQL Warehouses, data ingestion, transformation, and modern Lakehouse architectures. Experienced in building and supporting scalable data solutions using Bronze/Silver/Gold data-layer architectures, Databricks Workflows and Jobs, Spark, SQL, ETL/ELT, cloud data platforms, and enterprise data warehousing. Strong background in Spark performance tuning, data pipeline optimization, workload troubleshooting, data modeling, and production data-platform operations.

Brings a unique combination of modern Databricks/Lakehouse engineering expertise and 25+ years of enterprise database architecture and performance engineering. Deep experience with SQL Server, enterprise data warehousing, ETL, high availability, disaster recovery, cloud infrastructure, data governance, security, and large-scale production environments.

Proven technical leader who bridges data engineering, database administration, cloud architecture, analytics, infrastructure, and development, with a track record of modernizing legacy data environments and delivering scalable, secure, highly available platforms supporting mission-critical operations.

CORE TECHNOLOGIES

Databricks & Lakehouse: Databricks, Azure Databricks, Apache Spark, Databricks SQL, SQL Warehouses, Workflows, Jobs, Bronze/Silver/Gold Data Layers, Lakehouse Architecture

Data Engineering: Data Ingestion, Data Transformation, ETL, ELT, Data Pipelines, Data Integration, Data Modeling, Enterprise Data Warehousing, Large-Scale Data Processing Cloud: Azure, Azure Databricks, Azure Synapse, AWS EC2, AWS S3, AWS RDS, Cloud Data Platform Architecture

Development & DevOps: SQL, T-SQL, Git, GitHub, Azure DevOps, CI/CD, PowerShell, SQL Agent

Performance Engineering: Spark Performance Tuning, Query Optimization, Execution Plan Analysis, Index Optimization, Wait Statistics, Query Store, Extended Events, Resource Optimization, ETL Performance Optimization

Database Platforms: Microsoft SQL Server 2000–2022, Always On Availability Groups, Failover Clustering, Replication, Log Shipping, Backup/Recovery, Disaster Recovery, High Availability

Data Governance: Data Architecture, Data Governance, Data Security, Access Controls, Data Quality, Enterprise Standards, Change Management, Capacity Planning Healthcare Data: Epic Caboodle, Epic Clarity, Epic Cogito, Healthcare Data Warehousing, Analytics and BI Platforms

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

NORDIC CONSULTING

Senior Consultant January 2025 – Present

• Serve as a senior data-platform and database engineering resource supporting an enterprise data warehouse containing Epic and non-Epic healthcare data sources.

• Design, develop, and support Databricks and Azure Databricks data engineering solutions for enterprise data ingestion, transformation, and analytics workloads.

• Develop and optimize Apache Spark data-processing workloads supporting large- scale data transformation and integration.

• Assisted in the implementation of Bronze, Silver, and Gold data-layer architectures to support scalable and governed Lakehouse data environments.

• Develop and manage Databricks Workflows and Jobs to orchestrate enterprise data pipelines and recurring processing workloads.

• Utilize Databricks SQL and SQL Warehouses to support analytical workloads, data validation, reporting, and downstream data consumption.

• Optimize Spark-based workloads by identifying processing bottlenecks and applying Spark performance-tuning techniques to improve throughput and resource utilization.

• Design and optimize data ingestion and transformation pipelines supporting healthcare and enterprise analytics requirements.

• Monitor and troubleshoot data pipelines to improve performance, reliability, data quality, and operational stability.

• Collaborate with data engineers, database administrators, analysts, developers, and infrastructure teams to deliver scalable enterprise data solutions.

• Use Git, GitHub, and Azure DevOps to support source control, collaborative development, deployment, and data-engineering workflows.

• Apply enterprise standards for data security, access control, governance, change management, and production operations.

• Perform capacity planning and performance optimization across database and modern data-platform environments.

NRC HEALTH

Principal Database Administrator October 2020 – November 2024

• Served as principal technical authority for multiple production and non-production enterprise data environments supporting business-critical applications and analytics.

• Led modernization and optimization initiatives across enterprise database, data warehouse, ETL, and cloud data-platform environments.

• Supported the evolution of traditional database and ETL workloads toward modern cloud-based data engineering and analytics architectures.

• Designed and optimized enterprise data-processing workflows with emphasis on scalability, reliability, performance, and maintainability.

• Applied advanced performance-engineering techniques to identify and resolve data-processing bottlenecks.

• Supported cloud data environments across Azure and AWS, including data storage, compute, managed database, and analytics services.

• Collaborated with development and data-engineering teams to improve data models, pipelines, database designs, and application performance.

• Led database performance-tuning initiatives involving query optimization, execution plans, indexing, resource utilization, and workload analysis.

• Developed and maintained enterprise backup, recovery, high-availability, and disaster-recovery strategies.

• Provided senior-level technical guidance on enterprise data architecture, data governance, security, and operational standards.

• Automated monitoring and maintenance processes to improve platform reliability and reduce operational overhead.

• Supported 24x7 production environments with stringent availability, performance, security, and data-integrity requirements.

NORTHEAST GEORGIA HEALTH SYSTEM

Technical Manager / Senior Database Administrator October 2013 – June 2020

• Led database administration, infrastructure, BI, and enterprise data-platform teams supporting mission-critical healthcare systems.

• Defined enterprise data architecture, database standards, governance policies, security practices, and operational best practices.

• Directed enterprise data warehouse initiatives supporting Epic Caboodle, Clarity, and Cogito environments.

• Led initiatives to improve ETL, data integration, data warehouse performance, and analytics-platform reliability.

• Managed data-platform capacity planning, storage optimization, scalability, and infrastructure modernization.

• Partnered with BI, development, analytics, infrastructure, and database teams to improve enterprise data architecture and delivery.

• Designed and implemented high-availability and disaster-recovery architectures supporting mission-critical healthcare applications and data platforms.

• Provided technical leadership, mentoring, and architectural guidance to database and infrastructure professionals.

• Established standards for data security, performance, availability, change management, and production support.

• Supported large-scale healthcare data environments with demanding reporting, analytics, integration, and operational requirements. MACY'S

Database / Infrastructure Engineering 2010 – 2013 OLDCASTLE APG

Database Administrator / Senior Database Engineering 2005 – 2010 NORTHROP GRUMMAN

Database Administration / Infrastructure Engineering 2000 – 2005 SELECTED CAREER ACHIEVEMENTS

• Modernized enterprise data platforms using Databricks, Azure Databricks, Apache Spark, Databricks SQL, SQL Warehouses, and Lakehouse architecture principles.

• Designed and supported Bronze/Silver/Gold data architectures for scalable enterprise data processing and analytics.

• Developed and optimized Databricks Workflows and Jobs for automated data ingestion and transformation.

• Improved large-scale data-processing performance through Spark performance tuning and data-pipeline optimization.

• Built and optimized enterprise ETL/ELT pipelines supporting complex healthcare and enterprise data environments.

• Leveraged Databricks SQL and SQL Warehouses for analytical processing, data validation, and downstream data consumption.

• Applied 25+ years of database performance-engineering expertise to modern data platforms, including workload analysis, query optimization, resource management, and infrastructure tuning.

• Supported cloud data-platform architectures across Azure and AWS.

• Established enterprise data governance, security, architecture, and operational standards.

• Led technical teams and cross-functional initiatives involving databases, data engineering, BI, infrastructure, and application development.

• Automated data-platform and database operations to improve reliability, scalability, and operational efficiency.

EDUCATION

MBA — Brenau University

GPA: 4.0

BBA, Information Systems — University of West Georgia GPA: 3.2

Phi Kappa Phi — National Honor Society

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