// data engineer · 3 years · AWS

Piyush Chhabra

I've spent 3 years designing, building and optimizing ETL/ELT pipelines with Python, SQL, PySpark and AWS (Glue, Redshift, S3, EMR). I'm part of an AI-focused team, building the data infrastructure behind model training, inference and analytics. I'm now expanding into real-time streaming with Apache Kafka.

~80% compute cost cut ~50% faster processing AWS Glue · Spark · Redshift AI-ready data

Experience

Sep 2025 – Present

Data Engineer · Finvasia

AI-focused engineering team. I own the data layer that powers AI/ML inference and analytics.

  • Re-architected legacy ETL processes with parallel processing in Apache Spark, reducing compute costs by ~80% and processing time by ~50%.
  • Design and develop end-to-end ETL/ELT pipelines in Python and SQL that ingest real-time and batch data from multiple REST APIs.
  • Built orchestration workflows that set job dependencies and execution order, so downstream ETL tasks start automatically when upstream jobs finish.
  • Prepare validated, model-ready input datasets for AI/ML inference, and transform inference outputs into analytics-ready tables for Power BI dashboards.
  • Build outbound REST API integrations to downstream services and AI model pipelines, with retries, structured logging and monitoring.
  • Work with data science teams to define data requirements and deliver feature-ready datasets for model training.
Aug 2023 – Aug 2025

Data Engineer · Nihilent

Batch data pipelines and data warehousing for BI and MIS reporting.

  • Designed and deployed scalable batch ETL pipelines with AWS Glue and PySpark, orchestrated through Glue Workflows, moving raw transactional data from S3 into Redshift.
  • Wrote transformation logic (joins, aggregations, window functions) that turns raw data into analytics-ready tables for BI and MIS reporting.
  • Optimized SQL queries, stored procedures, partitioning and schema design to cut report processing time in the warehouse.
  • Worked with a data architect on a proof of concept that migrated SQL-based transformations to PySpark, saving ~15% on infrastructure cost.
  • Enforced data quality with automated validation checks and schema enforcement across the warehouse.

Skills & Tech Stack

Languages

PythonSQLPySparkJava

AWS & Big Data

AWS GlueGlue WorkflowsRedshiftS3 EMREC2AthenaApache SparkData Lake

Data Engineering

ETL / ELTData ModelingData Warehousing Batch ProcessingREST API IntegrationPipeline Automation

Databases & SQL

Query OptimizationStored ProceduresSchema Design PartitioningWindow FunctionsMySQLDuckDB

Quality & Ops

Data ValidationPerformance TuningLogging & Monitoring Error HandlingData Governance

Tools & Emerging

Power BIDockerGitLinux Apache KafkaRAGStreamlit

Projects

API-Based Data Ingestion & Processing Pipeline

Python · SQL

End-to-end ETL workflows that fetch data from external REST APIs and turn it into structured, analytics-ready datasets. They include cleaning, validation and normalization logic, plus logging, error handling and retries. Outbound integrations deliver model-ready data to downstream AI/ML training and inference services.

REST APIs → validate & normalize → warehouse → AI/ML services
PythonSQLREST APIsRetries & logging

End-to-End Batch ETL for MIS Reporting

AWS Glue · Redshift

A scalable batch pipeline in AWS Glue (PySpark) that processes raw transactional data from S3. It applies joins, aggregations and window functions, loads Redshift, and runs post-load stored procedures automatically. Validation, schema enforcement and partitioning are built in, and the full automation removed manual reporting work.

S3 (raw) → Glue / PySpark → Redshift → stored procs → MIS reports
AWS GluePySparkRedshiftS3

Local RAG Assistant

personal

A simple retrieval-augmented generation app that runs locally, built to learn the RAG pattern end to end: chunking documents, embedding, retrieval, and answer generation through a free-tier LLM API.

docs → chunks → embeddings → retrieve → LLM → Streamlit UI
PythonStreamlitGroq / Gemini

Real-time Transaction Pipeline

in progress

A streaming pipeline for banking-style transaction events on AWS, built as part of my move into real-time data with Apache Kafka.

producer → Kafka → stream processing → S3
KafkaAWSPython

Education & Certifications

Contact

Open to conversations about data engineering and AI data infrastructure.