Hector Cortez
Houston,United States
Summary
Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional currently progressing toward Databricks Champion certification through the Databricks Partner Program. Innovative technology leader with 20+ years of experience architecting and modernizing enterprise-scale data engineering, analytics, AI, and cloud platforms. Expertise in designing and delivering enterprise Lakehouse architectures, end-to-end Databricks implementations, and cloud modernization initiatives across the Energy, Healthcare, and Financial Services industries. Proven success leading customer discovery sessions, architecture workshops, enterprise migrations, and technical delivery while partnering directly with executive stakeholders to translate complex business requirements into scalable cloud solutions. Hands-on expertise with Azure Databricks, Unity Catalog, Delta Lake, Delta Live Tables (DLT), Auto Loader, Lakeflow Jobs, MLflow, PySpark, Python, SQL, Microsoft Fabric, and Azure cloud technologies. Recognized for leading globally distributed teams, mentoring engineers, and delivering secure AI-ready data platforms.
Overview
1
1
Language
1
1
Certification
25
25
years of professional experience
Work History
Cloud Data Modernization Strategist
3Cloud
Houston, United States
01.2025 - 04.2026
- Architected and delivered enterprise Lakehouse solutions utilizing Microsoft Fabric, Azure Databricks, Unity Catalog, Medallion Architecture, MLflow, PySpark, Python, SQL, and Power BI to support AI-enabled analytics and enterprise reporting initiatives.
- Developed and executed cloud data platform modernization strategies, led complex technical discussions, and architected scalable, secure, and high-performance cloud solutions.
- Led customer discovery sessions, architecture workshops, and solution design engagements for cloud modernization initiatives, collaborating with Product Owners, business stakeholders, and executive leadership to deliver scalable Microsoft Fabric and Azure Databricks Lakehouse solutions that align with enterprise goals.
- Architect and deliver scalable, secure, and high-performance solutions on the Microsoft Azure ecosystem, including Azure SQL, Azure Synapse, Azure Data Factory, Databricks, Data Lake Storage, Blob Storage, and Power BI.
- Served as technical lead on enterprise modernization projects, overseeing architecture, mentoring engineering teams, conducting design reviews, and resolving technical challenges to ensure high-quality delivery from discovery to production deployment.
- Led Data & AI engagements across multiple industries, overseeing end-to-end lifecycle of cloud data platform modernization projects to enhance data accessibility and analytics capabilities.
- Maintained deep, hands-on expertise across cloud, data engineering, lakehouse architectures, and AI technologies, applying modern patterns and best practices to deliver tailored solutions.
- Evaluated emerging innovations across Azure, Fabric, and Databricks to ensure architectures remained future-ready and optimized for analytics, automation, and AI adoption.
- Partnered with clients to define future-state data platform and architecture, aligning modernization strategy with business priorities and AI-driven transformation goals to support data-driven decision-making.
Sr. Manager, Data Engineering
EY
Houston, United States
03.2023 - 08.2024
- Led architecture workshops with Oil & Gas clients BP and ExxonMobil to define data platform strategy, gather business requirements, and design Azure Databricks Lakehouse architectures for enterprise analytics and AI initiatives.
- Served as the Technical Lead throughout enterprise Databricks implementations, providing architecture oversight, coordinating delivery teams, mentoring engineers, resolving complex technical challenges, and ensuring high-quality solution delivery from discovery through production deployment.
- Led end-to-end migration of an on-premises SQL Server data warehouse to Azure Databricks, implementing Auto Loader, Delta Live Tables (DLT), Lakeflow Pipelines, Medallion Architecture, PySpark, and Spark SQL to modernize enterprise data pipelines and improve scalability, reliability, and time-to-insight.
- Implemented MLflow and AI capabilities for model lifecycle management and feature engineering, enabling scalable enterprise machine learning solutions and supporting AI-driven analytics initiatives.
Principal Data Engineering & Lakehouse Architect
Neudesic
Houston, United States
12.2020 - 02.2023
- Architected enterprise Azure Lakehouse solutions utilizing Azure Databricks, Delta Lake, ADLS Gen2, Azure Synapse, Unity Catalog, and enterprise governance frameworks to support advanced analytics and AI-driven workloads.
- Directed enterprise migrations from SQL Server, SSIS, and legacy ETL platforms into Azure Data Factory, Synapse Pipelines, and Azure Databricks, improving platform scalability, reliability, and operational performance.
- Led clients through modernization of legacy on-premises data warehouses by defining cloud adoption strategies, assessing current-state architectures, and designing scalable future-state Azure data platforms.
- Guided organizations in migrating legacy data warehouses, ETL processes, and BI workloads to modern cloud-native architectures, enhancing scalability and flexibility of data solutions.
- Collaborated with business stakeholders, engineering teams, cloud architects, and AI practitioners to address technical challenges and enable seamless platform transitions.
Lead Security Data Platform Architect
Chevron
Houston, United States
07.2018 - 11.2020
- Led the architecture and modernization of Chevron's enterprise Security Data Platform, integrating multiple security data sources into a scalable Azure analytics platform while partnering with security leadership and engineering teams.
- Led technical team for enterprise Security Data Warehouse, integrating data from diverse security platforms to enhance data accessibility.
- Implemented automated production deployments using Azure DevOps Pipelines and delivered a high-performance Power BI model capable of processing hundreds of millions of records.
- Facilitated adoption of best practices in data engineering, analytics, Agile delivery, and CI/CD, mentoring engineering teams to elevate project outcomes.
- Migrated source code from on-premises TFS to Git in Azure DevOps, modernizing engineering workflows for improved collaboration.
Cloud Architect
Zero Day Group
Houston
03.2017 - 07.2018
- Designed and implemented a modern cloud-based network architecture that eliminated the need for physical servers in each office, improving security posture, reducing operational overhead, and accelerating global deployment.
- Modernized legacy on-prem environments into flexible, cloud-optimized solutions with engineering, security, and infrastructure teams, enhancing performance, reliability, and secure access.
- Guided clients in leveraging Office 365 and Azure Active Directory for secure, scalable identity and collaboration services across enterprise, driving cloud adoption.
- Created high-performance Seismic Interpretation Virtual Machine environments for Oil & Gas geoscience teams, facilitating compute-intensive seismic analysis workloads in the cloud.
Data Integration Architect
Wood Mackenzie
Houston, Area
05.2016 - 02.2017
- Re-architected the ETL layer for the North America Well Analysis Tool to handle rapidly increasing data volumes and reliably generate the Monthly Well Production Forecast.
- Delivered high-performance decline curve generation methods and optimized end-to-end data processing, cutting data publishing cycle from one week to six hours.
- Designed and implemented a modernized data transformation platform using the Microsoft BI stack, including SSIS, SQL Server 2012, and advanced T-SQL techniques.
- Modernized system to enhance reliability and forecasting accuracy, enabling product team to meet critical delivery timelines for subscriber base.
- Analyzed legacy process to pinpoint processing time increases causing data publishing delays and risks to subscriber retention.
Group Manager Data Analytics Architect
Avanade
07.2010 - 02.2016
- Led the pilot migration of a critical data infrastructure from on-premises SQL Server to Azure SQL, improving processing efficiency, elasticity, and operational resilience.
- Demonstrated deep expertise in cloud database migration, performance optimization, and platform management, ensuring minimal downtime and seamless integration into the broader data ecosystem.
- Leveraged in-memory processing, parallelism, and optimized data flows to dramatically improve throughput-reducing data publishing time from one week to six hours and significantly increasing system reliability and scalability.
- Transitioned legacy risk-accumulation engine from SQL Server stored procedures to high-performance architecture using SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), improving data processing speed and reliability.
- Established nearshore data analytics delivery capability in Monterrey Mexico, streamlining services and optimizing resource allocation for enhanced project efficiency.
- Leveraged diverse skills, time-zone alignment, and collaborative models to accelerate project timelines and expand organizational capacity for data engineering and analytics initiatives.
Business Intelligence Architect (Public Education)
Hitachi Consulting
12.2009 - 07.2010
- Led design and implementation of Business Intelligence solution to analyze student performance trends across grades, attendance, discipline, and state scores.
- Implemented Data Warehouse for Release 1 (Phase 1) to streamline data collection and reporting.
- Developed OLAP cube during Phase 1 to enhance data analysis capabilities.
- Enabled teachers and the district to track student improvement against class averages.
- Created Business Dimensional Model to enhance data analysis and reporting capabilities.
- Designed and built development, testing, and production environments for data solutions.
Business Intelligence Architect (Retail Industry)
Accenture
08.2007 - 12.2009
- Led modernization, performance optimization, and architectural evolution of enterprise data and reporting platforms, enhancing data accessibility and analytical capabilities.
- Directed onshore, offshore, and nearshore engineering teams to deliver application enhancements and BI modernization initiatives, improving system reliability and enabling data-driven decision-making.
- Partnered with business stakeholders, IT leadership, and cross-functional teams to define requirements and align priorities, ensuring timely delivery of BI solutions that met strategic goals.
- Designed and implemented dimensional data warehouses, OLAP cubes, ETL architectures, and reporting frameworks, facilitating transition from operational reporting bottlenecks to scalable, analytics-driven insights.
Metrics and Reporting Manager
Dell
04.2001 - 06.2007
- Established world-class reporting environment, enabling sales managers and executives to focus on actions that enhance business performance rather than creating their own reports and presentations for weekly business reviews.
- Led implementation of Business Intelligence solution and change management process to enhance data accessibility for decision-making.
- Automated Business Scorecard from Multiple data sources and with parameters that allowed the same reports to be used by over 150 segments in the organization.
- Led Green Belt certified project to automate Sales Agent Reports for over 1000 sales representatives.
- Collaborated with stakeholders to define key performance indicators and integrate data sources into business intelligence solution, ensuring alignment with business objectives.
- Streamlined process for requesting and modifying reports, improving turnaround time and user satisfaction.
- Significant Achiever Award for Q2, Q3 and Q4 Fiscal Year 2007.
Education
B.S. - Computer Science
Universidad Autónoma De Nuevo León
Monterrey, MexicoSkills
- Azure Databricks
- Microsoft Fabric
- Unity Catalog
- Medallion Architecture
- Lakeflow Jobs
- Databricks Workflows
- Delta Live tables
- Auto Loader
- MLflow
- PySpark
- Python
- Spark SQL / T-SQL
- ETL / ELT
- Azure Data Factory (ADF)
- Azure Synapse Analytics
- Data Governance
- Data Modeling
- Data processing
- Power BI
- Copilot Studio
- Azure DevOps
- DevOps tools
- Agile / Scrum
- Enterprise Data Architecture
- Cloud Data Modernization
- AI Genie
Technology
Azure Databricks, Unity Catalog, Delta Lake, Delta Live Tables (DLT), Lakeflow Jobs, Databricks Workflows, Auto Loader, MLflow, Databricks SQL, Medallion Architecture, Lakehouse Architecture, Data Governance, PySpark, Python, Spark SQL, SQL, ETL / ELT, Data Modeling, Data Warehousing, Data Integration, Data Orchestration, Batch & Streaming Data Processing, Azure Data Factory (ADF), Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure SQL Database, Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 (ADLS Gen2), Azure Blob Storage, Azure DevOps, Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, AI Genie, Copilot Studio, Feature Engineering, Machine Learning, AI / Data Platform Modernization, Terraform, Git, CI/CD, Agile / Scrum, Enterprise Data Architecture, Cloud Data Modernization, Data Platform Architecture, Enterprise Data Migration, Architecture Workshops, Technical Leadership, Client Discovery & Requirements Gathering, Solution Design, Delivery Leadership
Languages
Spanish
Full Professional
Certification
- Databricks Partner Training - Solutions Architect Essentials
- Databricks - Certified Data Engineer Professional
- Databricks - Certified Data Engineer Associate
- Databricks - Certified Data Analyst Associate
- Databricks Knowledge Badge - Data Preparation for Machine Learning
- Microsoft Certified: Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate
- Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Engineer Associate
Timeline
Cloud Data Modernization Strategist
3Cloud
01.2025 - 04.2026
Sr. Manager, Data Engineering
EY
03.2023 - 08.2024
Principal Data Engineering & Lakehouse Architect
Neudesic
12.2020 - 02.2023
Lead Security Data Platform Architect
Chevron
07.2018 - 11.2020
Cloud Architect
Zero Day Group
03.2017 - 07.2018
Data Integration Architect
Wood Mackenzie
05.2016 - 02.2017
Group Manager Data Analytics Architect
Avanade
07.2010 - 02.2016
Business Intelligence Architect (Public Education)
Hitachi Consulting
12.2009 - 07.2010
Business Intelligence Architect (Retail Industry)
Accenture
08.2007 - 12.2009
Metrics and Reporting Manager
Dell
04.2001 - 06.2007
B.S. - Computer Science
Universidad Autónoma De Nuevo León