Zachary Dorval
Austin
Summary
Senior Data Engineer with expertise in enterprise data platforms and scalable cloud architecture. Developed and implemented metadata-driven frameworks for orchestration, ingestion, and lineage, benefiting over 15 engineering teams. Spearheaded modernization initiatives in regulated domains, including Iceberg adoption and cross-account data sharing. Enhanced engineering quality through architectural guidance and advanced debugging techniques.
Overview
10
10
years of professional experience
3
3
Certifications
Work History
Lead Data Engineer & Architect
MassMutual
01.2017 - Current
- Designed cross-domain regulated data platforms and led lakehouse modernization (Iceberg, schema governance, cross-account sharing).
- Engineered a metadata-driven orchestration layer (Airflow DAG Factory + Step Functions) that eliminated 80–90% of repetitive pipeline code and standardized execution across 15+ squads.
- Developed an NLP-powered metadata search service enabling natural-language queries over enterprise datasets for self-service discovery and reporting.
- Created a deterministic JSON-shredding framework for regulatory payloads, producing consistent relational datasets with full auditability.
- Engineered standardized ingestion and data validation frameworks, including multi-source schema contracts and automated reconciliation.
- Established CI/CD patterns using Terraform, CloudFormation, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, and GitOps automation via ArgoCD/Rafay.
- Built a telemetry and lineage capture platform tracking workflow performance, anomalies, SQL behavior, and data movement across hundreds of jobs.
- Created reusable ETL components, SQL analyzers, and pipeline templates accelerating onboarding and reducing code drift.
- Directed architectural decisions and guided teams on ingestion patterns, modeling strategy, workflow design, and scalable platform practices.
- Mentored engineers on debugging deep-stack issues, system design, and reproducible development workflows.
- Championed adoption of declarative pipelines, Iceberg, FastAPI microservices, and GitOps across multiple engineering teams.
BI Data & Web Engineer
MassMutual
01.2016 - 01.2017
- Delivered ETL pipelines, dimensional models, and operational reporting used across multiple business units.
- Improved SQL performance and enforced stronger validation across enterprise reporting workloads.
- Built enterprise web applications, including a rules-driven compliance system paired with an event-driven ETL backend supporting regulatory workflows.
Education
BS - Interdisciplinary Studies
University of Central Florida
Orlando, FL01.2013
Skills
- Lakehouse and Iceberg architecture
- Spark and Trino
- Kafka and Kinesis streaming
- Snowflake, Vertica, Redshift
- SQL and dbt
- AWS data services (Glue, Lambda, API Gateway, SQS)
- Airflow, Step Functions, Temporal
- Terraform and CloudFormation
- Kubernetes and GitOps
- CI/CD with Jenkins
- Python and FastAPI
- PHP and Laravel
Certification
AWS Certified Data Engineer
Timeline
Lead Data Engineer & Architect
MassMutual
01.2017 - Current
BI Data & Web Engineer
MassMutual
01.2016 - 01.2017
BS - Interdisciplinary Studies
University of Central Florida