Hi! I am Zan, a data engineer with an MSc in Big Data Analytics (with Distinction) from Birmingham City University 🧑‍💻🧑‍🔬. My interest is in computers and data! In the past I have had different roles, from data engineer, visiting demonstrator, sysadmin to retail. In my free time, I enjoy tinkering with my server(s) and cooking. You can see my personal and university work here. If you have any questions or other enquiries, feel free to reach out!

• February 2023 to Current – Data Engineer (remote)

  • Scrum lifestyle
  • AWS – Step functions, Lambda, S3, IAM, EMR, API gateway, Athena, OpenSearch
  • ETL pipelines – Moving data across bronze, silver and gold stage
  • Developing – Python, GoLang
  • Testing – Unit testing (PyTest), integration testing (Jmeter)
  • CI/CD – With GitLab and Terraform/OpenTofu
  • Data lineage – Dagster and dbt
  • Security – Keeping repos up to date using Orca

• September 2022 to February 2023 – Visiting Demonstrator (AI & ML, MLOPS) – Birmingham City University

  • Assisting within lectures to help teach coding (EDA, data cleaning, classification & regression algorithms)
  • Technology used: Google Colab, SkLearn, Apache Airflow, Mlflow, Anaconda, Docker & Linux

• October 2021 to August 2022 & October 2019 to May 2020 – Visiting Demonstrator (Python) – Birmingham City University

  • Assisting within lectures to help teach coding
  • Developing challenges to test and enhance students' knowledge

• April 2020 to September 2021 – Trainee Sysadmin (placement, hybrid) – Blueberry Consultants

  • Maintaining AWS infrastructure, writing Python scripts for automation
  • SQL automating and anonymizing data, Azure/O365 administration

• September 2022 – February 2025 – Birmingham City University – MSc Big Data Analytics: Distinction

  Completed modules

  - Modern Optimisation
  - Big Data Management
  - Applied Statistics
  - Data Mining
  - Advanced Databases
  - Web Social Media Analytics and Visualisation
  - Individual Master's Project

• September 2018 – June 2022 – Birmingham City University – BSc Computer and Data Science: First Class Honours

  Key modules

  - Data Management and Machine Learning Operations
  - Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
  - Modern Data Stores
  - Deep Neural Networks
  - Object Oriented Programming
  - Database and Web Application Development
  - Discrete Mathematics and Declarative Programming
  - Data Visualization

• 2025
  
  Finished my MSc project
  Started with my homelab journey!
• 2024
  
  Concluded second half of MSc Big Data analytics

  Courses:
  - Modern optimisation
         |-> Pokemon battles simulator for game theory: https://github.com/ZanZver/PokemonBattles
  
• 2023
  
  Concluded first half of MSc Big Data analytics

  Courses:
  - Advanced Databases
         |-> Build HA database for airport. Project code and report can be found here: https://github.com/ZanZver/AdvancedDatabasesCoursework
  - Data Mining
         |-> Using hotel data, our team has explored trends and written a report on discoveries (https://github.com/ZanZver/DataMiningCoursework).
  - Applied Statistics
         |-> Chicago Crime rate was analyzed with popular appropriate techniques in order to see what is most likely going to happen to you as a individual. Code and report are available here: https://github.com/ZanZver/AppliedStatisticsCoursework
  - Web Social Media Analytics and Visualisation
         |-> Using text analysis, report was created that describes how people interact on Reddit and how is it reflected to social trends. Notebook and code are available here: https://github.com/ZanZver/SocialMediaAnalyticsCoursework
  - Big Data Management
         |-> Game data was used in order to build a system that handles data pipelines for data analysis. Report and notebook are available here: https://github.com/ZanZver/BigDataManagement
  
  Started working as Data Engineer (remote)
• 2022
  
  Finished with the 3rd year of university (with 1st class) 🎓

  Courses:
  - Data Management and Machine Learning Operations
         |-> Maintaining SQL, optimising SQL and applying ML to SQL https://github.com/ZanZver/MLOPS
  - Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
         |-> Using Python to create ML models. My assessment GitHub has started! Have a look here: https://github.com/ZanZver/AI_and_ML_assessment
  - Modern Data Stores
         |-> Using MongoDB to implement NoSQL concepts. MongoDB was dockerised and clustered. https://github.com/ZanZver/IoT_System
  - Deep Neural Networks
         |-> Using DNN for prediction of chocolate ratings https://github.com/ZanZver/DeepNuralNetworks
  - Individual Honours Project
         |-> DeTraC neural network improvement, more information can be found on this repo: https://github.com/ZanZver/FYP-DeTraC (this will be archived). Final code can be found here: https://github.com/ZanZver/DeTraC_V2 (new project base, TBD 🚀)
  Started with MSc in Big Data Analytics
• 2021
  
  Finished the placement

  My placement presentation can be seen here: https://github.com/ZanZver/PlacementPresentation
  Started the 3rd year of university

  Information can be seen in the 2022
• 2020
  
  Got 1st class in my 2nd year

  Taken courses:
  - Object Oriented Programming
         |-> object programming with Java https://github.com/ZanZver/ObjectOrientedProgramming
  - Introduction to Data Science
         |-> introduction to data science steps and R
  - Database and Web Application Development
         |-> developing PHP webpage with MySQL backend
  - Discrete Mathematics and Declarative Programming
         |-> combining math to coding with F#
  - Data Visualization
         |-> displaying and manipulating data with R, cool code can be seen here: https://github.com/ZanZver/DataVisualizationProject
  - Software Design
         |-> basic software design steps
  Started with a placement year

  Blueberry Consultants offered me an early placement start so I have taken it. I have been using the following technologies on the placement:
  - AWS
         |-> creating and maintaining EC2 servers, automating buckets with Python
  - Zabbix / GrayLog / Grafana
         |-> logging and monitoring servers
  - SQL Server / MySQL
         |-> automating and anonymizing data
  - PfSense / Ruckus switches
         |-> maintaining existing network and creating a new one
  - Git
         |-> for code publishing
  - Python
         |-> scripting automation tasks
  - Microsoft O365
         |-> creating new users, integrating new VPN with Office sign in
  - Wiki
         |-> creating articles/guides on how I have done something
• 2019
  
  Got 1st class in my 1st year

  Taken courses:
  - Computer Programming
         |-> Python/coding fundamentals my first big python project can be seen here: https://github.com/ZanZver/BankSystem-Assignment
  - Computer Systems
         |-> Linux, Raspberry Pi, Arduino setups
  - Website Design and Development
         |-> HTML and CSS development
  - Data Structures and Algorithms
         |-> algorithm thinking and development with Python
  - Network Fundamentals
         |-> basic networking with Cisco gear
  - Innovation Project
         |-> came up with project for face recognition and fingerprint detection
  Completed apprenticeship in IT

  This IT support apprenticeship was in Wing Yip. My responsibilities were simple as, setting / troubleshooting employee computers, testing new hardware and network analysis.

• Open Source Tools for Data Science – Coursera (July 2019)
• LE-1 Linux Essentials – LPI (August 2022)
• AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (September 2023)

• Winner – Microsoft Computational Award for Innovation Fest 2019
• Engaging in extracurricular activities, gold level – BCU (September 2019)
• Mentoring (career growth) – BCU (January 2022)