Jobsity in Action: Data Engineer Angel

Our Jobsity in Action series showcases the work of our software developers, UI designers, & BPO staff for Jobsity clients.

We sat down with Angel, one of Jobsity’s data engineers for our client Westlake. Westlake specializes in producing plastics like PVC and vinyl materials. As of July 2023, Angel has been working with them for about five months, so we wanted to hear from him about his current projects, his experience working with technologies like AWS and Snowflake, and what he brings to the table as a Jobsitizen. Let's take a look.

Tamar Peterson: Hey Angel, thanks for taking the time to talk about your work at Westlake. To kick us off, can you talk about what Westlake specializes in?

Angel: Westlake is a company that manufactures and supplies petrochemical products. Goods like polyethylene, olefins, vinyls, PVC. Westlake produces these materials to be used for products like solar panels, doors, windows, cars even.

TP: What project were you initially hired to work on?

A: I was hired as a data engineer to be part of the digital department, which had started using cloud technologies to manage data. So I was hired to help migrate data to the cloud. My role was to build data platforms that would be used by different team members in the company. I had to create the architecture for the different processes that are part of this data platform. I built pipelines to consume and move data, and I designed and maintain the data lake and the data warehouse.

TP: What skills made you the perfect person for this cloud migration / data engineering role?

A: Jobsity did a good job matching my skills to Westlake’s needs. They were looking for a person with some cloud experience, especially for AWS, and I was also familiar with DVT and Snowflake, which are the main technologies they’re using.

TP: What skills have you developed during your time at Westlake?

A: The first thing is that I started to use SAP, the ERP software, especially with migration tools. I also learned to use Power BI. I hadn’t used these tools in the past, but now I’m comfortable working with them!

TP: Are there any skills that you want to pick up in the future? Projects you want to work on?

A: I would like to start using Apache Spark and GCP for data migration.

TP: How has AI impacted your work, if at all? Or how might you use it in the future?

A: Right now I will say that these kinds of tools are complement tools. You can think of AI tools as providing help to, for example, the production department. AI could monitor automated production lines and normal parameters, and it could even prevent new issues before they happen. So at this moment I think they complement the work of human staff.

TP: It sounds like AI can’t replace our human engineers and developers just yet!

A: Yeah. Even if you think AI could take a role, you need another person that oversees this kind of technology. So roles are replaced with new roles. Even in the past—if you think of how people used to manually harvest crops, now machines can do it but they still need human intervention.

TP: Yeah, for sure. It's another skill to learn and a way to adapt.Can you share about projects you're currently working on? Are you still doing the same work that you were originally hired for, or have your projects changed a bit?

A: I’m still doing—I will say almost the same, because it's not the same, being involved in four different projects. And in each project, I have to do some research and present different Proofs of Concept. And I need to prepare and build the architecture for each project. Right now I'm working on a project to move data from SAP to S3 and Snowflake, so that the data is available for the rest of the team to analyze.

T: What do you enjoy about working at Westlake?

A:  I like the team. I think we support each other. We have team meetings where everyone is giving their point of view. And I like that dynamic, you know. The other thing I like is that I'm still learning. I continue learning every day from different people. Westlake is a big company, so there’s a lot about their different businesses that I don’t know, but it’s more to learn about.

Looking to hire data engineers like Angel to bring your project to life? Whatever your goals, you need world class tech talent—and Jobsity has you covered.

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