Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Certification
Publications
Software
Timeline
SoftwareDeveloper
Stewart Fohlo

Stewart Fohlo

Senior Data Engineer
Midrand

Summary

A versatile and impact-driven cloud and data engineer with over a decade of hands-on experience spanning AWS architecture, software engineering, big data platforms, and DevOps. I specialize in designing and optimizing scalable cloud-native solutions using AWS services, with proven ability to jump into complex problems and deliver rapid, high-quality results. As a certified AWS Developer and Microsoft Azure Data Engineer, I bring cross-functional expertise in ETL/ELT pipeline development, distributed systems, automation, and end-to-end solution delivery. Known for my agility and problem-solving acumen, I thrive in fast-paced, multi-team environments where high-impact contributions are expected. I am deeply committed to data security, governance, and operational excellence across all stages of development and deployment.

Overview

12
12
years of professional experience
8
8
years of post-secondary education
10
10
Certifications

Work History

Senior Data Engineer

Analytics Group, Sub-Contracting at BMW
01.2019 - Current
  • Data and Analytics consultancy work for Analytics Group clients
  • Design and implement scalable and robust processes for ingesting and transforming complex datasets.
  • Design, develop, construct, maintain, and support data pipelines for ETL from a multitude of sources.
  • Create blueprints for data management systems to centralize, protect, and maintain data sources.
  • Focused on data stewardship and curation, as the Senior Data Engineer I enabled the data scientists to run their models to achieve the desired business outcomes
  • Ingest large, complex data sets that meet functional and non-functional requirements.
  • Enable the business to solve the problem of working with large volumes of data in diverse formats, and in doing so, enable innovative solutions.
  • Design and build bulk and delta data lift patterns for optimal extraction, transformation, and loading of data.
  • Ensure that all data solutions support the organisation's cloud strategy and aligns to the data architecture and governance including implementation of these data governance practices.
  • Engineer data in the appropriate formats for downstream customers, risk and product analytics or enterprise applications.
  • Development of API's for returning data to Enterprise Applications.

Senior AWS Data Engineer

Analytics Group, Sub-Contracting at Capitec Bank
06.2022 - 12.2022
  • Company Overview: Capitec Bank's credit products include Home Loans/Bonds, Personal Loans, Credit Cards, Vehicle Financing and Business Financing.
  • Designing and implementing an end-to-end, cost-effective data architecture spanning data ingest from disparate sources, storage, scaling and vending to business stakeholders.
  • Retrieve and analyze data using a broad set of AWS technologies (e.g. Athena, Aurora, Redshift and S3) and resources, knowing how, when, and which to use.
  • Extract, transform, and load data from many data sources using SQL, Scripting and other ETL tools like AWS Glue and PySpark.
  • Facilitate the selection, licensing, and implementation of a data visualization product with PowerBI.
  • Lead deep dive analysis of customer utilization behaviours, surface key insights, and identify high value actions the growth team can action in product and marketing strategies.
  • Managing the availability, usability, integrity and security of the data at Capitec Bank's credit products, based on internal data standards and policies that also control data usage.
  • Partner closely with Product, Tech, and Operations leaders to define and analyze experiments, including any lessons learned and recommended changes to approach.
  • Define, measure and present metrics / automated reports on multiple products to senior leadership.
  • Implementing effective data governance standards, ensuring that data is consistent and trustworthy for accurate analytics and reporting.
  • Mentoring juniors and performance reviews
  • Sprint planning and work allocation
  • Capitec Bank's credit products include Home Loans/Bonds, Personal Loans, Credit Cards, Vehicle Financing and Business Financing.

Senior Data Engineer

Analytics Group, Sub-Contracting at Vodacom
10.2021 - 05.2022
  • AWS Cloud Data Engineering
  • Vodacom International Markets Data Engineering
  • AWS Datalake development and support
  • Design and develop highly performant, scalable, and stable Big Data cloud native applications
  • Source data from a variety of different sources, in the correct format, meeting data quality standards and assuring timeous access to data and analytical insights
  • Build batch and real-time data pipelines, using automated testing and deployment using AWS Glue, Step Functions, Lamda, Apache Airflow and custom Python/PySpark code
  • Build transformations to produce enriched data insights on AWS Athena and Redshift
  • Integrate applications with business systems to enable value from analytic models and enable decision making
  • Define and implement best practices relating to cloud economics, software engineering and data engineering to ensure a well-architected cloud framework with data management practices built into each design.
  • Work with the architecture team to evolve the Big Data capabilities (reusable assets/patterns) and components to support the business requirements/objectives
  • Research, investigate and evaluate new technologies and methods to improve the delivery and sustainability of data applications and services
  • Develop dynamic applications health and performance dashboards to be sent out to relevant stakeholders on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.
  • Make contributions to the process of defining best practices for the agile development of applications to run on the Big Data Platform

Data Engineer

Analytics Group, Sub-Contracting at Standard Bank
10.2019 - 09.2021
  • Automating the manual upload of employee data files from SAP HC into Clearview app on Azure Cloud and enforcing that the two applications are in real-time sync.
  • Collaborate with different teams in the bank i.e IT Security team, DNS Team, F5 Load Balancer Team, Internet Services, Oracle, Linux, Wintel and Firewall team to come up with various data solutions and automation approaches required by the bank.
  • Responsible for maintaining quality reference data in Oracle by performing operations such as cleaning, transformation and ensuring integrity in a relational environment for Group Internal Audit Network Tool (GIANT) application.
  • Developed SQL scripts and optimized SQL queries for pulling out reports to be utilized by business.
  • Initiated a lot of fine tuning mechanisms to tune the database as well as the queries to complete a set of given jobs or tasks in optimal time.
  • Reports development using PowerBI
  • Develop and maintain data recovery environment for on premise applications i.e One World, GIANT, Enterprise Risk Manager.
  • Developing, implementing and supporting GIANT application running on Tomcat middleware.
  • Ensuring that applications are on the latest supported infrastructure and versions.
  • Setup and maintain applications monitoring using Appdynamics, Azure AppInsight and Splunk and also integrate email alerts, MS Teams and Kaizala for notifications.
  • Develop dynamic applications health and performance dashboard to be sent out to relevant stakeholders on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

Data Analytics Consultant

Analytics Group, Sub-Contracting at SkX Protiviti
03.2019 - 02.2020
  • ETL Development of data from various Big Data sources i.e SAP, MSSQL, OracleDB, MySQL Teradata, Hive and NoSQL DBs
  • Develop SQL and ACL CAATs for clients like Transnet, Telkom, Airports Company of South Africa, National Treasury, South African Airways and Department of Labour (Compensation Fund)
  • Identify, design, and develop data analytics extract routines to support audit activities performed by the Internal Audit team.
  • Manage data extraction, storage, transformation, and processing through data analytics routines, and generate output for visualization/analysis by the Internal Audit team.
  • Use data analysis tools to automate audit testing and develop techniques for continuous auditing and analyzing large volumes of data.
  • Interact with management and business partners to identify appropriate data sources and data elements required for analytics, applying professional scepticism when assessing data sources and validating the completeness and accuracy of data received.
  • Interact and collaborate with Internal Audit team members in working towards departmental goals.
  • Perform audit tests of controls by obtaining and analyzing audit evidence, preparing audit working papers, evaluating test results, and drawing conclusions on the adequacy and effectiveness of controls.

Big Data Developer

Analytics Group, Sub-Contracting at Absa Bank
11.2018 - 10.2019
  • Big Data Development for Financial Crime and Conduct Risk (Hortonworks)
  • Tools: HDFS, Apache Spark, Scala, HiveQL, Beeline, Sqoop, Oozie, Zookeeper, Java
  • Hadoop development and implementation.
  • Loading from disparate data sets.
  • Pre-processing using Hive and Pig
  • Perform data quality checks in a methodical manner to understand how to accurately utilize client data.
  • Expert level programming skills using Hadoop to meet the challenges of advanced data manipulation, complicated programming logic, and large data volumes.
  • Communicate results and methodology with the project team and clients with the ability to work in offshore/onshore model.
  • Provide solutions for data driven applications involving large and complex data and providing reconciliation and test cases.
  • Understand customer's Business processes and pain areas which need attention.
  • Solution Architecture for the entire flow from source to end reporting data marts.
  • Design Conceptual and physical data model for a global data warehouse in the Hadoop world (ETL versus ELT).
  • High Level & Low Level design for ETL Components in Hadoop.
  • Test prototypes and oversee handover to operational teams.
  • Propose best practices/standards.
  • Hands on work on Sqooping and Hive transformations, Build monitoring and testing mechanisms around Sqooping and data transformations.
  • Continuous improvements to the current Hadoop set up in terms of scalability, reliability and monitoring.

Software Developer

Escrow Group (EFS)
05.2015 - 08.2018
  • Banking & Microfinance software development
  • Developing web based software using computer programming languages such as VB.net, C#, Java and MSSQL.
  • Performing extensive software testing and stringent quality checks as per the QC guidelines to ensure an error free as well as optimum final product to the user.
  • Creating and maintaining the ASP.NET based websites and their web applications as per the initial guidelines of the client.
  • Making changes to existing web applications according to the feedback received from the end users or clients.
  • Testing the applications and websites on different web browsers to ensure a standard user experience for the clients across all platforms.
  • Developing documentation throughout the software development life cycle (SDLC).
  • Training the end user or client on the final product as well as providing technical support whenever required, weekends included.

Software Developer

Steward Bank
01.2014 - 05.2015
  • Executed full software development life cycle (SDLC)
  • Developed flowcharts, layouts and documentation to identify requirements and solutions
  • Wrote well-designed and testable code
  • Troubleshoot, debug and upgrade existing systems
  • Integrated software components into a fully functional software system
  • Documented and maintained software functionality
  • Deployed programs and evaluate user feedback
  • Ensured software is updated with latest features.

Associate Software Developer (Intern)

Steward Bank
01.2013 - 12.2013


  • Collaborated with cross-functional teams for seamless integration of new features and functionalities.
  • Kept up-to-date with industry trends and emerging technologies, applying relevant insights to ongoing projects as needed.
  • Worked with developers to identify and remove software bugs.
  • Conducted module and regression tests.
  • Discussed issues with team members to provide resolution and apply best practices.
  • Supported Data Center Infrastructure issues

Education

Ph.D. - Computer Science

University of KwaZulu-Natal
Pietermaritzburg, South Africa
04.2023 - 12.2025

Master of Science - Computer Science & Engineering

Parul University
Gujarat, India
05.2016 - 08.2018

Bachelor of Science - Computer Science Honors Degree

Midlands State University
Gweru, Zimbabwe
04.2011 - 12.2014

Skills

Data pipeline development

Certification

AWS Certified Data EngineerAssociate

Publications

  • Google Scholar Reference
  • The Role of Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems in the Implementation of ZimASSET
  • Empirical Review Paper on Voice Recognition & Feature Extraction Techniques

Software

PySpark

Python

AWS Services

Azure Cloud

Hadoop

Spark

SQL

NoSQL

Snowflake

Microsoft Fabric

Onelake

Timeline

Ph.D. - Computer Science

University of KwaZulu-Natal
04.2023 - 12.2025

Senior AWS Data Engineer

Analytics Group, Sub-Contracting at Capitec Bank
06.2022 - 12.2022

Senior Data Engineer

Analytics Group, Sub-Contracting at Vodacom
10.2021 - 05.2022

Data Engineer

Analytics Group, Sub-Contracting at Standard Bank
10.2019 - 09.2021

Data Analytics Consultant

Analytics Group, Sub-Contracting at SkX Protiviti
03.2019 - 02.2020

Senior Data Engineer

Analytics Group, Sub-Contracting at BMW
01.2019 - Current

Big Data Developer

Analytics Group, Sub-Contracting at Absa Bank
11.2018 - 10.2019

Master of Science - Computer Science & Engineering

Parul University
05.2016 - 08.2018

Software Developer

Escrow Group (EFS)
05.2015 - 08.2018

Software Developer

Steward Bank
01.2014 - 05.2015

Associate Software Developer (Intern)

Steward Bank
01.2013 - 12.2013

Bachelor of Science - Computer Science Honors Degree

Midlands State University
04.2011 - 12.2014

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Stewart FohloSenior Data Engineer