Summary
Overview
Work history
Education
Skills
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Cheng Zhang

London,United Kingdom

Summary

Data Engineer with 3+ years of experience in FinTech, specialising in building and orchestrating scalable data workflows using Prefect, Azure Data Factory (ADF), and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Proficient in Python, SQL, dbt, and CI/CD with Azure DevOps. Experienced in building dashboards with Metabase and enabling cross-functional collaboration around data. Strong foundation in data analysis with a growing interest in applying machine learning to real-world problems.

Overview

4
4
years of professional experience

Work history

Data Engineer

Allica Bank
London, UK
09.2023 - Current
  • Built and maintained data pipelines in Azure Data Factory (ADF) and developed SQL-based validation dashboards in Metabase to support complex, time-sensitive data migrations in a financial setting. Followed strict runbooks to execute production runs with minimal downtime and ensured high data accuracy. Tuned pipeline and query performance to efficiently handle data volumes exceeding 50 million records.
  • Owned data workflows for the Digital Channels tribe, built and maintained Prefect (Python) pipelines to process online banking events and Ping logs. Created SQL dashboards to monitor pipeline health, track core metrics, and supported business stakeholders in decision-making, handling over 30 million records per month.
  • Automated SFTP file reconciliation using ADF and Azure Blob Storage, built scalable pipelines to onboard external partners, and ensured secure, accurate data exchange.
  • Contributed to the company’s GCP migration, migrated over 100 tables to BigQuery using DataForm and Dataflow, and worked with data owners and analysts to align schema transformations and key business logic.

Junior Data Engineer

Allica Bank
London, UK
11.2022 - 09.2023
  • Built and automated ETL/ELT pipelines using Azure Data Factory (ADF), Blob Storage, and Prefect (Python). Implemented CI/CD workflows with Azure DevOps and developed initial dbt proof of concepts to evaluate modular SQL development.
  • Created entity relationship diagrams (ERDs) and data dictionaries to support data modeling and improve cross-team data understanding. Worked with analysts and business teams to map data lineage and define column-level metadata across over 100 tables.
  • Created technical documentation and onboarding materials in Confluence, and led onboarding sessions to help new team members ramp up quickly.

Junior Data Scientist

sync.money
London, UK
01.2022 - 09.2022
  • Built NLP pipelines using NLTK and spaCy to clean and enrich financial transaction data, and extracted merchant names and metadata such as categories and keywords. Deployed the models to AWS SageMaker and endpoints via API Gateway.
  • Designed and implemented fraud detection algorithms using Python and NetworkX to identify account linkages across over 50,000 transactions. Presented findings to Compliance and Finance teams to support audits and investigations.

Data Science Intern

sync.money
London, UK
01.2021 - 01.2022
  • Designed synthetic user personas using Python and machine learning techniques to simulate diverse financial behaviors for credit risk profiling and segmentation analysis.
  • Prototyped models for anomaly detection, cash flow visualisation, and forecasting (e.g., balance prediction, recurring payments) to support credit risk scoring initiatives.

Education

BSc (Hons) - Mathematical Physics

University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Canada
2019

Data Science Diploma

BrainStation
Toronto, Canada
04.2001 - /2020

Skills

  • ETL/ELT Data Pipeline
  • Prefect, ADF, GCP
  • Python, SQL, dbt
  • CI/CD (Git, Azure DevOps)
  • Data Analytics & Visualisation
  • Technical Documentation (Confluence, Miro)

Timeline

Data Engineer

Allica Bank
09.2023 - Current

Junior Data Engineer

Allica Bank
11.2022 - 09.2023

Junior Data Scientist

sync.money
01.2022 - 09.2022

Data Science Intern

sync.money
01.2021 - 01.2022

Data Science Diploma

BrainStation
04.2001 - /2020

BSc (Hons) - Mathematical Physics

University of Waterloo

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Cheng Zhang