Google Cloud Data Heroes Series: Meet Antonio, a Data Engineer from Lima, Peru
Google Cloud Data Heroes Series: Meet Antonio, a Data Engineer from Lima, Peru
Google Cloud Data Heroes is a series where we share stories of the everyday heroes who use our data analytics tools to do incredible things. Like any good superhero tale, we explore our Google Cloud Data Heroes’ origin stories, how they moved from data chaos to a data-driven environment, what projects and challenges they are overcoming now, and how they give back to the community.
In this month’s edition, we’re pleased to introduce Antonio! Antonio is from Lima, Peru and works as a full time Lead Data Engineer at Intercorp Retail and a Co-founder of Datapath. He’s also a part time data teacher, data writer, and all around data enthusiast. Outside of his allegiance to data, Antonio is a big fan of the Marvel world and will take any chance to read original comic books and collect Marvel souvenirs. He’s also an avid traveler and enjoys the experience of reliving family memories through travel. Antonio is proudly pictured here atop a mountain in Cayna, Peru, where all of his grandparents lived.
When were you introduced to Google Cloud and how did it impact your career?
In 2016, I applied for a Big Data diploma at the Universidad Complutense del Madrid, where I had my first experience with cloud. That diploma opened my eyes to a new world of technology and allowed me to get my first job as a Data Engineer at Banco de Crédito del Perú (BCP), the largest bank and the largest supplier of integrated financial services in Perú and the first company in Peru using Big Data technologies. At BCP, I developed pipelines using Apache Hadoop, Apache Spark and Apache Hive in an on-premise platform.
In 2018, while I was teaching Big Data classes at the Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería, I realized that topics like deploying a cluster in a traditional PC were difficult for my students to learn without their own hands-on experience. At the time, only Google Cloud offered free credits, which was fantastic for my students because they could start learning and using cloud tools without worrying about costs.
In 2019, I wanted a change in my career and left on-prem technologies to specialize in cloud technologies. After many hours of study and practice, I got the Associate Cloud Engineer certification at almost the same time I applied for a Data Engineer position at Intercorp, where I would need to use GCP data products. This new job pushed me to build my knowledge and skills on GCP and matched what I was looking for. Months later, I obtained the Professional Data Engineer certification. That certification, combined with good performance at work, allowed me to get a promotion to Data Architect in 2021. In 2022, I have started in the role of Lead Data Engineer.
How have you given back to your community with your Google Cloud learnings?
To give back to the community, once a year, I organize a day-long conference called Data Day at Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos where I talk about data trends, give advice to college students, and call for more people to find careers in cloud. I encourage anyone willing to learn and I have received positive comments from people from India and Latin America. Another way I give back is by writing articles sharing my work experiences and publishing them on sites like Towards Data Science, Airflow Community and the Google Cloud Community Blog.
Can you highlight one of your favorite projects you’ve done with GCP’s data products?
At Intercorp Retail, the digital marketing team wanted to increase online sales by giving recommendations to users. This required the Data & Analytics team to build a solution to publish product recommendations related to an item a customer is viewing on a web page. To achieve this, we built an architecture that looks like the following diagram.