Driving Innovation in Hybrid Cloud Data Architecture at Financial Clients

Background and Current Role
Harsha Vardhan Reddy Goli currently serves as a Software Developer at PenFed Credit Union, where he has been an integral part of the Enterprise Data Warehouse project since August 2022. This large-scale, mission-critical initiative focused on deploying a scalable big data and cloud data platform across a hybrid infrastructure, integrating Cloudera (CDH/CDP) and Snowflake while spanning AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. His role centered on designing and implementing a secure, high-performance environment to support business intelligence, real-time analytics, and machine learning use cases.
Innovative Solution

Harsha engineered a hybrid-cloud data architecture that enabled seamless data flow between on-prem and multi-cloud environments while meeting stringent compliance standards. His innovative use of automated provisioning scripts, combined with CI/CD integration using GitHub, allowed for zero-touch cluster setups and version-controlled updates. He also architected data pipelines using Spark and Hive that dynamically ingested and transformed petabyte-scale datasets for Snowflake-based analytics, integrating cost-control mechanisms like auto-suspend and warehouse optimization.
Measures and Impact

The implemented solution had measurable and wide-reaching outcomes. The project supported over 5,000 internal users and analysts, improving query execution speeds by 40% while reducing operational costs by approximately $1.5 million through automated warehouse sizing and optimized compute/storage usage. End-to-end encryption and strict access controls through Kerberos, TLS, and Sentry ensured compliance with GDPR, HIPAA, and internal security mandates.
Advancement and Optimization

Harsha's continuous improvement mindset drove several long-term enhancements. He introduced proactive monitoring and alerting via scripting, allowing preemptive issue resolution. Documentation covering system configuration, security protocols, and standard operating procedures was developed to ensure smooth on-boarding and platform maintenance. Moreover, he created internal wikis and facilitated training sessions that empowered stakeholders to use Snowflake’s features. These efforts collectively ensured scalability, resilience, and knowledge continuity within the data engineering function, positioning PenFed to evolve with future data demands.