Darren Jeppson

Email: darren.jeppson@gmail.com

Summary

Senior Data Engineer with 20+ years designing and deploying robust, scalable data platforms in AWS. Deep expertise in building and optimizing data pipelines, modern data lake/warehouse architectures, and streaming solutions for high-scale, mission-critical applications. Passionate about enabling data-driven decision-making and building reliable systems that advance safety and technology—excited by the impact of autonomous vehicles and AI on society.

• AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional
• 3x AWS Certified Specialties: Database, Data Analytics, and Security
• 20+ years designing and developing custom data solutions
• 15+ years consulting in client-facing, high-visibility roles
• Languages: Python, SQL (proficient); Rust (hobbyist)

Core Skills

• AWS Data Services: S3, Glue, Athena, Redshift, Kinesis, DynamoDB, EMR, RDS, Lambda, Step Functions, DMS, ECS/Fargate
• Data Pipeline Development: Python, SQL, Lambda, ECS/Fargate, DBT, Airflow
• Data Modeling & Architecture: Data lakes, warehouses, schema design, ETL/ELT processes, performance tuning
• Big Data & Streaming: Kinesis, DMS, Parquet, Apache Arrow, real-time/streaming data solutions
• Infrastructure as Code & DevOps: CloudFormation, Terraform (familiar), CodeBuild, git
• Data Quality & Observability: Data profiling, monitoring, validation, and operational dashboards (AWS CloudWatch)
• Data Visualization: Custom metrics, operational dashboards in AWS CloudWatch
• APIs: Building and consuming internal and external data APIs
• Collaboration: Partnering with Data Scientists, Software Engineers, and Operations

Professional Experience

Slalom

Principal / Senior Data Architect
Nov 2017 - Present

• Led migration of critical workloads from MySQL/Aurora to DynamoDB, optimizing for scalability and reliability.
• Designed and delivered end-to-end streaming ETL pipelines using AWS DMS, Kinesis, Lambda (Python), DynamoDB, and SQS for historical backfill and real-time change data capture.
• Developed DynamoDB data models and managed schema evolution to incorporate new data sources and user feedback.
• Architected and implemented a modern data lake/warehouse leveraging AWS (S3, Glue, IAM, EC2) and Snowflake for analytics at scale.
• Built and managed data ingestion pipelines using ECS Fargate and Python, and defined robust data models and transformations with DBT and SQL.
• Established data quality checks, validation routines, and operational dashboards in AWS CloudWatch to ensure accuracy and reliability.
• Created AWS lab environments, code repositories, and training programs for consultants and engineers.
• Provided one-on-one mentoring and advised on technical career development.
• Conducted data profiling and performance analysis for scaling a PostgreSQL backend, including custom performance testing in Python and presenting architectural recommendations to executive leadership.
• Redesigned a legacy data platform to resolve recurring outages, transitioning workflows from on-prem Airflow to ECS/Fargate.
• Refactored and optimized SQL/DBT codebase, reduced technical debt, and improved maintainability and performance.
• Implemented data quality monitoring, alerting, and operational dashboards using AWS CloudWatch.
• Provided design support for aerospace and high-scale data projects, including real-time streaming, replication, and deduplication (DMS, Kinesis, DynamoDB, PostgreSQL), Parquet optimization (Lambda, Apache Arrow), and process concurrency controls (Step Functions, DynamoDB).
• Led the design and implementation of a custom, serverless data warehouse (S3, Step Functions, Lambda, ECS/Fargate, Athena) for a major cable company, including data quality and monitoring solutions for platform reliability.

Hitachi Insight Group

Founding Engineering Team Member
Feb 2017 - Nov 2017

• Researched, designed, and helped launch an industrial IoT platform focused on telemetry ingestion, data processing, and edge computing.
• Led technical interviews and team formation, contributing to product and data architecture.

Hitachi Consulting

Senior Consultant
Nov 2007 - Feb 2017

• Developed custom IoT platforms for energy analytics, including telemetry solutions and backend data processing with PostgreSQL and Python.
• Built field deployment tools and optimized data ingestion for reliability and scale.
• Overhauled financial metrics reporting for a major cable provider using parallel ETL (Oracle, Netezza, Ab Initio) at scale (240M records/hr).
• Led stakeholder interviews, requirements gathering, and executive presentations.

IBM

Consultant
Jun 2001 - Jun 2007

• Designed and built a web-based security auditing program for 2,500 employees, tracking and reporting on over 200 annual audits.
• Collaborated with IBM Fellows and Senior Staff on five patent applications in knowledge management; invited presenter at IBM Academy of Technology.

Education

• Master of Education, Organizational Performance and Change
  Colorado State University

• Bachelor of Science, Computer Information Systems
  University of Northern Colorado

Additional Information

• Excellent communicator—skilled at writing technical documentation, conducting cross-team demos, and mentoring engineers.
• Passionate about technology’s impact on safety, society, and the future of autonomous vehicles.