Personal Statement
Panayiotis Creative and system’s oriented data engineer going beyond the call of duty to improve business critical
(Pano)
Pouroullis
Data Engineer
(Data Scientist)
i England, West Midlands,
Solihull, Knowle
T Mobile :
+44 774 5289 091
m LinkedIn :
Panayiotis Pouroullis
m Github :
Panolof’s Github
m Kaggle :
Panayiotis Pouroullis’ Kaggle
@ Email Address :
pano.pouroullis@gmail.com
About me
Oldest of 4 children, born and
raised in Johannesburg South
Africa to parents of Greek/Cypriot
descent. Thanks to my upbringing
and the environment within which I
was raised, I thrive in diversity. I
am passionate about solving
increasingly complex problems,
and have an insatiable thirst for
learning. To integrate learnings
and quiet the mind I have a
budding mindfulness practice
which includes piano and
meditation.
Technical Skills
Platforms & Software
Python/Matillion ETL/Power BI
Dbeaver/Snowflake/Task Scheduler
Power Automate/Azure SQL Server
Azure Storage/MATLAB/Github
C++/C/VHDL/Assembly/Java
Gitlab /VBA
(*)[Relative skill scale is from 0
(Fundamental Awareness) to 5 (Expert).]
processes. The biggest achievement has been in transforming old into new optimised processes during
the companies movement from on-premise to cloud infrastructure.
I have worked very closely with cloud based solutions such as Snowflake and Azure SQL and NoSQL prod-
ucts whilst being the administrator for the Snowflake production databases and Power BI reporting. In the
process I have monitored and designed production infrastructure and data models for reports to ensure
100 000 £ contracts are maintained. With 1-2 years of work experience as a data engineer and data sci-
entist my approach to documenting, reporting and improving live systems has only grown in manifold. I
have used Matillion ETL and Python for work designs of live data models and pipelines (including a machine
learning pipeline) whilst creating and maintaining production systems. I have trained a data engineer and
a Power BI analyst in helping to grow expertise and consolidate the business units of the company.
I have obtained a distinction in electronic graduate (top electronic engineering university in Africa ). Cur-
rently undertaking a part time Machine Learning Master’s at the university of Pretoria. With a growing
love for machine learning and a growing adeptness to automation, this highlights the importance of my
foundations in electronic engineering amidst the analytical sphere of data science and data engineering.
Work Experience
Data Engineer and Scientist (Dee Set - Retail Solution) 03-2021 to present
• Building, modelling & maintaining the data warehouse:
– Obtaining requirements from business users to design the data warehouse model.
– Designing & optimising the star schema model (dimension 1,2, fact & bridge tables).
– Integrating old (SQL server) and new (Azure SQL server) pipelines for business users.
– Building the framework for a machine learning pipeline for image recognition from
old and new systems for business users.
• Designing, verifying & maintaining data infrastructure:
– Maintaining 500 staging & 500 persistent staging tables in Matillion ETL.
– Staging dozens of tables from Azure SQL and NoSQL databases into Snowflake.
– Development and Production testing methods utilising Dbeaver, Snowflake and Power BI.
– Working with data sources from SQL and NoSql databases.
– Working with Developers in improving consistency amongst systems:
* Ensuring pay is correctly distributed for hundreds of colleagues.
• Data administration and training:
– Administrating Snowflake & Power BI privileges to business users.
– Training a Data Engineer on best practises for data ingestion and ETL processes.
– Training a Power BI Analyst on SQL server, Power BI and Snowflake usage to
ensure their adeptness in integrating with other business units.
• Automation of 2 £350 000 Cosmetics orders for Supply Chain (running weekly):
– Improving sales by exploratory data analysis by the inclusion of 100s of items/order.
– Creating transparency to the ETL process for Supply Chain informing them
of potential lost sales of £30 000.
– Automation of the Python ETL process of 7 legacy data sources.
• Built a data tool for the Head of Nutmeg clothing using Python & Microsoft VBA:
– Aided the business user in managing 1,000,000 work-hours across 500 stores.
– Transformed a 3 year old static system of poor business adaptability into
something dynamic giving the business user a voice.
– Presenting this new system to the board of directors as 1 of the key projects
to the data science function.
• Automation & synchronisation of systems with 2 retailers:
– Python web scraping of data from retailer on accredited merchandisers.
– Data transformations of retailer’s data sources to obtain those newly accredited.
– Synchronisation of employee IDs between the 2 retailers and the service provider.
– Tools: Python, Task scheduler, Matillion, Snowflake, Azure SQL/Storage, and file share.
• Power BI report building, maintenance and automation:
– Built KPI business reports for £100 000 contracts using old and new systems
for Nectar and Hallmark where image recognition was used.
– Built an internal report for the ten Nutmeg Area Managers on quarterly validations.
– Automating report infrastructure reducing the time for maintenance by means of a
Dynamic SQL query in Power BI.
– Data sources include:
* Snowflake/SQL/Azure SQL/Microsoft Excel/Access/Google sheets.
– Building and maintaining internal reports for deliveries to colleagues homes and stores.
• Documentation and Agile methodologies:
– Document development and production environments by hierarchy <Major.Minor.Patch>
– Collaboratively working with a senior data scientist, business change manager
and data engineer in an agile development environment (Zoho Sprints)
– Experience working in Gitlab and Github.

Degree Modules
• Electricity and electronics (99%)
• Programming (C++) (87%)
• Electrical Engineering (86%)
• 6 Math Module Avg. (82%)
• Machine Learning Project (80%)
• Digital Signal Processing (79%)
• Research Project (79%)
• Dynamics (72%)
• Advanced Electronics (71%)
• Microwaves and Antennas (70%)
• Engineering Management(69%)
• Automation (65%)
• Routine Tasks:
– Data extraction via API calls to Walmart’s Retailink for essential business services.
– Business user reports for discrepancies in invoices between retailer’s databases
and the service provider’s databases.
– Verifying hundreds of thousands of images are rendering correctly for client reporting.
Power BI trainee (Tharisa - mining corporation) 01-2020 to 06-2020
• Exploratory analysis improving insights on machine data through ML
inference in Python.
• Key insight shared with the System’s engineering team on the prospects
of Power BI through data analytics for 4 different mining machines.
• Establishing foundations in Power BI and techniques for data visualisation
• Conceptual understanding built on data obtained from mining equipment
Software Development trainee (Discovery Limited - financial services) 01-2019 to 01-2019
• Experience gained working in an Agile software development scheme
• Built an application to improve employee satisfaction which was
demonstrated to the Head of Digital Channels
Technical Experience
• Cloud: Azure Storage and Snowflake
• Data Engineering Tools: Matillion ETL and Dbeaver
• Automation: Microsoft Task Scheduler, Power Automate
• Python libraries: numpy, pandas, requests, json, tensorflow, sklearn, seaborn, feather
win32com, bs4, selenium, os, matplotlib, csv, datetime, pytz
• SQL & NoSQL platforms: Microsoft SQL Server/Azure SQL Server/MySQL/COSMOS DB
• APIs (using Python): Maintaining an API connection to Walmart’s Retail Link. Working
with Windows API to access file metadata. Establishing a secure API connection
to Google Sheets. Working with Matillion’s API for staging data into Snowflake.
• Working with file/table formats: ".mdb",".xlsx",".csv", ".json",".ORD" as well as ".lz4"
Education
2017-2020 University of Pretoria Hatfield, Pretoria, South Africa
• BEng in Electronic Engineering, cum laude
• UK equivalence is a 2 : 1 Beng Electronic degree
• Graduation date: 04/2021 (transcripts are available on request)
• Accredited by the Washington Accord
• Top South African university for Electronic Engineering
2012-2016 St John’s College Houghton, Johannesburg, South Africa
• 83.3% scholarship (music and academic)
• 4 distinctions
• Prefect and Deputy head of choir
Machine Learning (University)
Machine Learning - Real-world Polyphonic piano transcription application (2020)
• 640 hours minimum requirement.
• Achieving 80% for practical implementation and 86 page report done in LaTeX.
• Tracking audio notes by means of Convolutional Non-Negative Matrix factorisation (CNMF).
• Use of MAPS ENSTDkCL dataset for training and testing.
• Implementing the system at a distance of 3 metres with a processing delay of 500ms in real-time.
• Obtaining an accuracy of a 70% F-score on practical devices in the real world.
• Use of my own optimisation algorithm which improved state-of-the-art results from 2012 by 2.5%.
• Designing and implementing solution from a research paper in 2016 for the final design.
Intelligent Systems module (EAI733) (2021)
• There are 4 assignments constituting 74 hours of self-study, implementation and reporting.
• Assignment 1: Analysis of Fourier spectra of audio signals from various musical instrument types.
• Assignment 2: Implementation of a Shazam style audio fingerprinting algorithm. After indexing
musical pieces by means of their Fourier spectra, the algorithm can correctly identify the piece of
music from a short duration of the audio extract.
• Assignment 3: Design and implementation of a multi-class support vector machine (SVM) for
musical genre classification giving an accuracy of 84%.
• Assignment 4: Performing harmonic-percussive separation of audio mixes where 2 instruments
are playing simultaneously. The output gives individual instrument reconstructions of the
percussive and harmonic instrument of the original mix.

University
Professor Pieter Jacobs
i Machine Learning project leader
T :+27 12 420 2167
jpjacobs@up.ac.za
@
Professor Johan Joubert
i GPA rank: 1st and 3rd (2017-18)
T :+27 12 420 2680
jjoubert@up.ac.za
@ 2016
Doctor Werner Badenhorst
i Class rep. (Guardian lecturer)
:+27 12 420 2587
T 2014
werner.badenhorst@up.ac.za
@
Work Experience
Petros Pouroullis (Tharisa)
i Data management (mining)
:+27 83 503 4741
T • Neural Networks and Deep Learning (course 1 of 5)
ppouroullis@gmail.com
@ 2021
Maria Carpenter (Discovery)
i Application development (health)
T :+27 74 181 7995
mariacar@discovery.co.za
@
School
Doctor Ben Oosthuizen
i Director of music
T +27 83 679 1898
oosthuizen@stjohnschool.co.za
@ credit for this position, I coordinated a chemical, industrial, metallurgical and
Hobbies and Interests
• Piano player of 14 years, saxophone of 6 years and acoustic guitar of 1 year.
• My second instrument would be the saxophone and third instrument, the acoustic guitar.
• Collector of tanzanite and coins (beginning at 10 years old).
• At 12 years old: I bought (20£), graded (10£) and sold (75£) a piece of tanzanite for a 150% profit.
• Only solo instrumentalist at the final academic prize giving at College (∼ 1000 people).
• After a rigorous selection process for Chair Person(∼ 950 person residence), I was 1 of 3 finalists.
Awards and Achievements
2021 BEng Electronic Engineering cum laude/distinction
2020 Bursary (SAIEE) - 3 years
2018 Third highest GPA in Electrical Engineering (Bronze)
2017 Highest GPA in Electrical Engineering (Gold)
· 83.3% Music and Academic scholarship
· Honours for music and Colours for academics
· Academic certificate for excellence (2012-2016)
· Second place for piano in the Yamaha/Lovemore competition
· Best senior instrumentalist at St John’s College
2015 Best ’Piano Recital’ trophy award for the Eisteddfod
Third place for piano in the Yamaha/Lovemore competition
Further Education
2021 IBM: Tools for Data Science Coursera
• (course 2 of 5) Exposure to tools used in data science
2021 Intro to Machine Learning Kaggle
• Building Machine learning models using decision trees and random forests
2021 Deep Learning Specialisation Coursera
Typing certification Ratatype
• Typing speed/Accuracy: (82 wpm/98.7%)
Leadership Positions
Class Representative - University of Pretoria 02-2020 to 09-2020
• 3 modules: Advanced Electronics; Project; Research Project
• Organising online lectures where students found online learning deficient
• Conducting polls on a class Telegram group which I initiated
• Closely working with the lecturer to aid in improvements to online learning
• Aiding in the rearrangement of deadlines due to component delays/clashes
Class Representative - University of Pretoria 02-2019 to 11-2019
• Microprocessors
Engineering Project Manager - University of Pretoria 02-2019 to 05-2019
• Aided by my enthusiasm in spearheading ideas of design, my group of 7
unanimously elected me as the project manager. Despite there being 0
3 mechanical engineers in the design of a piezoelectric dance floor.
Deputy Head of Choir - St John’s College 09-2015 to 09-2016
• Biggest lesson :
∗ If you have your heart in what you do, other people follow and do the same
∗ This role was an eye-opener in showing me the impact of leading by example
• At least 4 times per week I would monitor the choir of ∼ 100 boys
Prefect - St John’s College 09-2015 to 09-2016
• I Organised a 15 minute music programme and directed ∼ 80 boys to win first
place amongst all day-houses. I saw this annual inter-house music event as
a good opportunity to showcase my creative musical abilities, and did so with
my own arrangement of a Coldplay medley (see Musescore link, or click here).