Welcome to amazonwebshark! I’m Damien, a male in my late thirties from Northern England and my preferred pronouns are he/him. I’ve worked in technology since 2016 and currently specialise in Data Engineering and AWS.
My tech journey started in 1991 when the family Amiga 500+ arrived at Christmas. I started out as a gamer and ended up following tutorials about AMOS and Blitz BASIC to make some games of my own! I never looked at Pong in the same way again.
Over the years my enthusiasm has always come with an element of imposter syndrome. I never felt like I fully understood things and had pretty much ruled out a career in technology.
I was fortunate enough to be offered my first technology role in 2016, at which point it became clear to me how fast-paced the world of technology is! This put me on a good path to being more self-confident, and I remain on that path to this day.
I started amazonwebshark to help me with this. By writing about my experiences I can check and confirm my understanding of new topics, give myself points of reference for the future and help myself out in the moments when my imposter syndrome sees an opportunity to strike.
Joining me on this journey is my glamorous assistant Terabyte: the original Amazon Web Shark:
He hails from Lanzarote and his favourite topics are Dy-Nom-oDB, FinTech and S3 (Shark Storage Service).
If this blog sounds interesting or helpful, please feel free to follow me on the following platforms for future updates:
Outside of technology, I’m a keen runner and amateur gardener, I enjoy reading historical books and autobiographies and am currently exploring my exciting new role as Dog Dad of Wolfie the German Shepherd.
My Roles In Tech
Data Engineer
(2021 – )
- Ongoing support of transaction data platform in AWS covering a 24/7 operation.
- Involvement in building new cloud-based Enterprise Data Warehouse using Amazon Redshift.
- Building Repos and Pipelines using Microsoft Azure DevOps and Git.
- Developing ETL processes with Python. Building and deploying cloud resources using Terraform.
Database Engineer
(2018 – 2021)
- Monitored health and integrity of several terabytes of data on 17 SQL Servers in 5 environments covering a 24/7 operation.
- Identified performance degradations and operational abnormalities, presented solutions to Change Advisory Board and deployed and verified changes in production.
BI Developer
(2017 – 2018)
- Developed, deployed and maintained T-SQL scripts, SSRS reports, SSIS packages, Power BI reports and ETL processes on 5 SQL Server data warehouses in production and non-production environments.
Application Support Developer
(2016 – 2017)
- Provided technical support for proprietary business applications and Microsoft stack: Outlook 2013, Office 2013, SQL Server 2012 and SharePoint 2013.
- Collaborated with internal technical and non-technical departments and external technical suppliers.