Reliable data systems
Model the data clearly. Make reruns safe. Build pipelines whose outputs people can trust.
THE ENGINEER BEHIND DEPTHFIRST
I'm Shafi.
I build with data.
Data engineer & technical lead
with FAANG experience.
My name is Shafi. I have 10+ years of professional experience, with a focus on data engineering, distributed systems, and turning complex requirements into dependable platforms.
WHERE I SPEND MY ATTENTION
Systems. Intelligence. Understanding.
AI that helps engineers
Apply AI to concrete engineering workflows, including a LangGraph agent for codebase improvement.
Explanations with depth
Make the assumptions, tradeoffs, and failure modes visible through detailed guides and interactive tools.
THE WORK BEHIND THE WORDS
Experience that
shapes my perspective.
Different environments. A recurring question: can people rely on the data when it matters?
- MOST RECENTLY
Meta
Monetization · FinTech · Payments
As a data engineer and technical lead, I worked on advertising data platforms, first-party event processing, system health, and payment data modeling.
- EARLIER EXPERIENCE
Citi through Capgemini
Financial crime analytics, with a focus on the definitions, reconciliation, and lineage that make data useful in a demanding operational environment.
- EARLIER EXPERIENCE
Sprint through OTSI
Data platform work that helped shape my approach to distributed processing, platform reliability, and operational ownership.
WHY I PUBLISH
The explanation
is part of the engineering.
A short answer can tell you what to type. A detailed explanation should help you decide whether to type it at all.
depthfirst is where I work through the reasoning: assumptions, failure modes, tradeoffs, and concrete examples.
You'll find long-form guides, hands-on learning tools, and interactive product explorations. Prototypes are identified as demonstrations, with examples that illustrate the idea being explored.
FOUNDATIONS
Always a student.
Master's in Software SystemsBITS Pilani
Bachelor's in Computer Science & EngineeringJNTUH
LET'S COMPARE NOTES
Good questions
make better systems.
Have a technical correction, an interesting failure mode, or a question about my work? I'd like to hear it.
Email Shafi ↗