// CURRENTLY

▸ Building RAG pipelines on Azure AI Foundry ▸ Leading Azure Landing Zone for a UAE entity ▸ Architecting AKS + Databricks platforms with private networking ▸ Designing Copilot Studio agents for the M365 ecosystem ▸ Productionizing Terraform + Bicep CI/CD on Azure DevOps ▸ Driving FinOps with cost allocation & unit economics ▸ Embedding Microsoft Purview for end-to-end data governance ▸ Building RAG pipelines on Azure AI Foundry ▸ Leading Azure Landing Zone for a UAE entity ▸ Architecting AKS + Databricks platforms with private networking ▸ Designing Copilot Studio agents for the M365 ecosystem ▸ Productionizing Terraform + Bicep CI/CD on Azure DevOps ▸ Driving FinOps with cost allocation & unit economics ▸ Embedding Microsoft Purview for end-to-end data governance

// TALENT PROFILE / v2026

Nitheesh N Panicker

Architecting AI, Data & Cloud Solutions — LLMs, Copilot, AI/ML, Data Security & Privacy, Azure, GCP, Big Data, ETL, Governance & Standards (CDMP, DAMA).

Let's work together

experience17+ yrs

roleManager — Data & AI

primaryAzure · GCP · Databricks

basedAbu Dhabi, UAE

statusGolden Visa

Profile Summary

Cloud, Data & AI Architect helping enterprises turn data into a real competitive advantage across Azure, GCP, Databricks, and on-prem. I design and deliver secure, scalable data platforms end-to-end — from ingestion and ETL/ELT pipelines to CI/CD-driven deployments, governance, and AI-ready consumption layers.

Platforms that don't just store data; they power AI, copilots, and decisions that move the business. I've led this work for government and semi-government entities across the GCC, aligned with DAMA/CDMP standards.

What I care about:

Building AI-ready data ecosystems — because no AI strategy works without a strong data foundation
Designing intelligent agents inside the M365 ecosystem (Copilot Studio, Teams, SharePoint)
Leveraging Azure AI Foundry to operationalize LLMs and agents with enterprise-grade security
End-to-end delivery with DevOps and CI/CD pipelines (Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions)
Embedding security and governance from day one, not as an afterthought
Bridging business outcomes with modern cloud, AI/ML, and LLM-driven analytics
Making complex data architectures simple enough to actually adopt

0

Years in IT

0

GCC Entities Delivered

0

Cloud Platforms

0

Industry Verticals

Core Capabilities — Proficiency

Cloud Architecture

Azure (ALZ, Networking, Security)95%

Google Cloud Platform88%

Hub-Spoke / Private Link / Firewall92%

Microsoft Fabric80%

Security & Governance

Azure Policy / Purview90%

Defender / Sentinel / PIM85%

RBAC / ABAC / Key Vault93%

DAMA / CDMP Data Governance88%

DevOps, IaC & FinOps

Terraform92%

Bicep82%

Azure DevOps / GitHub Actions90%

Cost Management / FinOps85%

Data Engineering

Databricks / PySpark / Delta93%

Azure Data Factory / Airflow90%

BigQuery / Dataproc88%

Hadoop / Hive / Vertica85%

AI, LLMs & Agents

Azure AI Foundry / OpenAI90%

RAG Pipelines / AI Search88%

Copilot Studio / Power Automate85%

LangChain / Databricks Genie80%

Languages & Analytics

Python / PySpark92%

SQL / NoSQL90%

PowerShell / Bash82%

Power BI / Tableau / Streamlit85%

Industries

Government (UAE) Aviation (KSA / India) Banking Real Estate Utilities Airports

Professional Experience — Click to expand

Manager — Data & AI▸

Contango · Full-time · Abu Dhabi, UAE

Jul 2025 — Present

How I help enterprises move fast without breaking things:

Azure Landing Zones — management groups, hub-and-spoke, VNet peering, Private Link, Azure Firewall, NSGs, UDRs, Cloudflare
Policy-as-code via Azure Policy & Microsoft Purview — tagging, allowed SKUs, encryption, region restrictions, governance covering catalog, lineage, RBAC/ABAC
Security hardening — Managed Identities, Key Vault, Private Endpoints, Defender for Cloud, Sentinel, PIM/JIT, customer-managed keys
FinOps — budgets, cost allocation, rightsizing, autoscaling, reservations, unit-economics dashboards
Production-grade RAG pipelines (Azure OpenAI, AI Search, ADLS, Delta) with prompt versioning, grounding, resilient fallbacks
AKS + Azure Databricks platforms with private networking, workload identity, autoscaling
Enterprise LibreChat UI with branding, access controls, Copilot/SharePoint integration

RAG IN PRODUCTION AZURE LZ DELIVERED FINOPS PROGRAMME

AzureTerraformBicepAKSDatabricksPurviewSentinelOpenAIAI Search

Data Engineering Manager → Senior → Engineer▸

Artefact · Full-time · Dubai, UAE

Nov 2022 — Jul 2025 · 2 yrs 9 mos

Data & AI consulting and implementation across Banking, Utilities, Airports, Real Estate.

Built secure data platforms on Azure, GCP & on-prem for 5 GCC entities
Delivered Azure + Microsoft Fabric for a Dubai entity; GCP for a Saudi semi-gov entity
ETL/ELT pipelines with Airflow, ADF, Terraform, Databricks & Python — 20+ workflows automated
Enabled BI/forecasting via Tableau & Power BI; integrated Informatica IDMC; delivered Streamlit dashboards
Mentored engineers — improved client satisfaction by ~40%

5 GCC ENTITIES 20+ WORKFLOWS 20% COST CUT 25% EFFICIENCY 40% CSAT BOOST

Data Engineering Manager — Jul 2024 — Jul 2025

Senior Data Engineer — Jul 2023 — Jun 2024

Data Engineer — Nov 2022 — Jun 2023

AzureGCPMicrosoft FabricDatabricksADFAirflowPythonTableauPower BI

Lead Data Science → Team Lead → Senior Dev → Contributor▸

Sabre India · Bengaluru, India

Apr 2012 — Nov 2022 · 10 yrs 8 mos

Market Intelligence (MI) — a data product providing insights for airline planning, sales and revenue decisions.

Migrated ETL from Apache Hadoop → ELT on Dataproc & BigQuery (Cloud Composer, GCS, Cloud Functions, Python)
Converted Oracle Data Loader shell scripts to MapReduce on Hadoop, processed data into Vertica with auto-restart — 90% less manual work
Delivered 13× performance, projected 99.7% report success, drove 30% product usage growth — enabled ML exploration
Worked on Airline Revenue Management (Java/Ansible), Ticket Proration (Java/Talend/ELK), Passenger Revenue Accounting (CA Gen/Autosys)

13× FASTER 99.7% SUCCESS 30% USAGE GROWTH 90% LESS MANUAL

Lead Data Science Engineer — Jul 2022 — Nov 2022

Team Lead Software Engineer — Apr 2021 — Aug 2022

Senior Software Developer — Apr 2015 — Apr 2021

Contributor Software Developer — Apr 2012 — Apr 2015

GCPBigQueryDataprocHadoopHiveVerticaPythonJavaTalend

Software Engineer▸

Mphasis · Bangalore, India

Nov 2008 — Mar 2012 · 3 yrs 5 mos

MetaVance® Administration and Finance Application.

Requirement analysis, design specifications and technical documentation
Built solutions with Fusion Gen, COBOL, JCL, DB2 — controlling batch jobs & data workflows
Optimised reports via Report Composer; mentored teams on unit testing & JCL modifications

COBOLJCLDB2Fusion Gen

Quantified Achievements

Filter: All Government Aviation Banking AI & Agents

Azure LZ

Government · UAE · 2025

Azure Landing Zone — UAE Entity

▸ GOVERNMENT · UAE

Management Groups, Azure Policy, RBAC, Key Vault. Private Link & exemption workflows. Terraform-automated provisioning with Cost Management governance and anomaly detection.

AzureTerraformPolicyKey VaultPrivate Link

40%

Faster Reporting Turnaround

ETL Workflow Optimization — Medallion

▸ BANKING · FINANCIAL DATA

Built ADF pipelines ingesting financial transactions into bronze-silver-gold layers on Azure Data Lake and Microsoft Fabric. Automated quality checks throughout.

ADFFabricADLSMedallion

99%

Onboarding Time Reduction

Customer Activation — 5 days to 10 min

▸ AVIATION · GCP

Automated customer setup via GCP Cloud Functions, triggered by Cloud Storage uploads to dynamically configure environments.

Cloud FunctionsGCSPython

13×

Faster Data Processing

Market Intelligence Re-Platform

▸ AVIATION · MARKET INTELLIGENCE

Migrated legacy ETL to Apache Spark on GCP Dataproc — distributed parallel execution cut pipeline runtimes from hours to minutes. Drove 30% usage growth.

SparkDataprocBigQueryComposer

RAG

Production Pipelines on Azure

RAG on Azure AI Foundry

▸ AI · LLMS

Production-grade RAG (Azure OpenAI, AI Search, ADLS, Delta) with prompt versioning, grounding, and resilient fallbacks — not just demos.

AI FoundryOpenAIAI SearchDelta

LibreChat

Enterprise Self-Service AI

Branded LibreChat for M365

▸ AI · INTERNAL TOOLING

Enterprise-ready LibreChat UI with branding, access controls and UX — integrated with Copilot/SharePoint workflows for secure self-service.

LibreChatCopilotSharePoint

90%

Manual Intervention Cut

OLTP → OLAP Migration

▸ AVIATION · DATA PLATFORM

Converted Oracle Data Loader shell scripts to MapReduce on Hadoop, processed into Vertica with automated failure restart.

HadoopMapReduceHiveVertica

5

GCC Entities Delivered

Multi-Cloud Platform Programme

▸ GOVERNMENT / SEMI-GOV · GCC

Secure data platforms on Azure, GCP and on-prem for 5 GCC entities — Dubai entity on Azure+Fabric, Saudi semi-govt entity on GCP, plus banking and utilities.

AzureGCPFabricTerraform

Certifications

CERT

Google Cloud Certified — Professional Cloud Architect

Google Cloud

ACTIVE

CERT

Google Cloud Certified — Professional Data Engineer

Google Cloud

ACTIVE

CERT

CDMP — Certified Data Management Professional

DAMA International

ACTIVE

CERT

Talend Certified Developer

Talend

CERTIFIED

CERT

R Programming · Statistical Inference · Python · Getting and Cleaning Data

Coursera / HackerRank

FOUNDATION

Education

2020-22

M.Tech — Data Science and Engineering

Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (BITS)

M.TECH

2004-08

B.Tech — Computer Science and Engineering

Cochin University of Science and Technology

B.TECH

Awards & Recognition

2022

Blitz 2022 Finalist

Cloud-based interface — onboarding 5 days → 10 mins

FINALIST

2019

Blitz Code Winner 2019

95% reduction in MapReduce job runtimes

WINNER

2016

AirVision Hack Day 2016

ELK-stack what-if analysis for system bottlenecks

HACKDAY

2015

Runner-Up — Global Hackathon (Data & Analytics)

Airline Delay Prediction — R/R Shiny/ML — 100+ teams

RUNNER-UP

Languages

English — Proficient Hindi — Proficient Malayalam — Native

Get in Touch

Open to conversations on data, AI, copilots, agents and the future of enterprise analytics — cloud advisory, architecture engagements, and AI/data platform work across the GCC and remote.

nitheeshpanicker@gmail.com

linkedin.com/in/nitheesh-panicker

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