Saiteja Desu
Senior Data Engineer at Disney Streaming | Scalable data platforms for AI-driven decisions
About Me
Passionate data engineer with 10+ years of experience building scalable data architectures that turn complex digital data into strategic business insights.
I have led high-impact modernization projects, including cloud-based data lake transitions in the semiconductor domain to power critical AI and machine learning workloads.
I am optimistic about AI-enabled data systems and focused on creating intelligent, trustworthy platforms while grounding engineering decisions in practical safeguards and quality.
Skills
Notable Projects
CareGraph (Hackathon Project)
- Built an AI-powered senior care intelligence platform that combines daily voice check-ins, Neo4j graph reasoning, and AI-generated care recommendations to surface risks early.
- Recognized in the top 7 projects in the contest and received positive reviews from judges and sponsors for addressing proactive elder-care monitoring and family support.
- Live demo: caregraph.onrender.com · Repo: CareGraph
Tech: Neo4j Aura, FastAPI, CrewAI, RocketRide AI pipelines, GMI Cloud (Qwen3-235B), Bland AI.
Reusable Backfill Framework at Disney Streaming
- Built a reusable framework that transformed static SQL backfill scripts into dynamic, automated workflows.
- Enabled efficient historical reprocessing and removed significant manual engineering effort.
Tech: SQL, ETL orchestration, large-scale data pipeline design.
Hotstar Data Integration into Disney Ecosystem
- Spearheaded integration of Hotstar datasets into Disney's platform, enabling unified content reporting across 23 countries.
- Improved data consistency and visibility for global stakeholders and reporting systems.
Tech: Cloud data pipelines, distributed processing, cross-platform data modeling.
Cloud ETL & Data Lake Modernization at GLOBALFOUNDRIES
- Designed and developed ingestion pipelines for diverse manufacturing and enterprise data sources into AWS-based data lakes.
- Built proactive monitoring for ingestion platforms and improved reliability while reducing manual operational overhead.
Tech: PySpark, Java, AWS Lambda, EC2, EMR, S3, Glue, Athena, Redshift, Snowflake.
Professional Experience
Disney Streaming
- Designing and developing large-scale ETL pipelines for high-volume, day-to-day data processing.
- Built reusable backfill automation to support robust historical data reprocessing.
- Led impactful data initiatives and mentored junior engineers to strengthen delivery and team growth.
GLOBALFOUNDRIES
- Enabled cloud ETL workflows across AWS services including Lambda, EC2, EMR, S3, Glue, Athena, and Redshift.
- Collaborated with AI/ML teams to deliver high-quality datasets for model development.
- Received the 2020 CEO Award and multiple Spotlight Awards for impactful contributions.
San Jose State University
- Delivered analytical insights to help improve student success outcomes.
- Built interactive OBIEE dashboards and contributed ETL jobs using PL/SQL.
Tata Consultancy Services
Trisan Info Private Limited
Education
San Jose State University
Master's degree, Computer Software Engineering (2017 – 2019)
Koneru Lakshmaiah College of Engineering
Bachelor of Technology, Computer Science (2010 – 2014)
Awards
- 2020 CEO Award – GLOBALFOUNDRIES
- Multiple Spotlight Awards – GLOBALFOUNDRIES
- Databricks Certified Associate Developer for Apache Spark 3.0