Isa InalcikData platforms
Lakehouse and warehouse architecture, migrations off legacy systems, governance built in from day one.
- Databricks
- Trino · Starburst
- Snowflake
- BigQuery
- Apache Iceberg
- Delta Lake
- Spark
- dbt
- Power BI
- Looker
IsaInalcik
Senior Technical Lead Engineer, Data Platform
I design and build lakehouse platforms that move data reliably at scale, and ship open source tools for the people who run them.
- Now
- Allianz Partners
- Focus
- Lakehouse, Trino, Iceberg, dbt
- Based
- Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Germany
- From
- Bolu, Türkiye
- In data
- Since 2011
What I bring
Platform architecture across the major engines, AI that works on real company data, and delivery pipelines that make both safe to change.
AI solutions
LLMs connected to governed data: AI functions in SQL, MCP servers for agents, and agentic frameworks that speed up migrations.
- LLM functions in Trino
- MCP servers
- Agentic migration
- Claude Code tooling
- Agents & skills
DevOps & CI/CD
Everything as code and tested before it ships: PR-scoped environments, slim builds, autoscaling clusters and repeatable releases to Kubernetes.
- Kubernetes
- Helm
- KEDA
- Docker
- GitHub Actions
- GitLab CI
- Azure DevOps
- dbt Slim CI
- OpenTelemetry
- Open Policy Agent
What I’ve built
A selection from platform work at Allianz Partners and BestSecret.
Data platforms from scratch
New company data platforms, on Databricks and on Starburst/Trino with Apache Iceberg.
Allianz Partners · BestSecretMore
BestSecret: a Trino/Starburst and Apache Iceberg lakehouse on Azure, the migration off legacy platforms, ETL on dbt and Airflow, and Trino clusters autoscaled with KEDA on Kubernetes (write-up).
Allianz Partners: a Databricks lakehouse with dltHub ingestion and dbt transformation, plus agentic tooling to speed up the Oracle to Databricks migration.
Governed data exports
A Databricks App that lets teams create controlled data exports instead of ad hoc extracts.
Allianz PartnersMore
Teams need data outside the platform. Instead of one-off extracts, exports are created through an app that runs inside Databricks, so every export takes one controlled path.
Access permission concepts
Role and policy based access models for Starburst and Databricks.
Allianz Partners · BestSecretMore
Role and policy based access models for Starburst and Databricks. Related writing: Trino with Open Policy Agent and OpenTelemetry.
dbt Slim CI
Pull request builds that run and test only the models that changed.
dbt · DatabricksMore
Pull request runs compare against the production manifest and build only modified models and what depends on them (
state:modified+), so CI stays fast as the project grows. Write-up: dbt Core and Slim CI on Databricks. Related open source: dbt-hodor.dltHub ingestion framework
A reusable ingestion framework on dlt for bringing new sources into the lakehouse.
Allianz PartnersMore
Ingestion on dlt (dltHub) that brings sources into the Databricks lakehouse at Allianz Partners, with dbt handling transformation downstream.
AI functions for Trino
A Trino/Starburst plugin that exposes LLM calls as SQL functions, shown on Trino Community Broadcast 60.
Open source · trino-aiMore
LLM calls exposed as SQL functions in Trino/Starburst, so models can be used from plain SQL. Code: trino-ai. Demo: Trino with Llama 3 on LinkedIn and Trino Community Broadcast 60.
Open source
Tools I built because the platform work needed them. Free, self-hostable, Apache-licensed.
dbt-hodor
Reuse unchanged dbt nodes and rebuild only when code or upstream data changed. A free, self-hosted alternative to dbt State, with Slim CI support.
skill-canvas
A VS Code extension to design AI agents and skills on a visual canvas: templates, file handoffs, plugins and GitHub imports.
tower-mods
Claude Code mods for running many agent sessions across many repositories from one control tower.
Also: mcp-trino-python 25 GitHub stars, an MCP server for Trino · iceberg-metadata-insights 17 GitHub stars · trino-ai 16 GitHub stars, AI SQL functions for Trino.
Upstream
Merged contributions to the projects my platforms run on: 9 pull requests across 6 projects.
| PROJECT | CHANGE | PULL REQUEST |
|---|---|---|
| Trino Gateway | JMX monitor type for cluster health checks | #472 #611 |
| Trino Gateway | Common labels for the Helm chart, UI API docs | #448 #471 |
| PyIceberg | Fix config loading on Windows | #7002 |
| Trino | Hive connector documentation | #22093 |
| Trino Charts | Consistent secret naming | #323 |
| Marquez | Common labels on ReplicaSets | #2877 |
| CloudBeaver | Trino driver upgrade | #2372 |
Talk
On calling large language models straight from SQL.
Writing
Field notes from running platforms in production, on LinkedIn and the BestSecret tech blog.
- Maximize Performance: The BestSecret to Scaling Trino Clusters with KEDABestSecret Tech · Medium
- dbt Core and Slim CI on Databricks: How to Stop Rebuilding Everything on Every ChangeLinkedIn
- Enhancing Security and Observability in Trino with Open Policy Agent and OpenTelemetryLinkedIn
- Avoiding Spark Out-of-Memory Errors in Databricks: Split Large JSON Files the Right WayLinkedIn
- Pairwise Testing: Combinatorial Test Case Generation with an Open Source ToolLinkedIn
Career
Fifteen years in data, from warehouse testing in regulated industries to running lakehouse platforms.
- 2025 – now
Senior Technical Lead Engineer
Allianz Partners
Databricks lakehouse architecture, ingestion and transformation frameworks with dltHub and dbt, agentic tooling to speed up the Oracle to Databricks migration.
- 2022 – 2025
Data Engineer → Principal Data Engineer
BestSecret Group
Designed a Trino/Starburst and Apache Iceberg lakehouse on Azure, led the migration off legacy platforms, streamlined ETL with dbt and Airflow.
- 2018 – 2022
Test Automation → Big Data Engineer
Commerzbank
Scalable big data solutions with Spark, Kafka and Google Cloud.
- 2013 – 2017
Senior Test Engineering Analyst
Accenture DACH
Test automation and data validation for large data warehouse programmes at UBS, Roche, Lufthansa, Aldi Süd and RWE.
- 2011 – 2013
Analyst
Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt
Microsoft Certified: Azure Data EngineerStarburst Certified PractitionerFH AachenMissouri State University
Off the clock. From Bolu, Türkiye, where my favourite place is the house at Gölcük lake. I ride a Voge DS900X, on tours as far as the passes of the Italian Dolomites.