Chad Dvoracek began experimenting with programming and database development as a hobby back in 1994 while working as a financial advisor. Frustrated with the sales tracking and CRM tools available at the time, he built his first database app to better serve his clients’ needs. Prior to joining The Nerdery as a data engineer in 2015, Chad worked as a data analyst at United Health Group managing ETL processes, using big data technologies, and streamlining data pipelines. With an MS in Data Science and a Graduate Certificate in Big Data from the University of St. Thomas, Chad is skilled in big data engineering (Hadoop, Spark, Hive, Phoenix, Hbase, NoSQL), Amazon AWS Cloud Development, and data analysis/data mining (Python, R, SAS). He is a frequent speaker at Twin Cities MinneAnalytics events.