Open to Opportunities

Syed
Absar

Senior Business Intelligence Engineer · Data Architecture & Enterprise Analytics

I have migrated reporting from three legacy BI platforms — OBIEE, Sisense and SSAS — to modern Power BI architectures. 8+ years across Power BI and Tableau, AWS and Microsoft Fabric: I design the data model first, because reporting tools change every few years.

8+
Years in BI
16
Enterprise Projects
5
Global Regions
7
Certifications
Scroll to explore
Syed Absar — Senior BI Engineer
Available · Remote / Relocation
240+
Offices Supported
33
Reports Migrated
2×
Faster Load Times
10
Client Engagements
Services

What I Deliver

The work I'm brought in for — platform builds, migrations, and the governance that keeps them running afterwards.

🏗️
Data Platform Engineering
Dimensional warehouses and the pipelines that feed them, built to absorb new sources without a rebuild.
📐
Semantic Modelling & Reporting
The model beneath the dashboard — governed, performant, and simple enough for the next developer to extend.
🔄
Legacy BI Migration
Reporting migrated from OBIEE, Sisense, SSAS and SSRS to Power BI or Fabric, with parity validated report by report.
⚡
Performance & Cost Optimisation
Slow reports and expensive refreshes traced to the cause — usually the model, not the tool — and fixed at source.
🛡️
BI Governance & Enablement
Workspace standards, release process and documentation, so the platform outlives the project that built it.
🤖
Conversational Analytics
Plain-English access to governed data, with the guardrails that keep an agent's answers correct rather than merely fluent.
Project Portfolio

Selected Projects

A shortlist of flagship engagements from enterprise BI projects delivered globally. Client names withheld for confidentiality.

10 featured · 16 enterprise projects + 3 internal R&D builds
Engineering Practice

AI-Assisted BI Engineering

Modern BI development increasingly looks like software engineering. I use AI-assisted development workflows across requirements, documentation, Power BI Project files, semantic models, Fabric development, automation and Git-based delivery.

I use AI to accelerate implementation, not to outsource engineering judgement.
Architecture, business logic, validation, security and production quality stay with me.

This is AI for engineering — how I build. It is separate from AI for BI: the conversational analytics I deliver to business users with Microsoft Fabric Data Agents, covered in the projects above.

📋
Requirements & Documentation
Jira, Confluence and AI-assisted analysis to turn requirements, acceptance criteria and existing documentation into structured technical specifications, implementation notes and delivery checklists.
📐
Power BI Engineering
PBIP, TMDL and VS Code workflows for source-controlled Power BI development, reusable metadata and structured model/report changes.
🤖
AI-Assisted Development
Claude Code for scaffolding, refactoring, documentation, test generation, repetitive transformations and development acceleration.
⚙️
Fabric Engineering
AI-assisted workflows across Microsoft Fabric, SQL, Data Factory, Warehouse/Lakehouse development, documentation and engineering tasks.
🔀
Git-Based Delivery
Git and GitHub workflows for version control, branching, reviewable changes, collaboration and reproducible BI development.
Modern BI Engineering Workflow
  1. 01Requirementsstakeholders & KPIs
  2. 02Jira / Confluencespecs & acceptance criteria
  3. 03AI-assisted analysisrequirements → technical notes
  4. 04VS Codeengineering environment
  5. 05PBIP / TMDLPower BI as source files
  6. 06Claude Codescaffolding & refactoring
  7. 07Git / GitHubreviewable diffs
  8. 08Review & validationDAX, model, RLS, reconciliation
  9. 09Power BI / Fabricproduction release
AI-assisted stepHuman review gate — nothing ships without it
Mini Case Study
AI-Assisted Power BI Engineering with PBIP, VS Code & Git

Challenge: Power BI development can involve repetitive metadata, model, documentation and configuration work, particularly when multiple reports and semantic models need consistent changes.

Approach: Use PBIP/TMDL as development assets, work through VS Code, use Claude Code for appropriate implementation acceleration, and keep changes version-controlled through Git.

Human Engineering Responsibilities
  • Validate business logic and KPI definitions
  • Review generated SQL, DAX, metadata and configuration changes
  • Validate semantic-model relationships, measures and dependencies
  • Review RLS/security implications
  • Test report behaviour and data reconciliation
  • Review Git diffs before changes are merged or deployed

Outcome: Accelerated repetitive implementation and documentation work while preserving source control, reviewability and engineering validation.

Career Journey

Work Experience

Enterprise BI across logistics, shipping, manufacturing and technology.

Technical Stack

Skills & Technologies

Full BI stack from raw data ingestion to executive-grade dashboards.

My Process

How I Work

The same six stages on every engagement — refined across enterprise builds, platform migrations and rescue work.

01
🎯
Requirements & KPI Definition
Stakeholder workshops, KPI definitions and acceptance criteria agreed before any build work begins.
02
🔍
Data & Architecture Assessment
Source profiling, lineage, data quality and constraints — so the risks surface before the build, not after go-live.
03
🏗️
Warehouse & Semantic Model Design
Grain, star schema, relationships, RLS and calculation strategy, sized for the queries the business will actually run.
04
⚙️
ETL / ELT Engineering
Fabric, ADF, Alteryx or SSIS pipelines with incremental loads and error handling built in from the start.
05
📊
BI Development & Performance
Power BI, DAX and report UX, with the model optimised against real data volumes rather than sample extracts.
06
✅
Security, UAT & Production
Testing, reconciliation, documentation, deployment and hypercare once you are live.
About Me

Professional Summary

I design and build the whole BI stack — the pipelines that move the data, the models that make sense of it, and the reports people actually open. Most of my work starts where a manual process has stopped scaling.

Over 8+ years, that has meant manufacturing, maritime logistics, data centres, pharmaceuticals, terminal operations and public-sector foundations — from single-site warehouses to a 60-country reporting network.

I work equally on greenfield builds and on rescuing reporting that has outgrown its platform — three legacy BI platforms migrated and rebuilt with report-level validation.

End-to-End DeliverySemantic Modelling Platform MigrationData Engineering
🏗️
End-to-End BI Ownership
Pipeline, warehouse, semantic model and report — one person accountable end to end.
🔁
Platform Migration
Three legacy BI platforms migrated to Power BI with validated parity, no reporting gap.
⚡
Performance Engineering
Logic pushed into SQL and models kept lean — report loads cut from 40s to under 20.
🗣️
Stakeholder Delivery
Requirement workshops through to live customer demos, mentoring, and hypercare after go-live.
Three layers, one engineer
Layer 1
BI & Semantic Modelling
Power BI · DAX · Tableau · semantic models built for the queries the business actually runs.
Layer 2
Data Engineering & Architecture
Microsoft Fabric · SQL · ETL/ELT · dimensional warehousing · AWS Redshift · Row-Level Security.
Layer 3
Modern Engineering
PBIP · TMDL · VS Code · Git · Claude Code — AI-assisted development under human review.
The Case for Hiring Me

Why Syed Absar?

🏗️
End-to-End Ownership
I own the full BI lifecycle — ETL design, warehouse modelling, semantic layer, RLS security and deployment to production.
✓ 16 projects delivered end to end
📊
Power BI at Depth
DAX, Power Query, Tabular Editor, TMDL/PBIR, RLS, DirectQuery and Fabric. I have written generators straight against Power BI's own file formats.
✓ Microsoft Certified: Data Analyst Associate · Fabric Applied Skills
🔄
Migrations That Land
OBIEE, Sisense and SSAS migrated to Power BI. Report-by-report validation gates instead of big-bang cutovers, so nothing reaches production until it matches the system it replaces.
✓ 33 reports migrated · parity validated before release
⏱️
Measurable Business Impact
Report loads cut from around 40 seconds to 15–20. Manual reconciliation cycles replaced by automated daily pipelines. After go-live, users moved from building their own ad-hoc Power BI reports to relying on the delivered dashboards.
✓ ~40s → 15–20s report load times
🌐
Multi-Platform Versatility
Power BI, Tableau, SSRS and Fabric. SSIS, Alteryx, ADF and Dataflow Gen2. SQL Server, Exasol, PostgreSQL and Redshift.
✓ 7 certifications · 4 platform families
🤝
Stakeholder-Led Delivery
Requirement workshops with business leads, live demos with customers, and mentoring for the developers who inherit the work.
✓ 10 client engagements · 2 developers mentored

Ready to transform your data into decisions?

Senior BI Engineer available immediately. Enterprise Power BI, proven ETL architecture, measurable impact.

Recognition

Awards & Community

Recognised for technical excellence and Tableau community contribution.

🏆
Dashing Debut 2019
Highest performance award — 3 enterprise projects delivered ahead of schedule.
🎯
Vizzes Genie 2020
Data visualisation excellence in Power BI and Tableau.
📚
Eager Learner 2020
4 certifications in one year alongside full project delivery.
👥
Team of the Year — Power BI
Enterprise BI migration — on time and under budget.
🌍
Tableau Community Contributor
Active MakeoverMonday and WorkoutWednesday global contributor.
Certifications

Professional Certifications

Microsoft, Tableau, Alteryx and Incorta credentials, listed by their official names.

📊
Microsoft Certified: Data Analyst Associate (DA-100)
Microsoft
Feb 2021
⚙️
Alteryx Designer Core
Alteryx
Mar 2021
📈
Tableau Analyst
Tableau / Salesforce
Apr 2020
🎨
Tableau Developer
Tableau / Salesforce
Apr 2020
🧵
Microsoft Applied Skills: Implement a data warehouse in Microsoft Fabric
Microsoft
May 2024
🏗️
Microsoft Applied Skills: Implement a lakehouse in Microsoft Fabric
Microsoft
May 2024
🔮
Incorta 4 Essentials
Incorta
2022
Education

Academic Qualifications

Postgraduate business education combined with Computer Science engineering.

MBA, Systems Management— Madras University2021–2023
B.E., Computer Science & Engineering— Anna University2015–2018
Diploma, Computer Technology— Veltech Polytechnic College2012–2015
Social Proof

Real Feedback. Real Impact.

LinkedIn recommendations, appreciation letters, and recognition from people I've worked with directly.

From the Blog
Insights on Data, BI & Analytics
Deep dives into Power BI architecture, ETL best practices, and lessons learned from enterprise BI projects.
✍️ Read the Blog View all posts →
Contact

Let's Build Something Great

Open to senior BI roles globally. Available for consulting. Chennai, India.

📧
📱
💼
📍
Location
Chennai, India · Open to relocation
🌐
Availability
Immediate · Remote or on-site