Benjamin K. Williams
Forward Deployed Engineer
| Phone: | 870-759-2820 |
| Address: | Jonesboro, Arkansas 72405 |
| Website: | https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminkwilliams |
| Email: | benjamink.williams@gmail.com |
Senior Software Architect and Forward Deployed Engineer who leverages both traditional software development and agentic development to solve cross silo business problems and integrate data. Manages teams of Codex AI coding agents developing ETL software, and trains developers and engineers on applying AI to software and part design.
Deep software development and data expertise: building data pipelines, data warehouses, and APIs that move data where the business can access the data quickly and correctly. That foundation has carried across multiple sectors including retail, finance, and manufacturing for both public and private businesses.
Proven ability to lead data and analytics teams through large-scale change while keeping the data itself honest — mapping long-term architecture, running production ETL development, and making sure the dashboards and systems downstream say what the data actually says.
Technical Skills
Agentic (AI) Development ▪ API ▪ ETL ▪ Data Warehousing ▪ Data Vault 2.0 ▪ C# ▪ JSON ▪ Microsoft SQL Server ▪ T-SQL ▪ Microsoft Azure ▪ CI/CD
Agile Methodologies ▪ SQL ▪ Business Intelligence ▪ Databases ▪ Walmart's Retail Link ▪ Epicor Kinetic ▪ Autodesk D&M and AECO
Experience
Hytrol Conveyor Co., Inc.
Enterprise Architecture Manager
- Oversaw and managed the software architecture bridging the gaps of ERP, custom software, and the Autodesk ecosystem of products across Engineering, Finance, Supply Chain, Business Development, and Operations business units
- Worked with IT leadership to define and map software to meet the business needs in the next 3, 5, and 10 years.
- Ran a team of 3 to 22 Codex agents to develop ETL software for Hytrol using Specification, Loop, and Graph for continuous improvement
- Trained and guided other software developers and engineers on how to leverage AI for software and part design
- Worked closely with Autodesk and partners to solve business problems using tools and AI
AI, Data, Analytics Manager
- Worked with Business and Strategic Partners for the ERP implementation (Epicor Kinetic Cloud)
- Managed a team of thirteen, including two interns; team members worked in Azure, within a Data Vault 2.0 Data Warehouse, within Epicor Kinetic Cloud
- Oversaw development of Hytrol CPQ and Hytrol CPQ API.
Interim Director of Software Development
- HR manager for five employees
- Performed technical interviews for job applicates in both IT and PMO department
Data and Analytics Architect
- Worked with Business and Strategic Partners to implement ERP (Epicor Kinetic Cloud)
- Oversaw and approved of Technical Specification documents
- Managed the Azure Cloud instance including resource creation, IAM, and budgets
- Created multiple applications to pull from as400/iSeries, REST/OData APIs, and application backend database; saving the data into a data lake
- Created multiple applications to read from the data lake and write to a SQL Server 2022 based DataVault 2.0 Stage area which then loads data into the Raw/Business vaults
- Optimize query performance from Powever BI against DataVault Raw/Business vaults.
- Built out a Jupyter Notebook collection against the data lake to aid in data science, ML, and AI work.
Arvest Bank
Senior Data Pipeline Developer
- Wrote software to parse x9.37 files within data pipelines
- Wrote software to export data from Salesforce and create csv files from the data
- Wrote software to convert csv files to parquet files
- Wrote logic to send files to Google Cloud Storage buckets
- Wrote software to export data from AS400 and SQL Server and create parquet files from the data
- Designed and built an application to consume JSON formatted files from Qualys; loading the data into a database
- Wrote a bi-directional file translator between Finastra's PAYplus USA MAX Interface format and ISO 20022 PAIN 001/002 XML format
- Oversaw and coordinated DataStage ETL development (11.7.x)
- Oversaw, coordinated, and developed the SSIS and DataStage ETL jobs to populate the company-wide CRM solution (hosted on Salesforce)
- Lead redesign of vendor supplied ETL DataStage jobs to reduce run time from 9 hours to 3 hours
- Developed several business focused extracts from the AS400 into either Microsoft SQL Server or Flat File via SSIS
- Guided projects toward Tableau for their reporting and analytics.
- Wrote software that interfaced with flat and XML files to allow easier processing with SSIS
- Served on the Problem Advisory Board
- Created Tableau dashboards for data warehouse jobs, iSeries reporting, ITIL (Incident, Service Request, Change) reporting
- Designed the logical and physical ETL flows for CRM
Tyson Foods
Lead Data Analyst
- DevOps ETL/API for pulling Tyson sales data from WalMart's Retail Link service into in-house Tyson Retail Analytics data warehouse
- Overhauled the data restatement process from a blanket time based pull to a targeted pull based on differences between internal data and Retail Link; allowing data to match over all larger time range.
- Developed reporting to monitor the Retail Link users' item, fineline, and department access within Retail Link and show changes over time
- Built a "dual path" method to pull data from Retail Link that leverages both Web Scraping the main site and the SOAP API so data can be continued to be pulled when one method is down.
- Built a C# ASP.NET Web API to expose both Data Warehouse and live Retail Link data allowing it to be pulled and consumed by reporting applications or other systems without needing direct database access or external internet access.
- Built data extract processes to download, store, and report on OTIF scores and the underlying data that supports the score. This decreased or eliminated the amount of time that business had to work on Sunday and allows for identify operational changes during the current week to keep the score high.
Walmart
Senior Programmer Analyst, Divisional Reporting and Analytics in Office of the CIO
- Developed and implemented technology reports and reporting APIs.
- Oversaw APIs connected multiple internal and cloud databases into API framework with private, limited access, and public calls allowing faster reporting by multiple technology teams.
- Built upon API of LeanKit, Jira, Visual Studio Team Server, and Remedy accessed by Tableau, Alteryx, Power BI, and in-house Angular/Loopback web site to display data at various updated speeds and to various audiences.
- Customized divisional reports consumed by technology, home office, and leadership.
Senior Programmer Analyst, Divisional Reporting in Strategic Planning
- Designed, built, and maintained business intelligence reports for ITIL divisional management in Excel and Tableau.
- Built and maintained data loads from various systems into Hadoop and Greenplum for centralized reporting.
- Supervised data analyzed by ISD teams to determine priority/urgency and fed into executive dashboards to provide deeper insight into technology for vice presidents and executives.
Publications
A Guide to Data Pipeline Transformations - Structured Files
https://williamsbk.gumroad.com/l/dpt-strfls
With over 14 years of experience as a programmer and half of that working with data, I understand that transformations can be frustrating things when you are getting started. Here I give straightforward C# code and commentary about XML and JSON files. This book is the second in a series should help you see that transformations are the fun part of coding data pipelines.
A Guide to Data Pipeline Transformations - Dates
https://williamsbk.gumroad.com/l/dpt-dates
With over 14 years of experience as a programmer and half of that working with data, I understand that transformations can be frustrating things when you are getting started. Here I give straightforward C# code and commentary about dates, just like I would when doing code reviews or training other programmers. This book is the first in a series should help you see that transformations are the fun part of coding data pipelines.