I am building InfiniTraq as Co-Founder & CTO of Griffin AI Tech. Alongside, I take on a small number of part-time engagements each year — the kind where a decade of data and AI systems experience compounds quickly into your team.
The work I do best sits at the intersection of data systems, applied AI, and early-stage engineering leadership. The lanes below are the ones where I can move the needle fastest and where I genuinely enjoy the problem.
Architect, audit, or scale your data stack.
Vision, language, and the glue between them.
For seed and Series-A teams that need senior leverage.
Async-first, decisions written down, one weekly working session. I optimise for your team's focus, not for billable hours. Each engagement starts with a one-page scope brief so we both know what success looks like before anything meaningful changes in your code.
01
A short async exchange or a 30-min call to understand the problem, the stakes, and whether I am the right fit. No commitment.
02
I write up a one-page brief — outcomes, scope, timeline, working rhythm. You decide if it lands before anything else moves.
03
Fixed-price project, weekly retainer, or advisory hours. Async-first, with one weekly working session and shared docs / Linear / Notion.
04
Documented, with a checklist your team can run from. I stay reachable for follow-ups for a fixed window after wrap-up.
The honest filter — what tends to go well, and what I steer clear of. If you are unsure which side you fall on, write to me anyway; I will tell you straight.
Good fit
Not a fit
A few concrete results from the work behind the resume. Full case studies under Projects.
14 PB
Data lake at Shopee SG
Architected and operated a 14 PB lakehouse serving thousands of internal users across analytics and ML.
30K+
Pipelines at 99.95% reliability
Led ingestion for over 30,000 data pipelines at Shopee, holding 99.95%+ job-success SLOs through self-healing, reconciliation, and disciplined on-call.
<5 s
Edge AI alerting
Designed the InfiniTraq Edge AI pipeline that detects falls and inactivity on-device with sub-5-second response.
8
OSS libraries shipped
Maintained 8 Ruby gems and other OSS used in production by Rails teams.
From the founders, managers, and clients I've shipped with — paraphrased verbatim from LinkedIn and Upwork.
“Ethiraj is great when learning new stuffs and implementing it in short span of time, he is keen to technology and surely a good assets that any team can have. It was nice working with Ethiraj on couple of projects together. All the best for future endeavours.”
Enterprise AI & Platform Architecture Leader · VP, Regulated Finance · Author, Agentic AI for Serious Engineers
“Good learn ability and think fast. Work hard with good ownership. Good team mindset. It is my luck to work with you.”
Expert Engineer · Shopee
“Ethiraj is an excellent communicator and gave us ideas on improving the data pipelines. Strong data engineering knowledge. Highly recommended.”
Manish M.
Data Engineering Client · Upwork
“Ethiraj is really a cool person to have in team. His passion towards technologies is really astonishing. He has got the right mix of knowledge, passion, adaptability and ownership. He has always followed high coding standards and contributes for open source as well.”
Director & Co-Founder · Hash Agile Technologies
For shorter, individual conversations — career guidance, mock interviews, architecture sanity-checks — I use Topmate. Pick a slot, pay, show up.
All offerings on TopmateDiscovery Call
15 min · best to scope a project quickly
1:1 Mentorship
30 min · long-term career & technical guidance
Career Guidance
30 min · direction, role fit, and growth path
Mock Interview
60 min · system design / data engineering
Interview Prep
30 min · tactics, frameworks, common traps
Priority DM
2-day reply window · async written answers
Chennai, IST (UTC+5:30). I work async-first with one weekly working session in the client time-zone. I have worked extensively with teams in SG, EU, and US.
I price based on the scope and shape of the work — fixed price for clearly defined projects, weekly retainer for ongoing engineering or advisory work. We discuss it on the intro call once I understand the problem.
Yes. I am happy to sign reasonable mutual NDAs before the scope brief, and DPAs as required by your jurisdiction.
No. I only take engagements that are non-competing and that I can do well alongside InfiniTraq. If there is any conflict, I will name it on the intro call and walk away.
Common shapes: a 2–4 week architecture review, a 6–12 week build / migration project, or a multi-month advisory retainer of a few hours per week. We will pick whichever shape actually fits the problem.
A short note is enough. Tell me what you're building.