Simon Thelin

ML Platform  ·  DataOps  ·  Research Data Engineering

I build the data infrastructure that trains multimodal AI across audio, video and robotics, from Lakehouse and DataOps foundations through to self-serve workflows for ML research. A decade across data and ML, and the creator of DataPains.

End-to-End Data Architecture Lakehouse Multimodal Data DataOps RAG & MCP
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In data & ML
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Query latency reduction · Lakehouse
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Compute & storage cost reduction
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R&D researchers served · Synthesia
Simon Thelin
About

ML Platform & Research
Data Engineer.
AI creator.
DataOps fundamentalist.

10+ years building scalable, governed data systems on AWS and GCP across Lakehouse architecture, DataOps pipelines and production-grade ML infrastructure. Most recently at Odyssey, engineering end-to-end multimodal data for world-model research across audio, video and robotics. Before that, Tech Lead for ML Platform & Data Engineering at Synthesia, serving a 40+ researcher R&D organisation, and Lead Data Engineer at 7bridges.

DataPains is where I share what I've learned. Practical, hands-on content on data engineering, AI tooling and the platforms that earn their place in production. Conference speaker at Big Data London and DataNova 2023. Featured on the Data Team Success podcast.

Python Terraform AWS GCP dbt Airbyte Trino PySpark Kafka K8s Delta Lake Airflow ArgoCD PyTorch LanceDB LLMs AI Video
Content

DataPains on YouTube

View all videos ↗
Blog

Latest Writing

All posts on Medium →
Experience

Career

Jul 2026 — Oct 2026
Member of Technical Staff
Odyssey · London

Designed and built end-to-end architecture for multimodal and robotics data processing that powers world-model research, spanning audio and video. Led audio data processing and research across diarization, emotion, pitch and IPA sound effects, plus audio tokenisation to speed up data loaders. Built caption strategies with Gemini and self-hosted Qwen Omni, processed as T5 encodings, alongside AV and egocentric multi-camera human data pipelines. Optimised GPU workloads across multi-region and shared-GPU setups, adopted data-locality strategies, and shipped self-serve workflows that sped up researchers.

Multimodal Audio ML Robotics Data PyTorch GPU Workloads Gemini Qwen Omni T5 LanceDB Python
Jul 2024 — Jul 2026
Tech Lead, ML Platform & Data Engineering
Synthesia · London

Led Data Platform and DataOps strategy for multimodal ML training across AWS and GCP, owning the quarterly roadmap and technical direction for a 40+ researcher R&D organisation. Delivered a self-service ML training framework with full data lineage, provenance tracking and multimodal observability. Architected a Lakehouse platform on Delta and Trino with federated query across distributed data domains, and designed the WEKA to S3 migration that cut storage spend by $5,000+/day through lifecycle governance. Built an ML training cost-visibility framework for leadership, standardised inference evaluation pipelines (A/B, MUSHRA) with human annotation, and drove research into semantic layering, RAG/TAG and MCP patterns for dataset and evaluation workflows.

AWS GCP Delta Lake Trino MLflow Airflow Kubeflow Argo Workflows ArgoCD Spark PyTorch Terraform K8s Python
May 2022 — Jul 2024
Lead Data Engineer
7bridges · London

50% reduction in compute and storage costs. 98% query latency reduction via Trino-based Lakehouse architecture on GCP. Championed end-to-end DataOps platform build across batch and streaming. Conference speaker at Big Data London and featured in Starburst's DataNova 2023 success story.

GCP Trino Delta Lake dbt Airbyte Spark Kafka Airflow K8s
Dec 2021 — May 2022
Lead Data Engineer (Consultant)
Kainos · London

Contracted to provide data platform architecture guidance and hands-on technical leadership to enterprise clients.

AWS Python Terraform
Aug 2020 — Dec 2021
Data Engineer
IMG Arena · London

Built real-time sports data pipelines processing millions of events across streaming and batch. Designed Lakehouse architecture on Apache Druid. PySpark, Kafka, and AWS-native services powering live sports analytics products.

PySpark Kafka AWS Apache Druid Airflow
Dec 2019 — Jun 2020
Data Engineer
GameAnalytics · London

Improved PySpark/Hive data pipelines into BigQuery. Built the company's data science platform. Introduced Apache Airflow from scratch and established data engineering best practices.

PySpark BigQuery GCP Airflow Python
Jun 2019 — Dec 2019
Data Engineer
YoYo Wallet · London

Engineered large-scale data modelling with real-time and batch processing for analytics. Led the data warehouse transition from Postgres to Redshift.

Redshift Postgres AWS Python
Aug 2018 — Jun 2019
Data Engineer
Yieldify · London

Maintained Redshift with Alembic and worked closely with data analysts to deliver business needs, from ad-hoc work to evolving existing architecture.

Redshift Alembic AWS
Jan 2018 — Aug 2018
Developer, Connected Vehicle Cloud
Ericsson AB · Gothenburg

Worked closely with OEMs and their delivery partners to develop connectivity for the modern automotive ecosystem. Engineered microservice infrastructure on Ericsson's Apcera-based cloud (similar to Kubernetes).

Microservices Apcera Automotive
Jun 2011 — Dec 2017
Support / Field Test Engineer → Software Engineer
Drivec AB · Helsingborg

Where it started. Transitioned into software engineering focused on fleet-management system analytics, GPRS/GPS and CAN hardware integration, and data preparation for early machine-learning solutions.

Fleet Analytics GPRS/GPS CAN ML Data Prep
Skills

Leadership & stack

Leadership
  • Technical direction & roadmap. Owned the quarterly roadmap and technical direction for a 40+ researcher R&D organisation.
  • Team mentorship & growth. Grew engineers through documented improvement, workshops and a higher bar on data-engineering practice.
  • Cross-functional leadership. Aligned research, engineering and leadership with real-time cost and impact visibility.
  • DataOps culture & enablement. Built self-serve data access that drives data-driven decisions.
  • Driving innovation. Ran hackathons and learning initiatives, and delivered projects 1 to 2 quarters ahead of schedule.
  • Thought leadership. Conference speaker at Big Data London and DataNova, and creator of DataPains.

Languages & IaC

  • Python~12 yrs
  • Terraform~6 yrs

Orchestration & K8s

  • Kubernetes~7 yrs
  • Apache Airflow~4 yrs
  • Argo Workflows~3 yrs
  • Flyte~1 yr
  • AWS Serverless~2 yrs

Data & ML compute

  • PySpark~6 yrs
  • Apache Kafka~3 yrs
  • PyTorch~2 yrs
  • Kubeflow~2 yrs
  • Scala Spark / Hive~1 yr

Storage & databases

  • Columnar: Trino · Druid · Redshift · BigQuery · Athena
  • Vector: Lance Format · LanceDB~2 yrs
  • NoSQL: DynamoDB
  • RDBMS: Postgres · MySQL

CI / CD

  • Docker / Compose>10 yrs
  • ArgoCD>7 yrs
  • Jenkins · Travis · CircleCI · GitLab~9 yrs

Cloud

  • AWS>8 yrs
  • Google Cloud~3 yrs
Education

BSc Computer Science & Engineering, Halmstad University, Sweden (2014–2017).
Exchange, Korea University (2016–2017) · 87.2/100 GPA.

Certifications & Awards

Coursera Machine Learning certification.
Best Thesis scholarship & Sparbanken Kronan scholarship.

Speaking & Press

On stage & on the record

Contact

Let's connect