Ryan Walczak

About Ryan Walczak

Experienced software and data engineering professional with a history of success being a positive influence on teams excelling at what they do. Always striving to be better, learn more and be a highly valued team member with a let’s win attitude.

Experience

1. Lead Analytics Platform Engineer

   Northwestern Mutual

   Feb 2025 — Present · Milwaukee, WI, US

   Lead Engineer for Northwestern Mutual’s Analytics Platform (UDP – Unified Data Platform), providing technical leadership across a large-scale, enterprise data and analytics ecosystem. I operate at the intersection of data engineering and software engineering, designing and supporting scalable solutions that power analytics and data-driven decision‑making.I partner closely with engineering, analytics, and product teams to onboard and enable teams on the platform, guiding the development of reliable, production‑grade data transformation pipelines using modern engineering best practices. As a core platform leader, I serve as a hands‑on escalation point for complex pipeline design, performance tuning, and system troubleshooting, while also contributing directly to platform architecture and shared services.A significant focus of my role is strengthening security and data governance, working cross‑functionally to improve access controls, data quality, compliance, and lineage, while ensuring teams can move quickly without sacrificing trust or regulatory requirements. I help set engineering standards that balance flexibility with control across the platform.I also collaborate closely with our Databricks team to evaluate, test, and operationalize new features, shaping how emerging capabilities are safely, securely, and effectively adopted across Northwestern Mutual. My work centers on evolving the platform through thoughtful innovation, strong engineering discipline, and leadership that scales both technology and teams.

Education

• University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh

  Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), Management Information Systems, General

  1997 — 2000

Skills

• Perforce
• Internet Information Services (Iis)
• Agile Methodologies
• Software Development
• Alm
• Asp
• Visual Studio
• Iis
• Angularjs
• Microsoft Sql Server
• Tfs
• Sql Server
• Xml
• Database Design
• Vb.net
• Ionic Framework
• Soa
• C#
• .net
• Sql
• Asp.net
• Javascript
• Cobol
• Visual Basic .net (Vb.net)
• Wcf