Fractional Data Engineer
A senior data engineer for your team — without the full-time hire.
I'm Arshad Ansari. I design, build and run data platforms solo — pipelines, a warehouse, dashboards your team can trust — on an ongoing part-time basis. You get senior judgement and a working platform in weeks, at a fraction of the cost and time of hiring a full-time data engineer.
Book a free 30-minute scoping callHiring a full-time data engineer is the wrong first move
A senior data engineer costs six figures a year, takes months to find, and — if your data work is a few days a week — sits half-idle once the platform is built. Most early-stage and mid-size teams do not need a full-time data hire. They need the platform built well, once, and kept running.
That is what a fractional arrangement is for. You get the same senior person who would cost you a full salary, for the slice of time your data actually needs — and none of the recruiting, onboarding or idle-time overhead.
How we work together
Almost everyone starts with the audit. It is the low-risk way to find out if I can help before either of us commits to more.
1 · Data Platform Audit
$3,000 fixed · ~1 weekI review your pipelines, warehouse and costs and hand you a written roadmap — ranked fixes, effort and cost estimates, and a cost model or small proof-of-concept on your own stack. Yours to keep either way, and the fee comes off a follow-on build. More on the audit →
2 · Build
I build the platform the roadmap describes — ingestion into a warehouse (DuckDB, ClickHouse or Postgres) and out to dashboards — scoped in weeks and priced against what a cloud-warehouse bill or a senior hire would cost you. More on builds →
3 · Ongoing, part-time
Once it is built, I stay on as your fractional data engineer — a set slice of time each month to run the platform, add to it, and be the person who owns your data working. Scoped to what you need and priced against a fraction of a full-time hire, never a bare day rate.
This fits if
- →You have data — in apps, warehouses, spreadsheets, third-party APIs — and no one who owns making it reliable.
- →You need senior data-engineering judgement, but not 40 hours a week of it, and not a six-figure salary plus months of hiring.
- →Your cloud-warehouse bill is climbing and you are not sure how much of it is real work.
- →You want one person who builds the platform and stays around to run it, not an agency that hands off and disappears.
It probably doesn't if
- ×You need a full in-house data team of five — at that scale, hire; I can help you scope the roles.
- ×You want the cheapest possible contractor by the hour. I price against outcomes and the cost of a hire, not a day rate.
- ×You need someone on-site full-time. I work remotely, asynchronously, in focused blocks.
Still weighing it up? I wrote an honest breakdown of a consultant versus a full-time hire — the real fully-loaded cost of each, and when each one is the right call.
Need senior data work, not a full-time hire?
Tell me what you are trying to build. The first step is a free 30-minute call — no pitch, just whether I can help.
Book a free scoping call