Machine Learning Engineer, Data Team · Currently @ Upper Hand, Indianapolis, IN

I build pipelines and cloud platforms that run without drama.

I am Harshwardhan Patil - a ML engineer building pipelines and GCP infrastructure with Terraform. I care about systems that stay boring in production.

  • Data Pipelines
  • Machine Learning
  • Infrastructure as Code
  • GCP & Terraform
  • Cost Optimization
  • BI & Dashboards
Portrait of Harshwardhan Patil
01 - About

Building infrastructure that just works

I am a Machine Learning Engineer with focus on Infrastructure at Upper Hand, a sports facility management platform based in Indianapolis. I build and run the ETL/ELT & ML pipelines and GCP infrastructure that keep client data, integrations, and reporting running reliably.

I led a near-zero downtime migration of Upper Hand's data infrastructure from Heroku to Google Cloud across 20+ clients, cutting infrastructure costs by an estimated 60%. I manage that infrastructure with Terraform, orchestrate data workflows, reduce vendor costs, and deliver BI dashboards to enterprise clients.

I mentor three engineers on Terraform, CI/CD, and GCP platform work. I hold an M.S. in Data Science from Indiana University Bloomington and a B.S. in Computer Science from Shivaji University. Before Upper Hand, I was a System Engineer at Infosys in Bangalore, working on the Network Decision and Support Database team. I like system design, databases, and backend services - and I want to build infrastructure, and automation systems which perform reliably at scale.

02 - Skills

The stack I build with

Cloud & Infra

  • Terraform
  • GCP
  • Heroku
  • Docker
  • Kubernetes
  • Linux
  • CI/CD
  • Cloud Monitoring & Alerting

Data & Pipelines

  • ETL/ELT
  • PostgreSQL
  • CloudSQL
  • Kafka
  • Pandas
  • NumPy
  • Matplotlib
  • Metabase
  • Deepnote

Languages

  • Python
  • SQL
  • SQLX
  • Go
  • Java

Integrations & BI

  • QuickBooks
  • Square
  • CRM
  • Google Ads & Analytics APIs
  • U.S. Census Data

Backend & Architecture

  • REST API Design
  • GraphQL
  • Microservice Architecture

Frameworks

  • PyTorch
  • TensorFlow
  • Keras
  • Scikit-learn
  • Hugging Face
  • LangChain
  • Flask
  • Streamlit
  • Spring Boot
  • Gin
  • Fiber

Algorithms

  • Regression
  • Classification
  • Clustering
  • Boosting
  • Ensembles
  • Recommendation
  • Neural Networks
  • Transformers
  • BERT
  • LLMs
  • Semantic Search

Tooling

  • Git
  • Jira
  • MLflow
  • Conda
03 - Experience

Where I've shipped

  1. Founding Data/ML Engineer

    May 2024 - Present

    Upper Hand · Indianapolis, IN

    Platform & Cloud

    • Led a zero-downtime migration of Upper Hand's infrastructure - including AI product infrastructure - from Heroku to Google Cloud, cutting infrastructure costs by an estimated 60%.
    • Migrated data and infrastructure for 20+ clients, then decommissioned the legacy Heroku environment.

    Cost Optimization

    • Cut recurring costs across 5 tools - Metabase licensing by ~47%, Deepnote compute by ~84%, and QuickBooks integration costs to $0/month.
    • Reduced pipeline compute time by 40% through query restructuring, staging tables, and indexing, then right-sized CloudSQL from 20 vCPUs/80 GB to 10 vCPUs/60 GB, saving ~$4,800/year.

    AI & Machine Learning

    • Configured an internal chatbot letting admins query dashboard data in natural language.
    • Built an event-recommendation system running in production at 63% accuracy.

    Data Integrations & Client Reporting

    • Built 5+ data integrations spanning CRM, Active Network, Square, QuickBooks, and U.S. Census data.
    • Delivered KPI dashboards for 4 enterprise clients, generating $10K MRR.
    • Built financial dashboards across 6 business units with MoM/YoY trends, adding $4K MRR.
    • Built a QuickBooks library pulling accrual and cash-basis P&L data for 2 clients across 10+ locations.
    • Layered U.S. Census demographic data into client analytics, contributing $3K ARR.
    • Automated monthly marketing reporting across Google Ads, Google Analytics, Meta Ads, Facebook Pages, Instagram Business, and Google Business Profile, cutting manual reporting time by 80%.

    Leadership

    • Mentored 3 engineers on Terraform, CI/CD, and GCP, enabling each to provision and deploy infrastructure independently.
    • Set a team standard pairing fast proofs of concept with at-scale cost projections.
    • Designed and implemented a client-support workflow connecting incoming requests to Jira.
  2. Data Science Intern

    May 2023 - Jul 2023

    Faculty Assistance in Data Science Program, Indiana University · Bloomington, IN

    Data Pipelines

    • Built a scraping & processing pipeline over 8 years of Mental Health Treatment Facility records, surfacing regional growth and service-diversification patterns.

    Reporting

    • Compiled findings into a report for program faculty, summarizing regional growth trends and shifts in service mix across facilities.
  3. System Engineer

    Nov 2020 - Jul 2022

    Network Decision and Support Database (NDSD) Team, Infosys Ltd. · Bangalore, India

    Data Pipelines

    • Maintained 50+ SQL-based ELT pipelines, processing terabytes of structured and semi-structured network data across 5 source systems with automated failure alerting.

    Performance Optimization

    • Improved query performance by 55% through execution plan analysis, targeted index redesign, and schema normalization across Oracle databases, reducing average PL/SQL procedure runtime from 20 min to 9 min.
04 - Projects

Selected work

A sample of my projects

AI · Tooling

Papersight

A research-paper summary and Q&A app. Users upload PDFs and bring their own LLM key; runs on GCP.

  • GCP
  • Add stack
Full-Stack · E-Commerce

Paws & Purrs

A full-stack pet-supplies e-commerce app on GCP, built as a learning and portfolio project.

  • GCP
  • Add stack
AI · Document Analysis

Legal Lens

A legal document analyzer.

  • Add stack
Full-Stack · Social

Buddy

A roommate and activity finder.

  • Add stack
Writing

AI Awareness

A series of posts on AI awareness and literacy, written for Technoplus Labs.

  • Technoplus Labs
  • Blog
LLM · Tooling

Chat with SQL Database

An AI chatbot that lets users query SQL databases in plain English - with an auto-corrective loop and semantic search to interpret intent.

  • LangChain
  • Streamlit
  • LLMs
  • SQL

More on GitHub

05 - Education

Academic foundation

M.S., Data Science

2022 - 2024

Indiana University · Bloomington, IN

Coursework: Machine Learning · Deep Learning · Data Analysis · Cloud Computing

  • President & Director of PR, Data Science Club
  • Adobe Student Ambassador · Luddy Outstanding Service Award (2023 & 2024)
  • 3rd place, GT-IDEA Case Competition (2023)

B.S., Computer Science

2016 - 2020

Shivaji University · Kolhapur, India

  • Co-Founder, Code-Space (programming club)
  • Head, Student Training & Placement Committee
07 - Contact

Let's aspire and create to inspire.

Open to ML/Data/AI Engineer, Platform Engineer, Cloud Engineer, and DevOps roles. The fastest way to reach me is email.