Meet the Tallizen: Rafael

Rafael dos Santos Mariotti is a senior data engineer at Tally. Originally from Sāo Paulo, Brazil, he now resides in Canada, specifically Vancouver, British Columbia.

Rafael is part of the Data Platform team within Tally’s Engineering team. Currently, Rafael is focusing on creating a new platform for the Data Analytics team to schedule their jobs with more efficiency and transparency.

Overall, his team supports Tally’s mission to make people less stressed and better off financially through our app and systems that do the financial thinking for people. Specifically, the Data Platform team is responsible for managing the company’s data infrastructure, as well as for architecting and implementing new business-critical data pipelines. They also build and maintain internal tools to process and analyze big data, which enables data-driven decisions throughout the company. 

A day in the life of a Tallizen

Before I start to work, I usually take a walk with my dogs or take them to daycare, depending what day it is. After that, I start my day with a stand-up meeting, where I tell my team about my work from the day before.

Once everything is set, I try to organize my activities, creating daily goals to achieve until I stop working. I typically work on that until noon, when I take a break to prepare my lunch and chill a little.

After lunch, I start work again. I usually have music on to help me focus (most of the time it’s a playlist of rock or metal songs from the 70s through 90s).

Around 5pm, I start to slow down a little bit and do some studying if there’s nothing critical to deal with. Ideally, I end my day by improving my knowledge in something related to my field, satisfied with my new achievement.

What are the most impactful things that you have learned at Tally?

I never saw another company that believes and feels their values like Tally. There are companies where the values are just words written in a paper and most employees don’t really care about them. But at Tally, you can really see the values in action. Everyone lives by them and reminds each other about them. I see it in our daily activities, meetings and even in our happy hours!

Don’t Say Nothing (DSN), Own the Outcome (OTO) and Change Shoes Often (CSO) are so important that I believe they are not just phrases we use at work, they should be part of our minds and souls, making the world a better place with better people!

What has been the highlight of your time here at Tally so far? Tell us about an event that you loved, a project that you are proud of, or a problem that you helped to solve. 

I've been working on a project that has helped me to learn a lot of new things! It's not 100% done yet, but we are almost there, and the results are already amazing!

The Data Engineering Team has been trying to substitute some of our ETL scripts to use some cool services from AWS, such as DMS, Kinesis, EMR and Redshift! This improved our hourly process from ~45 minutes to ~5 minutes! Also, we are preparing to scale our processes so that we can handle more and more data going forward!

If you could switch jobs with anybody else at Tally, who would you switch with and why?

I think I would switch places with someone on the Member Success team. I love listening to all the stories about our members and how Tally makes their lives easier, sometimes overcoming a difficult situation. 

Which of our values (DSN, OTO, CSO) resonates most with you and why?

I think Don’t Say Nothing (DSN) is my favorite since I'm not afraid to ask anyone anything! 

Why did you pick the career that you chose? 

Since I was in university, my favorite classes were the ones about data management and databases. When I started working as an intern, I had the chance to see how data could affect our day-to-day lives. To be honest, I think I’ve always pursued this path, as this is a field that has always sparked my curiosity. I love what I do, and working with something you love is the best feeling ever!

Tallizens offline

What do you like to do for fun outside of work? 

Most of the time, I enjoy playing video games or watching fun and interesting videos on Youtube

What’s the next item on your bucket list? 

Visit Lake Louise :)

If somebody made a movie about your life, who would play you?

Jim Carey! Definitely!

Tell us about one of your favorite vacations? 

When I first went to the U.S. for work! That was the first time I left my home country, Brazil, and everything was new to me. I mean, EVERYTHING! I went to Los Angeles and walked through Hollywood, visited Las Vegas and San Francisco, and then spent three days in New York before I went back home. Amazing!

Tell us something that people would be surprised to know about you.

For four years, I played Taiko drums in a Bon Odori (Obon) group in Brazil. This was part of a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the spirits of one's ancestors. Japanese culture is very strong in the city where I grew up.

What is your hidden talent?

I'm kind of a "cat whisperer." It's very rare for me to meet a cat that I can't befriend.

What is the last thing you learned?

How to clean a washing machine filter. I just moved to a new place and it was clogged. After cleaning it out, I found a rotten sock inside of it from the old tenants. So gross!

What is your favorite book?

If you consider manga (Japanese comics) as a book, then “One Piece” :) Otherwise, “Game of Thrones” (despite the fact that they lost their way in the TV series).

What's your most prized possession and why?

A ping pong racket signed by my oldest friends right before I went to university. It has some weird and funny messages!

Tell us your idea of the perfect day. What would you do? 

Travel to a beautiful place while listening and singing along with my playlist, eating a perfect meal and looking at a wonderful view!

Lightning round: this or that?

Beaches or Mountains?

Mountains!

Tea or Coffee?

Tea!

iOS or Android?

Android, definitely!

Cardio or Weights?

Cardio!

Dine in or Take out? 

Dine in!