Open to opportunities

Toni Melki

@tonimelki

Message

I deliver sovereign GenAI and Azure platforms as Data & AI Team Lead.

Lebanon

Message

What I'm looking for

I’m looking for a role where I can lead delivery of sovereign, on-premises GenAI and enterprise data platforms on Azure/Fabric, collaborate with cross-functional teams, and scale production adoption with strong presales-to-implementation ownership—remote-friendly if possible.

I’m a Data & AI Team Lead with 5+ years delivering enterprise data and AI platforms for government and enterprise clients across KSA, the UAE, and Qatar. My rare focus is fully on-premises, sovereign Generative AI for data-sovereignty-bound public-sector organizations—paired with hands-on delivery across Azure, Databricks, Microsoft Fabric, and Power BI.

At Netways, I lead a 10-person Data & AI team, run technical design reviews, mentor teammates, and present solutions directly to clients. I also drive presales as a technical lead—winning 5+ new Data & AI engagements by authoring proposals, designing end-to-end architectures, and aligning stakeholders around practical delivery.

I translate complex requirements into production outcomes: intelligent document processing, chatbots, and automated report generation using Azure OpenAI Service and Azure AI Services, plus early adoption of Microsoft Fabric through OneLake lakehouse architectures and Direct Lake reporting. With 8 Microsoft certifications spanning data engineering, analytics, and AI, I build reusable reference architectures and set standards that accelerate proposal turnaround and project kickoff.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Data & AI Team Lead

Current

Netways

Jan 2025 - Present (1 year 6 months)

Lead a 10-person Data & AI team across concurrent enterprise engagements, owning technical design reviews, mentoring, and client solution presentations. Deliver production fully on-premises Generative AI for government clients using Azure OpenAI and Azure AI Services, and drive Microsoft Fabric (OneLake lakehouse and Direct Lake) adoption for near real-time reporting.

Leadership Generative AI Azure OpenAI Azure AI Search RAG Azure AI Microsoft Fabric OneLake Lakehouse Power BI DAX Azure Data Factory Databricks Azure SQL SQL Python Azure DevOps CI CD Git

Solution Designer — Data & AI

Netways

Jan 2024 - Jan 2025 (1 year)

Designed end-to-end data and AI solution architectures (cloud and on-premises), from client requirements through technical design documentation and delivery handover. Consulted across multiple parallel data teams, established reusable reference architectures, and continued hands-on implementation on client projects.

Solution Architecture Data Warehouse ETL ELT Generative AI Azure Databricks Power BI Semantic Modeling SSIS SSAS Informatica MDM

Senior Data Engineer

Netways

Jun 2021 - Jan 2024 (2 years 7 months)

Reduced clients’ manual reporting effort by 60% by building Power BI semantic models and executive dashboards on star-schema data warehouses across cloud and on-premises environments. Migrated legacy SSIS and SQL Server workloads to Azure Data Factory, Databricks (PySpark), and Synapse Analytics, improving pipeline speed and consolidating multiple source systems into centralized cloud data warehou