
Apache Spark Expert
to scale data pipelines with fast, precise AI matchingHire experts who build distributed data pipelines, optimize Spark SQL workloads and connect Apache Spark with cloud data platforms, streaming systems and machine learning workflows. FRATCH matches you quickly with vetted, available freelancers who fit your technical needs.
Meet FRATCH Experts who have recently used Apache Spark
Max R.
Last position:
Senior AI Engineer and Technical Advisor (Freelancer) at dialpad
Serving as AI technical advisor to Dialpad's Telephony Engineering division while building AI products hands-on. Currently developing MCP-based tooling for AI text and voice agents: agent authoring, integrations and adoption of existing agents, shared authentication and API contracts, and durable workflow state. This includes text and voice tests that evaluate agent behavior, latency and task completion.
In parallel, helping Dialpad's engineers adopt QualityLayer and use Claude Code and Codex effectively. This ongoing work covers context management for large codebases, reusable plan-implement-test-review workflows connected to CI/CD, playbooks, hands-on workshops, labs and pair programming.
Technologies: AI Agent Products (Text & Voice Agents, MCP, LLMs, Python, TypeScript), Agent Tooling (Authoring, Integrations, OAuth, Durable State), Quality & Evaluation (Text & Voice Tests, Evals, Regression, Traces), Agentic Engineering (Claude Code, Codex, QualityLayer, Hooks, Prompts), Context Engineering (RAG, Vector Stores, Codebase Embeddings), Software Delivery (CI/CD Integration, Agentic Loops, PR Automation), Enablement & Coaching (Workshops, Hands-On Labs, Pair Programming)
Fadi S.
Last position:
AI-Engineer at Recruitment Agency
- Design, development, and productive rollout of an Enterprise HR Copilot based on Microsoft Copilot Studio to automate internal HR processes
- Development of an AI-supported assistant for answering employee inquiries based on a SharePoint knowledge base and internal company HR documentation
- Integration of the Copilot into Microsoft Teams, including welcome logic, user guidance, and role-based routing
- Automation of HR processes and approval workflows with Microsoft Power Automate to reduce manual processing steps
- Development of realistic HR documents and response templates with Azure OpenAI, taking business requirements and consistent company policies into account
- Implementation of prompt strategies, knowledge management, and response optimization to improve response quality and user acceptance
- Close collaboration with business departments to analyze requirements and integrate the AI solution into existing company processes
Technologies:
Microsoft Copilot Studio, Microsoft Teams, Azure OpenAI, SharePoint, Power Automate, Power Platform, Microsoft 365, Prompt Engineering, Workflow Automation
William N.
Last position:
Power BI Solutions Architect/Engineer & AI Consultant at AVERDUNG GmbH
- Redesign of the company's BI infrastructure: replacement of a fragmented landscape of manually maintained Excel solutions and CSV imports with a centralized Power BI environment featuring a unified data model as the company-wide single source of truth
- Consolidation of previously isolated reporting logic into a central semantic model – eliminating redundant files, manual data transfers, and inconsistent metrics between departments
- Forecasting & planning: Design and implementation of company-wide liquidity planning in Power BI – from business logic to a fully automated, data-source-driven planning model replacing the previous manual Excel process; enables rolling forecasts and continuously up-to-date cash flow transparency for management
- Optimization of existing Power BI dashboards in terms of performance, structure, and analytical value using an AI-native approach
- Analysis and improvement of the data model, including data quality analyses, data cleansing, and consistent modeling using star schema, DAX, and Power Query
- Incident & anomaly analysis: Identification, investigation, and explanation of data anomalies, including root-cause analysis and concrete recommendations for action
- AI solution architecture: Connecting Business Central and Power BI to LangDock via MCP (Model Context Protocol) for AI-supported data usage
- Creation of a historical data layer as a basis for trend and time-series analyses
- AI-supported automation: Design and development of AI skills, agents, loops, and processes for the automated analysis and interpretation of reports
- Automated reporting workflow: Setup of scheduled, automated email distribution of AI-generated analyses and recommendations to stakeholders
- Gathering and documentation of business requirements and coordination with business departments and IT as part of requirements engineering / product owner activities
- Breaking down overall requirements into clearly defined work packages and tasks
- Definition, prioritization, and management of milestones throughout the entire project lifecycle
Tools: POWER BI, M365, Copilot Studio, MIRO, Microsoft Business Central, Microsoft Fabric, Claude AI, ChatGPT, LangDock, MS VS Code
Peter S.
Last position:
Senior ML Engineer & AI Researcher at Anonymous Client
Project: Defect Generation on Test-Bench Images of Metal Surfaces Environment: Automated Visual Inspection (AVI), Metallurgy & Manufacturing
- Objective & Implementation: Designed, architected, and trained Generative Adversarial Networks (Pix2PixHD / SPADE) for image-to-image transformation. Targeted generation of synthetic material defects (e.g., cracks, inclusions, scale) on rough metal surfaces under real test-bench lighting conditions for privacy-compliant and efficient dataset expansion (data augmentation).
- Technical Design: Implemented robust Generative AI and computer vision pipelines in Python and PyTorch. Used semantic segmentation approaches for mask-controlled defect synthesis and subsequent evaluation with EfficientDet object detection models.
- Business Impact: Massive dataset upscaling (10x) without time-consuming and costly physical test-bench runs, while significantly improving the detection performance of automated inspection systems.
Technologies & Skills Used: Python | PyTorch | SPADE | Pix2PixHD | EfficientDet | Machine Learning | Semantic Segmentation | Computer Vision
Jens H.
Last position:
Interim CTO (occasional assignments) at Fujitsu / FSAS
Stabilization of an Azure/.NET landscape in live operation.
- Architecture, DevOps, and operational readiness; technical decisions under time pressure
- Azure DevOps, monitoring, ETL/ELT, cloud security, FinOps, and data-mesh-related topics
Technologies: Azure DevOps, .NET, CI/CD, monitoring, FinOps
Eric B.
Last position:
Quality Assurance Manager (QSV) at Federal Employment Agency
Supporting the International Web Presence of the BA (IntWeb) project in the area of quality management, with the aim of taking responsibility for the quality of processes and project results while considering BA standards. The main objectives of the project are to give professionals abroad a quick overview of their opportunities for moving to Germany and to enable them to take the necessary steps consistently and with digital support by providing access to services.
Defining the general guidelines in the QA handbook
Summarising test results in QA reports for PLA
Analysing project results for improvement opportunities
Quality management of requirements analysis (particularly processes, methods, and tools)
Ensuring compliance with SERA requirements
Creating a cross-project test concept
Agreeing on sprint completion reports
Formal review of work results in accordance with requirements and/or the project plan
Contact person for internal audit, external audits by auditors, or BRH (Federal Court of Audit)
Technologies: JIRA, Confluence, MS Office, GitLab, Kubernetes
Michael N.
Last position:
Senior AI Engineer | Forward Deployed Engineer at Tiefbau
- Development of an AI-powered project organization tool for a civil engineering company that intelligently links project, task, tender, schedule, and document data through a knowledge graph.
- Implementation of AI features for document analysis, information extraction, context-based assistance, and voice-based data capture based on Microsoft Azure AI, reducing administrative effort, making information available faster, and supporting project teams in decision-making.
- Tech stack: Python, React, TypeScript, FastAPI, Claude Code, Codex, Graphify, PostgreSQL, Microsoft Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Speech, Azure AI Document Intelligence, Microsoft Graph, Microsoft Entra ID, Docker, Git, CI/CD.
Mirza K.
Last position:
Agentic Automation and a RAG system
- This project involved extraction of intelligence data to support report writing for a company that provides geopolitical, global, commercial intelligence. The data have been gathered from a number of resources (interview transcripts, online data, internal documents), and then a knowledge base has been build from it. This was the basis of a complex RAG system, that was evaluated against a golden dataset. Agents have been used to find out the contradicting intelligence, the statements supporting each other, and to store back the generated knowledge.
Used: Python, RAG, LangGraph, LangChain, deepeval, MCP
Prasad T.
Last position:
Solution Architect / Senior Manager – DTC E-Commerce Platform at BRITA
- Led discovery phase and POC for Shopware to Shopify Plus migration across EMEA markets, evaluating platform suitability, technical architecture, and multi-brand/multi-country capabilities against business requirements.
- Designed reference architecture for Shopify Plus implementation incorporating headless front-end patterns (Vue.js, Nuxt.js), CMS integration (Magnolia), and Azure middleware (APIM, Functions, Logic Apps, Service Bus) for 11 EMEA markets.
- Defined migration strategy analyzing data mapping, cutover approach, and zero-downtime deployment patterns using Varnish caching, GitOps pipelines, and CI/CD orchestration across six vendor teams.
- Architected multi-tenant Shopify Plus governance model with centralized admin, localized storefront customization, and compliance controls (GDPR, data residency).
- Prototyped AI-driven search optimization (LLM.txt, JSON-LD) for product discoverability in Google AI results, demonstrating post-launch performance opportunities.
- Defined EMEA expansion roadmap for 15+ markets through C-level strategic workshops, identifying phased rollout, market-specific configurations, and resource requirements.
- Tech Stack: React, Nuxt.js, Vue.js, Magnolia CMS, Shopware, Shopify Plus, Azure (APIM, Functions, Logic Apps, Service Bus, Front Door), Varnish, SAP, MS Dynamics, Docker, Kubernetes, GitHub Actions, PostgreSQL, Kafka
Karin A.
Last position:
AI Benchmark Engineer | Native language specialist German at Lilt
- Task Engineering: Evaluating Coding Agents.
- Asset Creation: Building realistic task environments using datasets and files in German. Crucially, these assets must remain in the target language to genuinely measure multilingual handling.
- Prompting & Translation: finding failure points where AI does not work, in German.
- Implementation & Verification: Supporting the development of robust solutions (reference implementations) and write highly reliable, deterministic verifier scripts (using rubric-based judging only when strictly necessary).
- Calibration & Execution: Analyze execution logs and calibrate task difficulty (Easy to Very Hard) using standard Terminal-Bench run configurations against various model tiers (Haiku, Opus).
- Quality Assurance: Participation in a rigorous, 4-layer human quality control process (creation, human review, calibration review, and audit) alongside automated LLM-based checks to ensure fairness, grammatical accuracy, and benchmark integrity.
- Linguistic Review: Reviewing AI benchmark tasks across Hindi, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, Czech and Turkish.
Dennis O.
Last position:
Co-Founder & CEO at Connect AI
AI Agent SaaS
Founded and built an AI agent SaaS for automated customer support and lead qualification, including implementation with pilot customers.
- Service → product transformation: productization from the agency into an independent AI agent SaaS. The starting point was a specific customer problem; the product was developed together with the customer.
- Developed and launched AI agents for website inbound, lead qualification, and customer service, reaching €8K MRR.
- Structured and led a remote team across engineering, LLM ops, and customer enablement.
- Case PTC Auto (e-commerce on Shopify): connected an AI support agent to the store, automated product data & support workflows, reducing workload by ~10–15 hours per week per support employee.
- Set up GDPR-compliant data processing for the AI agents: data processing agreements, deletion policies, and customer data storage locations.
- Assessed agents against the EU AI Act (risk class, transparency requirements) and built them accordingly.
- Addressed customers’ compliance and security requirements (questionnaires, evidence, contracts) to make sales possible in the first place.
- Built technical safeguards into the product to prevent agent misbehavior: hallucinations, escalation to humans, and logging.
Bardiya B.
Last position:
Data Scientist at Rewe Digital GmbH
Statistical Forecasting Algorithm
- Improvement of an statistical probabilistic forecasting algorithm for sales + evaluation
- Migration from R/On-premise to Python/Snowflake
- Productionalization on Snowflake in cooperation with data engineers & DevOps
Monitoring Dashboard
- Data engineering for preparation & provisioning of necessary data/resources on Snowflake
- Development & deployment of a Streamlit dashboard in Snowflake
ML-based Probabilistic Forecasting on Vertex AI
- Development of a ML-based probabilistic forecasting algorithm from scratch
- Implementation of MLOps pipeline in Kubeflow on Google Cloud Vertex AI
Tech Stack: Python, Snowflake/Snowpark, R, Streamlit, Gitlab/Gitlab CICD, Terraform, Google Cloud, Vertex AI (aiplatform SDK, gcloud CLI, feature store, model registry, etc), kubeflow
Ajay Kumar D.
Last position:
Senior BI and Analytics Engineer at Novartis
- Led enterprise reporting modernization by migrating legacy SSRS reporting solutions to Power BI, supporting 500+ business users while ensuring full GDPR/DSGVO compliance.
- Designed and optimized Power BI and Microsoft Fabric semantic models using star schema, dimensional modeling, advanced DAX, and performance optimization techniques, reducing query latency by 25%.
- Delivered 20+ executive and operational dashboards featuring KPI scorecards, drill-through, bookmarks, and row-level security, improving reporting efficiency by 20%.
- Enabled self-service analytics through governed Power BI datasets, dataflows, and gateway architecture, increasing business-led reporting adoption by 35%.
- Configured an incremental refresh policy and query folding for a 50+ million row sales dataset, reducing daily report refresh times by 85%.
- Deployed automated ETL/ELT pipelines using Azure Data Factory, Microsoft Fabric, and Snowflake, reducing reporting delivery timelines by 40% through workflow automation.
- Spearheaded Microsoft Fabric analytics modernization initiatives including lakehouse architecture, OneLake integration, and centralized data platform development, reducing data latency from 2 hours to 20 minutes.
- Translated business requirements from 15+ stakeholders into scalable Power BI semantic models and dashboards, improving reporting consistency and reducing ad-hoc reporting requests by 25%.
- Applied Microsoft Copilot and generative AI tools to accelerate SQL development, DAX authoring, technical documentation, and testing activities, reducing development effort by approximately 15 hours per week.
Stephan F.
Last position:
AI & Data Engineer - Azure Enterprise AI and Knowledge Engineering at IB Schlegel - King
Designed and developed an Azure-based AI and data platform transforming distributed project documents into searchable, structured knowledge for an enterprise AI assistant. Combined incremental document processing, hybrid keyword/vector retrieval, knowledge graph extraction, and conversational AI for Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot. Implemented Python document-processing pipelines for PDF, Word, Outlook and text files; Azure Cosmos DB lifecycle management; Azure AI Search; Azure AI Foundry and Azure OpenAI; identity-aware retrieval with Microsoft Entra ID; project authorization; a TypeScript Microsoft Agents SDK agent; Pulumi infrastructure; resilient scheduling, retry and diagnostic tooling. Technology stack: Python, TypeScript, FastAPI, Pydantic, Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Search, Azure Cosmos DB, Blob/Table Storage, Container Apps/Jobs, Service Bus, Key Vault, Entra ID, Docker, Pulumi, pytest, Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Hervé T.
Last position:
Senior Data Engineer at Schweizerische Post AG
Tools: Fabric, AWS, dbt, Power BI, SQL, DWH, R, Python
- Supported customers in implementing an architecture design for extracting and preparing data
- Planned the design and implementation of the BI and DWH platform
- Ensured the scalability and performance of the data platform
Discover over 15,000 top freelancers
Statistics of experts using Apache Spark
Aggregated from the professional profiles of matched freelancers.
Experience
14 years

Position duration
2.7 years

Positions per freelancer
10

Top business areas
Information Technology, Business Intelligence, Product Development

Top industries
Information Technology, Banking and Finance, Automotive

Certification focus areas
Information Technology, Business Intelligence, Research and Development
Bachelor's degree or higher
98%
Master's degree or higher
72%
Doctorate
13%

Certifications per freelancer
3

Most common languages
English, German, French

Speak two or more languages
97%
Based on our profile pool as of 16 Oct 2026.
Daily rate distribution
The chart shows how the daily rates of experts in this technology are distributed, based on recent contracts on our platform. Each bar covers a rate range — its height shows the share of experts charging within that range.
Average rates of experts using Apache Spark
Rates are based on recent contracts and do not include FRATCH margin.
The average daily rate is the mean of all daily rates from recent contracts of comparable freelancers on our platform.
The median daily rate is the middle value of all daily rates — half of comparable freelancers charge less, half charge more. Unlike the average, it is barely affected by outliers.
Calculated based on our freelancers’ daily rates as of 16 Oct 2026. Actual rates may vary depending on seniority level, experience, skill specialization, project complexity, and engagement length.
Apache Spark experts industry focus
See which industries our matched freelancers work in most often — every figure is calculated live from the freelancers on FRATCH.
- Information Technology (89%)
- Banking and Finance (48%)
- Automotive (42%)
- Professional Services (41%)
- Manufacturing (40%)
- Education (33%)
- Retail (31%)
- Healthcare (30%)
Please note that freelancers can work across multiple industries, so percentages overlap.
About the technology
Distributed processing
Apache Spark is an open-source engine for processing large datasets across clusters. It supports batch workloads, interactive analysis, streaming and machine learning through a unified programming model. Teams use it to turn raw data into reliable pipelines, analytical tables and production insights.
Core workloads
Spark handles demanding data tasks where a single machine or a simple database query is not enough:
- Build batch pipelines for structured and semi-structured data
- Process event streams with Structured Streaming
- Transform data for lakehouse and warehouse systems
- Train and score models with MLlib and Spark-based workflows
- Run large-scale SQL analysis with Spark SQL
Ecosystem and tooling
Strong Apache Spark specialists work across Scala, Python and SQL, selecting the right interface for each workload. They use DataFrames, Datasets, RDDs and Spark SQL, then connect Spark with Kafka, Delta Lake, Iceberg, Hive and cloud storage. Familiarity with notebooks, orchestration tools, Git and automated testing supports maintainable delivery.
When expertise matters
Companies bring in freelance Spark expertise when pipelines run slowly, cloud processing costs rise or a prototype must become a dependable production service. Specialists can review partitioning, joins, caching, serialization and cluster configuration. They also help migrate legacy Hadoop or MapReduce workloads and modernize data platforms without disrupting critical reporting.
Delivery in practice
A Spark project often includes ingestion, schema management, transformation logic, quality checks, observability and deployment. Professionals may work with Databricks, Amazon EMR, Google Cloud Dataproc or Azure Synapse, depending on the surrounding platform. Remote collaboration works well when requirements, sample data, access controls and acceptance tests are clearly documented.
What good looks like
Effective Spark professionals understand both distributed systems and the business purpose of the data. They explain why a job is slow, inspect execution plans and design transformations that scale without unnecessary shuffles. Look for practical evidence of resilient pipelines, clear code, tested data contracts, failure handling and measurable improvements in reliability.
Frequently asked questions
Curious about Apache Spark? Here are the answers that come up again and again.
Apache Spark is used for distributed data processing across batch, streaming and interactive workloads. Companies use it for data lake pipelines, large-scale SQL analysis, feature preparation, reporting and machine learning workflows.
Apache Spark provides a broader and more interactive processing model than traditional Hadoop MapReduce. It supports SQL, streaming and machine learning in the same ecosystem, while its execution engine can keep suitable intermediate data in memory and reduce repeated disk work.
Apache Spark is a strong choice when transformations span large or varied datasets, require custom processing or combine batch and streaming inputs. A warehouse may be simpler for governed SQL reporting, while Spark is often useful before data reaches the warehouse or lakehouse.
Apache Spark work usually benefits from skills in Python, Scala, SQL, Kafka, cloud storage and orchestration. Experience with Delta Lake, Apache Iceberg, Hive, Kubernetes, Databricks or cloud cluster services can also matter, depending on the environment.
Apache Spark expertise should match the system risk rather than a fixed career milestone. A contained transformation may need a specialist who can deliver and test a focused pipeline, while a streaming platform or migration needs proven judgment around architecture, performance, security and operations.
Apache Spark projects are often suitable for remote collaboration because code, job definitions and infrastructure can be reviewed asynchronously. Shared documentation, secure development access, representative test data and clear ownership are important when the specialist is not on site.
Apache Spark quality is visible in how a specialist explains execution plans, partitioning, joins, data skew and failure recovery. Ask for examples of production pipelines, testing practices and monitoring, then use a realistic technical review rather than judging only familiarity with APIs.
Apache Spark delivery should include dependable deployment, data quality checks, observability and documentation for ongoing ownership. A strong specialist also leaves clear configuration, sensible cost controls and a plan for handling schema changes, late events and failed jobs.
The average hourly rate of freelancers who have used Apache Spark in their recent projects is 93 €, which corresponds to a daily rate of about 744 € based on an 8-hour working day.
Of the freelancers who have used Apache Spark in their recent projects, 98% hold at least a Bachelor's degree, 72% hold at least a Master's degree, and 13% hold a doctorate.
On average, freelancers who have used Apache Spark in their recent projects have 14 years of professional experience, with a single engagement typically lasting around 2.7 years.
The most common languages among freelancers who have used Apache Spark in their recent projects are English (98%), German (98%), and French (21%).
The most common industries among freelancers who have used Apache Spark in their recent projects are Information Technology (89%), Banking and Finance (48%), and Automotive (42%).
The most common business areas among freelancers who have used Apache Spark in their recent projects are Information Technology (97%), Business Intelligence (85%), and Product Development (79%).
Main locations of FRATCH Experts, who have recently used Apache Spark
Our freelancers and interim experts are at home all over Germany — available on-site in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and every major business hub, or fully remote. Choose a city to discover matched specialists, local market insights and up-to-date availability.
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