Justin Lai

Exploring the Changing World of Software

Ajax, Ontario, Canada

About

Distinguished engineer specializing in large‑scale Spark and Databricks (Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, multi‑region workspaces) for cloud‑native, petabyte‑scale data platforms. I design high‑performance data models and pipelines with a strong focus on reliability, observability, and cost optimization, and I’m known for cross‑team technical leadership, clear communication of complex trade‑offs, and mentoring engineers on building production‑grade lakehouse solutions.

Experience

  • Distinguished Developer at Arctic Wolf
    Feb 2025 - Present · 1 yr 5 mos

    Architect and scale high‑volume Spark/Databricks workloads — including Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, and multi‑region implementations — for mission‑critical data platforms. • Design and optimize data models and pipelines to maximize performance, reliability, and cloud cost efficiency. • Provide technical leadership and mentorship across teams, fostering clear communication and advancing best practices for production‑grade lakehouse systems.

  • BlackBerry (13 yrs 1 mo)
    • Distinguished Data Architect
      Oct 2022 - Feb 2025 · 2 yrs 5 mos

    • Principal Software Architect
      May 2021 - Oct 2022 · 1 yr 6 mos

    • Senior Software Architect
      Oct 2018 - May 2021 · 2 yrs 8 mos

  • Security Protocol Developer at Certicom
    May 2010 - Feb 2012 · 1 yr 10 mos

  • Software Designer at Avaya
    Dec 2009 - Apr 2010 · 5 mos

  • Software Designer at Nortel
    Aug 2006 - Dec 2009 · 3 yrs 5 mos