ABOUT
Jonathan Kini
I help data leaders understand where their BigQuery and Snowflake costs come from, and build the visibility to keep them explainable over time.
The Short Version
I spent 9+ years building data platforms. During that time, I noticed something that kept coming back: teams could see their costs, but they couldn't explain them. Finance would ask questions. Engineering would scramble. Nobody had the full picture.
I started documenting the patterns I observed. That documentation became a methodology. Now I help data teams see what they've been missing.
Background
9+ years building and operating production data platforms. Not advising from the sidelines. Building. Operating. Being on call when things broke.
I've worked with scale-ups growing from Series A to IPO, where the data infrastructure had to scale faster than anyone planned. I've also worked with enterprise teams managing legacy ETL alongside modern cloud infrastructure, trying to make sense of costs spread across three different platforms and fifteen service accounts.
I've been the one debugging failed pipelines at 2am, trying to figure out why a query that ran fine yesterday is now timing out. I've been the one explaining to executives why the BigQuery bill jumped 40% this month. And I've been the one building the monitoring dashboards that were supposed to prevent both situations but somehow didn't.
I've designed dbt projects with hundreds of models, where nobody remembered why half of them existed. I've set up BI layers serving dozens of teams, where the refresh schedules made sense to no one. I've seen dashboards that cost thousands of euros per month being opened twice a week, and pipelines that ran every hour processing data that hadn't changed in six months.
Industries: banking (where every query needs justification and audit trails are mandatory), pharma (where compliance adds layers of complexity), media (where data volumes are unpredictable and budgets are tight), and e-commerce (where cost efficiency directly impacts margins).
What I Learned Along the Way
After enough late nights and enough difficult conversations with Finance, a few things became clear.
Visibility comes before optimization. You can't govern what you can't see. Most teams try to cut costs before they understand where costs come from. That rarely works, and when it does, the gains don't last.
Ownership is the missing layer. Technical fixes without clear accountability don't stick. You can optimize a query, but if nobody owns that dashboard, it'll drift back to its old behavior within months.
Explainability matters more than savings. The goal isn't to reduce costs at all costs. It's to understand where money goes, so you can make informed decisions. Sometimes the right answer is "yes, this costs a lot, and it's worth it."
How I Work
I work directly with you. No account managers, no junior consultants doing the actual analysis. When you have a question, you get an answer from the person who looked at your data.
I explain things in business terms. Technical depth is available when you want it, but you won't need to parse consultant-speak to understand what's happening on your platform.
Everything I deliver is designed to be acted upon. I don't produce 50-page reports that sit in a drawer. I give you prioritized recommendations with clear owners and concrete next steps.
Most engagements start with a Cost Discovery, a focused 2-day audit that maps your warehouse costs back to the teams, pipelines and dashboards responsible for them.
You get visibility into where the money goes, who consumes what, and a clear path to govern costs as you scale—not just cut them once.
Let's Talk
The best way to start is a 30-minute call. We'll discuss your platform, your current challenges, and whether I can help.
No pitch deck. No pressure. If I don't think I'm the right fit, I'll tell you.