Marco Pennacchiotti - Head of Data Science and Data Engineering

Q: Where is Marco based?

Marco is based in Munich, Germany and can operate in on-site , hybrid , and remote work models.

Q: What languages does Marco speak?

Marco speaks the following languages: Italian (Native), English (Advanced), German (Intermediate) .

Q: How many years of experience does Marco have?

Marco has at least 16 years of experience. During this time, Marco has worked in at least 8 different roles and for 6 different companies . The average length of individual experience is 2 years . Note that Marco may not have shared all experience and actually has more experience.

Q: What is Marco's latest experience?

Marco's most recent position is Head of Data Science and Data Engineering at Entrix .

Q: What companies has Marco worked for in recent years?

In recent years, Marco has worked for Entrix , Meta , and BMW AG .

Q: Which industries is Marco most experienced in?

Marco is most experienced in industries like Information Technology (IT) , Automotive , and Retail . Marco also has some experience in Media, Entertainment and Publishing and Banking and Finance .

Q: Which business areas is Marco most experienced in?

Marco is most experienced in business areas like Information Technology (IT) , Product Development , and Research and Development (R&D) . Marco also has some experience in Business Intelligence .

Q: Which industries has Marco worked in recently?

Marco has recently worked in industries like Automotive , Information Technology (IT) , and Banking and Finance .

Q: Which business areas has Marco worked in recently?

Marco has recently worked in business areas like Product Development , Information Technology (IT) , and Business Intelligence .

Recommended expert

Munich, Germany

Experience

Aug 2024 - Feb 2025

7 months

Munich, Germany

Head of Data Science and Data Engineering

Entrix

Established and leading multi-year research roadmap
Developed and implementing hiring plan for science and data
Spearheading data engineering efforts in the company
Led the team to deploy a new trading algorithm, increasing assets’ revenue of 18%

Feb 2023 - May 2024

1 year 4 months

Germany

Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Head of Data Management and Data Analytics, Autonomous Driving

BMW AG

Managed a 50+ people organization of internal and external developers, responsible for the end-to-end ingestion, management and servicing of Autonomous Driving (AD) data collected from the BMW development fleet and the BMW worldwide customer fleet
Delivered first end-to-end solution at BMW for validating AD functions using data from customer vehicles, achieving >20% saving in testing budget
Implemented novel data quality strategy and pipelines, which resulted in an increase in data usability from 40% to 70%
Successfully transitioned the organization from vehicle generation 2021 to 2025, despite resource tightness, with minimal attrition and roadmap delays

Aug 2019 - Sep 2021

2 years 2 months

Munich, Germany

Technical Manager, Autonomous Driving

BMW AG

Delivered first large scale solution that evaluates AD functions, processing 600TB data nightly, and used by >40 teams, key for the successful start of production of BMW Level 2 AD vehicles
Overhauled existing data ingestion pipeline for the AD test fleet, introducing state-of-the-art solutions for monitoring, logging, observability, improving pipelines success rate from 80% to 99%
Delivered global CI/CD for AD data pipelines, enabling data usage across geographical locations (Europe, US, China) and cooperation partners

Nov 2016 - Aug 2019

2 years 10 months

Munich, Germany

Principal Engineer

BMW AG

Implemented first scalable pipeline to ingest data from the AD test fleet, transitioning from manual copying to automated data center pipelines, scaling to petabytes of data
Built the team from ground up, from 2 developers to 10; the team evolved in 2021 into an organization of 50 people
Led data cooperation with AD partners and was responsible for overall architecture design and implementation

May 2013 - Oct 2014

1 year 6 months

San Francisco, United States

AI Specialist

Loop AI

Developed large scale text mining algorithms for startup, including automatic identification of persons’ life events from social media accounts
Supported CEO in defining technical vision and preparing pitches to prospective investors

Jun 2012 - Oct 2016

4 years 5 months

San Jose, United States

Principal Engineer, Search Science & Rapid Response

eBay Inc.

Developed supervised and unsupervised ML solutions to identify customer painpoints from customer service data (email, chat sessions), reducing customer contacts to customer service department by 5%
Launched real-time algorithm for search that identifies near-duplicate items posted by unruly sellers, contributing to increased yearly revenues generated by the eBay search engine

Nov 2008 - Jun 2012

3 years 8 months

Sunnyvale, United States

Staff Research Scientist, Search Science and Content Science

Yahoo! Inc.

Developed ML algorithms to extract and classify millions of entities from textual sources, delivering generated knowledge bases to support query analysis at search time
Launched applications and ML algorithms in production, empowering Yahoo! properties (e.g. Yahoo! Sports and Yahoo! Movies) with relevant real-time social media feeds

Industries Experience

See where this freelancer has spent most of their professional time. Longer bars indicate deeper hands-on experience, while shorter ones reflect targeted or project-based work.

Experienced in Information Technology (9 years), Automotive (6.5 years), Retail (4.5 years), Media and Entertainment (3.5 years), and Banking and Finance (0.5 years).

Information Technology

Automotive

Retail

Media and Entertainment

Banking and Finance

Business Areas Experience

The graph below provides a cumulative view of the freelancer's experience across multiple business areas, calculated from completed and active engagements. It highlights the areas where the freelancer has most frequently contributed to planning, execution, and delivery of business outcomes.

Experienced in Information Technology (14.5 years), Product Development (12.5 years), Research and Development (9.5 years), and Business Intelligence (6.5 years).

Information Technology

Product Development

Research and Development

Business Intelligence

Summary

Accomplished organizational and technical leader with more than 15 years of experience at top software technology companies, including Meta, eBay and Yahoo!, focusing on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Data Engineering.

Successful hands-on track record in AI since 2006, encompassing research, software development and business development. Proven ability to help organizations accelerate their technical innovation, become more agile, and foster a proactive “get things done” mentality by leveraging a decade of experience in Silicon Valley. Strong ability in building and leading technical teams across functions and geographical regions, as well as being able to dive deep to find solutions for technical challenges.

Skills

Technical

Machine Learning
Natural Language Processing
Search Science
Text Mining
Data Engineering
Software Development Lifecycle (E.g. Testing, Ci/cd)
Ad Data Lifecycle And Data Processing
Ad Data-driven Verification And Validation
Energy Trading

Leadership

“Get Things Done” Attitude
Technical And People Leadership
Ability To Build Teams And Orgs From Ground Up
Vision, Strategy And Roadmap Management
Mentorship Of Senior Technical Leaders
Clear Communication And Responsibility Setting
Cross-functional And Geographically Distributed Project Management
Cross-company Stakeholder Management (E.g. Suppliers, Cooperation Partners)

Languages

Italian

Native

English

Advanced

German

Intermediate

Education

Oct 2003 - Jun 2007

University of Rome Tor Vergata & University of Southern California

PhD in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, NLP · Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, NLP · Los Angeles, United States

Oct 2001 - Jun 2003

University of Rome Tor Vergata

MS in Computer Science · Computer Science · Rome, Italy

Profile

Created

November 2025

Need a freelancer? Find your match in seconds.

Try FRATCH GPT

Frequently asked questions

Do you have questions? Here you can find further information.

Where is Marco based?

Marco is based in Munich, Germany and can operate in on-site, hybrid, and remote work models.

What languages does Marco speak?

Marco speaks the following languages: Italian (Native), English (Advanced), German (Intermediate).

How many years of experience does Marco have?

Marco has at least 16 years of experience. During this time, Marco has worked in at least 8 different roles and for 6 different companies. The average length of individual experience is 2 years. Note that Marco may not have shared all experience and actually has more experience.

What roles would Marco be best suited for?

Based on recent experience, Marco would be well-suited for roles such as: Head of Data Science and Data Engineering, Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Head of Data Management and Data Analytics, Autonomous Driving.

What is Marco's latest experience?

Marco's most recent position is Head of Data Science and Data Engineering at Entrix.

What companies has Marco worked for in recent years?

In recent years, Marco has worked for Entrix, Meta, and BMW AG.

Which industries is Marco most experienced in?

Marco is most experienced in industries like Information Technology (IT), Automotive, and Retail. Marco also has some experience in Media, Entertainment and Publishing and Banking and Finance.

Which business areas is Marco most experienced in?

Marco is most experienced in business areas like Information Technology (IT), Product Development, and Research and Development (R&D). Marco also has some experience in Business Intelligence.

Which industries has Marco worked in recently?

Marco has recently worked in industries like Automotive, Information Technology (IT), and Banking and Finance.

Which business areas has Marco worked in recently?

Marco has recently worked in business areas like Product Development, Information Technology (IT), and Business Intelligence.

What is Marco's education?

Marco holds a Doctorate in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, NLP from University of Rome Tor Vergata & University of Southern California and a Master in Computer Science from University of Rome Tor Vergata.

What is the availability of Marco?

Marco is immediately available part-time for suitable projects.

What is the rate of Marco?

Marco's rate depends on the specific project requirements. Please use the Meet button on the profile to schedule a meeting and discuss the details.