From tickets to tfvars: automating Unity Catalog onboarding with Terraform

Hi, I’m MuqtadirMalik Quazi, Malik to most people. I’m a Platform Engineer who keeps large data platforms running. Day to day, I administer Azure Databricks at enterprise scale for a global financial services firm: the clusters, networking, identity and governance that data teams rely on without ever thinking about them. If everything works quietly, I’ve done my job. What I write about 🛠 Data platform engineering: Practical guides from an platform admin’s chair, not a data scientist’s. Azure Databricks administration, Unity Catalog, serverless networking, identity with Microsoft Entra ID, and running it all as code with Terraform and GitHub Actions. 🤖 AI governance for platform teams: AI is becoming a shared utility like compute, and someone has to decide who uses which model, how much and at what cost. I write about that side of AI: access, rate limits, budgets, audit. 🧠 Thoughts on mind and life: Short personal reflections on psychology, habits, focus and the quiet struggles of working in tech. Written for myself first, shared in case they help someone else. My background: 6+ years across data platforms and cloud infrastructure: from Hadoop and big data administration, through Azure and Oracle Cloud support, to platform engineering today. My stack: Azure, Databricks, Terraform, GitHub Actions, Linux, and a growing amount of Python. Why I write: I learn by explaining. Every post is something I either struggled with or wish someone had told me earlier. I keep it plain: real-world analogies, no unnecessary jargon. Let’s connect 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/muqtadirmalik 🐦 X: @m.malikquazi ✉️ Substack: https://substack.com/@muqtadirmalikquazi Open to conversations about platform engineering, Databricks and remote or international opportunities.