Dan Lafferty

Applied AI Solutions Architect and Pre-Sales Engineer

London and Rugby, UK

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Profile

Hands-on solutions architect who proves ideas with working software rather than slide decks: AI agents, MCP servers, text-to-SQL and cloud platforms on Google Cloud. Takes ideas from first prototype to live pilot alongside small engineering pods, enables partner delivery practices, and has led cloud engineering, FinOps and M&A technical due diligence across consulting and the public sector.

Core competencies

Partner and pre-sales architecture

  • 0-to-1 proof-of-value builds
  • GSI practice enablement
  • Joint solution development
  • Reference architectures
  • Interactive client demos
  • Bid derisking

Applied AI, MCP and agentic systems

  • Claude API and Anthropic ecosystem
  • MCP servers and tooling
  • RAG
  • Semantic vector caching
  • Agent Platform
  • ADK
  • LangGraph
  • Multi-turn tool calling
  • LLM-as-a-judge evaluation

Data architecture and structured tool calling

  • SQL and text-to-SQL workflows
  • BigQuery data estates
  • Firestore metadata and vector stores
  • Data pipeline modelling
  • Pydantic schema validation
  • Structured JSON outputs

Full-stack and runtime engineering

  • Python (FastAPI)
  • TypeScript (SvelteKit, React)
  • Agent Runtime
  • Cloud Run
  • Docker
  • Terraform
  • API security controls
  • Claude Code
  • GitHub Copilot

Experience

  1. AI Solutions Architect & Agentic Transformation Lead

    Deloitte

    London, UK

    Technical pre-sales lead and proposition builder for AI customer engagements, working through rapid prototyping and architecture.

    • Prototype-led pre-sales

      Ran an outcome-based prototyping motion across client accounts, building working, interactive proof-of-concept applications in days with small engineering pods using Python (FastAPI), SvelteKit, ADK on Agent Runtime, LangGraph and Cloud Run, in place of multi-week slide cycles. Validated prototypes progressed into live customer pilots supporting 500+ active users, helped close sales cycles and secured follow-on paid pilot phases.

    • Text-to-SQL agents with semantic caching

      Architected text-to-SQL agent workflows over enterprise BigQuery data estates and implemented semantic vector caching with Firestore and embeddings, removing repeated inference costs and giving low-latency document and database grounding.

    • Agent factory templates

      Architected open-standard GitHub template repositories for an agent factory bootstrapper and a pre-sales vibe-coding demo harness, with zero-touch Terraform IAM, automated CI/CD, Pydantic tool-schema linting and custom MCP servers, so sales engineers and delivery teams could bootstrap grounded, tool-using agents in hours.

    • LLM-as-a-judge evaluation

      Lead technical architect and advisor on client AI initiatives: implemented LLM-as-a-judge evaluation patterns to align outputs with client value definitions, wrote structured tool-calling schemas in Python, and configured authentication and runtime state management.

    • Multi-agent platform architecture and sizing

      Designed the cloud architecture and runtime pricing model for an autonomous multi-agent procurement platform, modelling data throughput, storage and inference requirements, and secured $250k in vendor co-funding to move the client from prototype to production delivery.

  2. Planned Paternity Leave

    Deloitte

  3. Google Cloud Technical Lead & Manager

    Deloitte

    London, UK

    Led cloud engineering initiatives, emerging technology incubation and M&A technical assessments.

    • Space tech capability incubation

      Self-taught Google Earth Engine and planetary-scale geospatial computing and stepped up as capability lead for the space tech practice, building proof-of-concept demonstrations of greenfield remote sensing use cases for industries such as agriculture and infrastructure that had never used satellite data before.

    • M&A technical due diligence

      Technical lead for the hands-on architecture audit in the acquisition of a cloud-native geospatial data company, covering cloud infrastructure, data ingestion pipelines, IAM security posture and technical debt, and producing the technical risk assessment for the deal team.

    • Containerised architecture and delivery governance

      Designed scalable, containerised infrastructure with Cloud Run, Docker and Terraform for international clients, and set up engineering mentorship that enabled delivery teams to build autonomously.

  4. Google Cloud Lead & Product Owner

    National Citizen Service (NCS) Trust

    London, UK

    Principal technical authority, Product Owner and lead architect for a 100% cloud-native public sector scale-up, built from the ground up with no legacy IT or data centres, enabling rapid release cadences.

    • In-house engineering team from scratch

      Formed, hired and led an internal agile developer pod from scratch, turning organisational requirements into bespoke digital products and workflows built on Google Cloud and Salesforce.

    • FinOps and SaaS consolidation

      Ran a FinOps initiative that consolidated fragmented SaaS point solutions into a unified cloud estate, reducing running costs and freeing capital to fund custom software development.

    • Secure multi-tenant partner platform

      Architected a governed collaboration platform for 2,000 external regional delivery partners, with automated IAM provisioning, secure networking and centralised data access controls.

  5. Technical Account Manager

    Netpremacy

    London, UK

    Drove Google Cloud and Workspace adoption with high-growth tech scale-ups, including on-demand delivery platforms and digital marketplaces. Met client engineering and IT teams regularly to resolve technical blockers, advise on platform capabilities and coordinate incident escalations with the support desk.

  6. Google Cloud Consultant & Tier 3 Support Lead

    Cloud Sherpas (acquired by Accenture)

    London, UK

    Senior escalation engineer for EMEA enterprise accounts on Google Cloud and Google Workspace: managed complex technical tickets, oversaw escalation workflows with the offshore support team in Manila, and ran technical workshops to help client IT teams adopt Google services.

  7. School Governor

    State primary school

    Strategic oversight, financial accountability and governance for public primary education.

Education

  • History and Politics

    Attended Kingston University, 2006 to 2010