Ryan WattsPrincipal AI & Data Engineer
Visionary AI leader with 15+ years architecting transformative systems — from agentic AI platforms to petabyte-scale data infrastructure and real-time cybersecurity intelligence.
Greater Tucson Area · Currently: Independent AI & Data Engineering Consulting
Core Expertise
What I build
Agentic AI Systems
Designing and deploying framework-driven AI architectures that enable autonomous decision-making, adaptability, and automation at scale.
Data Engineering
Building enterprise-grade data infrastructure including multi-cloud warehouses, real-time streaming pipelines, and AI-powered analytics platforms.
Cybersecurity Intelligence
Architecting world-class threat detection systems using advanced ML/AI techniques and real-time data processing at petabyte scale.
Platform Architecture
Designing scalable, cloud-native systems across AWS, GCP, and Azure — from infrastructure to production AI workloads.
Career
Recent Work
Jun 2024 – Feb 2026
Head of Artificial Intelligence
DVx Ventures
Led architecture of cutting-edge agentic AI solutions driving operational excellence across portfolio companies.
Sep 2023 – May 2025
Staff Data Engineer
Cork
Architected the world's first real-time AI-powered threat-detection platform with automated risk signal generation.
Jun 2019 – Sep 2023
Principal Data Engineer
MANTL
Head of Data Architecture — built transactional streaming pipelines and an embedded Looker BI SaaS offering.
Technical Stack
Skills
AI & ML
Data Engineering
Cloud & Infrastructure
Languages
Data Platforms
Security & Compliance
Thinking Out Loud
Recent Writing
Agentic AI Architecture Patterns for the Enterprise
How I think about designing autonomous AI systems that are actually reliable in production — not just impressive in demos.
Building a Real-Time Threat Detection Platform from Zero
The engineering decisions behind Cork's AI-powered cybersecurity intelligence platform, and what I'd do differently.
LLMs in Production Data Pipelines: What Actually Works
After integrating LLMs into data pipelines across multiple companies, here's the unfiltered truth about what holds up.
Let's Work Together
Building something ambitious?
I help organizations navigate AI adoption, architect scalable data infrastructure, and ship intelligent systems that actually work in production.