AI Chief Architect & CTO • Agentic AI • Cloud Platforms • Banking & Capital Markets
Steve Messina
Hands-On Technologist Contributing to Major Industry Shifts
Chief AI Architect and CTO with 40 years across global banking, cloud platforms and AI products. Built the architecture functions for HSBC Global Banking & Markets and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, created IBM's first internal AWS practice ($15M+ new revenue) and led bank cloud migrations that cut infrastructure cost by 35–60%. Founded and coded Azara.ai, an agentic AI workflow platform acquired in 2024. Hands-on in production LLM systems: agent orchestration, retrieval, evaluation, guardrails and AI security. Operates from board-level strategy to production code in regulated, high-stakes environments.
Steve Messina
@AnotherMadScientistAI chief architect & fractional CTO. Ideas to production, agents to evaluation.
- Contributions
- 22,225
- Repos
- 206
- Daily avg
- 15.9
2026 · 17,922
2025 · 2,190
2024 · 819
2023 · 1,294
Includes private contributions to client repos, counted from my local clones; pushed commits count once.
Container Technology: Invented one of the earliest Container platforms and Service Meshes through 10xLabs (2012-2015) — source on GitHub (10xEngineer/10xLabs)
AI Trading Systems: Architected an automated commodity trading platform using Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms at Apollo AI Hedge Fund (1995-1999)
Inventions: Multiple inventions in container platforms, cybersecurity AI and agentic workflows
Executive
Resume
Comprehensive technical leadership profile and career progression.
Steve Messina
Building and scaling agentic capabilities for large-scale data quality control at TensorLot (tensorlot.ai).
Build and ship agentic AI products — TeamFlow (codercat.io), the DevOps harness for agentic software delivery, and Provely (provely.sh), the defensive verification layer for AI agents — plus Grow, Heart, Doc and MechKit. Fractional CTO and generative AI consulting for enterprise and startup clients, owning architecture, core code, evaluation and production hardening.
Added Skills and secure execution to Brontë AI, Newton Russell's AI product - agent skill authoring and execution, a sandboxed runner with an egress allowlist, and a runs canvas with live run state - after a first engagement in Aug 2025.
Built Snyk EVO AI agent capabilities, multi-agent guardrails and LLM judges for cybersecurity workflows. Moved cybersecurity AI capabilities from research into go-to-market readiness.
Refactored the entire application stack to production-ready launch state in one month — backend, frontend, data/API integration and AI-security workflows.
Joined as AI lead and moved to CTO, leading a team of 10 from early product to production launch. Delivered Voice AI, AI Inbox, AI Receptionist and Campaign Sequencer products.
Wrote the core agentic AI workflow product and led the company from inception to acquisition in 15 months, building a 15-person ASEAN engineering team.
Created IBM's first internal AWS consultancy practice, generating $15M+ in new revenue. Led cloud, AI and digital transformation for 50+ enterprise clients; bank cloud migrations cut infrastructure costs by 35–60%.
Built the cloud and AI Centre of Excellence for Temasek portfolio companies. Low-touch operations reduced daily workload by 80%.
Led the DevOps and microservices specialties in APAC. Architected the 7-Eleven ticketing system (millions of transactions per minute) and led the DevOps, microservices and big-data programme for Astro.
Created multiple products, including a Bitcoin EPOS system, restaurant management software and a B2B marketplace.
Invented and built one of the first container platform-as-a-service and service-mesh platforms, before containers became mainstream; led a team of 25.
Established the China engineering Centre of Excellence in Tianjin. Rolled out cloud/DevOps practices across 15+ countries, three months ahead of schedule.
Created the innovation centre of excellence, startup accelerator programmes, enterprise cloud operating model and transformation strategy.
Built and led the 50-person architecture function for Global Markets and Operations. Established APAC as the primary global technology centre.
Implemented the Global Methods Architecture; led the reference data programme and the One-HSBC programme unifying 60+ countries.
Authored the 2006 operations automation vision paper 'Development Operations Done Right' that pre-dated the DevOps movement; led operations restructuring across Private Wealth technology.
Architected and led development of portfolio trading systems for UBS Investment Bank.
Architected and coded an automated commodity trading platform using neural networks and genetic algorithms.
Agentic AI & LLM Systems · Generative AI Strategy & Governance · AI Security, Guardrails & Evaluation · Enterprise & Solution Architecture · Cloud Transformation (AWS) · Banking, Capital Markets & Trading Systems · Regulatory Compliance & Reference Data · Microservices, APIs & Platform Engineering · Data & AI Platforms · MLOps & DevOps · AI Product Go-to-Market · Team Building & Operating Models
Large Language Models (LLM) · Agentic AI · LangChain · LangGraph · Model Context Protocol (MCP) · Agent Orchestration · Retrieval-Augmented Generation (Adaptive RAG) · Postgres BM25 · Pydantic Evals · LLM Judges · Guardrails · Fine-tuning · MLOps · Coding Harnesses · OpenAI API · Anthropic Claude API · Neural Networks · Genetic Algorithms
Global Markets · Settlement · Reference Data · Regulatory Compliance · Quantitative Trading · Automated Trading Systems · Fintech · Crypto Payments
AWS · Kubernetes · Terraform · Docker · Microservices · APIs · DevOps · Python · FastAPI · Flask · Rust · TypeScript · React · PostgreSQL · ClickHouse · AWS Glue · PySpark · Weaviate · Neo4j · Twilio · LiveKit
DevOps Pioneer: Early pioneer in founding DevOps — wrote the 2006 vision paper "Development Operations Done Right" at Morgan Stanley, before the term existed
Container Technology: Invented one of the earliest Container platforms and Service Meshes through 10xLabs (2012-2015) — source on GitHub (10xEngineer/10xLabs)
AI Trading Systems: Architected an automated commodity trading platform using Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms at Apollo AI Hedge Fund (1995-1999)
Inventions: Multiple inventions in container platforms, cybersecurity AI and agentic workflows
AWS Certifications (2016): Certified Solutions Architect – Professional, Certified Developer – Associate, Certified Solutions Architect – Associate
Financial Certifications (2007): Partial Certified Quantitative Finance, Securities II Certificates
MMath programme (degree not completed): Open University / Birkbeck — mathematical modelling, pure mathematics, probability, physics, astronomy
Career
Timeline
Four decades of shipping — from AI trading systems to agentic platforms.
-
Sep 2026 - Present
TensorLot
Chief AI Architect
Agentic Data Quality at Scale
- Building and scaling agentic capabilities for large-scale data quality control at TensorLot (tensorlot.ai)
- Agentic AI
- AI Architecture
- Data Quality
-
Oct 2024 - Present
MacleodLabs.ai
Founder & Fractional CTO
AI Products & Fractional CTO
- Build and ship agentic AI products: TeamFlow (codercat.io), the DevOps harness for agentic software delivery, and Provely (provely.sh), the defensive verification layer for AI agents
- Also shipping Grow (developer growth OS, beta), Heart (causal 4D cardiac simulation), Doc (probabilistic causal diagnosis) and MechKit (the $1 mechanical solve)
- Fractional CTO and generative AI consulting for enterprise and startup clients
- Own architecture, core code, evaluation and production hardening
Stack: LangChain, LangGraph, Model Context Protocol (MCP), Adaptive RAG, Postgres BM25, Pydantic evals, Weaviate, Neo4j, Python, Rust, TypeScript, AWS, MLOps.
- Agentic AI
- MCP
- LangGraph
- Rust
- AI Security
- Python
- Flask
- Langchain
- Generative AI
- AI/ML
- Cybersecurity
- Automated Testing
- Supply Chain Security
-
Jun 2026 - Aug 2026
Newton Russell
AI Consultant (Macleod Labs engagement)
Skills & Secure Execution for Brontë AI
- Added Skills and secure execution to Brontë AI, Newton Russell’s AI product: agent-side skill authoring and execution, stored skills exposed as live tools, and a sandboxed runner with a dynamically reloaded egress allowlist
- Added a runs list and canvas with live run-state overlays, closed the security-audit findings, and took the UAT acceptance criteria to all green (25 of 25)
- First engagement in Aug 2025
- AI Agents
- Agent Skills
- Sandboxing
- MCP
- Python
- TypeScript
- AWS
-
Jan 2026 - Apr 2026
Snyk
Generative AI Consultant / AI Agent Engineer
Cybersecurity AI Agents
- Built Snyk EVO AI agent capabilities, multi-agent guardrails and LLM judges for cybersecurity workflows
- Coded agent orchestration and evaluation logic
Impact: Moved cybersecurity AI capabilities from research into go-to-market readiness.
- AI Agents
- Guardrails
- LLM Judges
- Cybersecurity
- Generative AI
- Product Strategy
- LLM
-
Sep 2025
VCyberiz
Cybersecurity AI Consultant / Full-stack AI Engineer
Launch Rescue in One Month
- Refactored the entire application stack: backend, frontend, data/API integration and AI-security workflows
Impact: Took the product to a production-ready launch state in one month.
- Full-stack
- AI Security
- APIs
-
Dec 2024 - Jul 2025
Graph8
CTO & Chief AI Engineer
AI Lead → CTO
- Joined as AI lead and moved to CTO
- Led a team of 10 across AI, data, applications, infrastructure and customer delivery
- Delivered Voice AI, AI Inbox, AI Receptionist and Campaign Sequencer products
- Built the enterprise data architecture for customer automation
Impact: Took the platform from early product to go-to-market and production launch.
- Voice AI
- Data Architecture
- Technology Leadership
- LiveKit
- Technology Strategy
- Platform Architecture
- AI Development
- Data Engineering
-
Aug 2023 - Oct 2024
Azara.ai
Founder & CTO
Agentic AI Workflow Platform — Acquired
- Wrote the core agentic AI workflow product
- Built multi-agent workflow state, distributed microservices, APIs, real-time processing and analytics
- Drove product-market iteration and built the 15-person ASEAN engineering team
Impact: Led the company from inception to acquisition in 15 months.
- Agentic AI
- AI Workflows
- Microservices
- Team Leadership
- Platform Development
-
Mar 2020 - Jul 2023
IBM
AWS CTO, Tech Leader & Associate Partner
Created IBM’s First Internal AWS Practice
- Created IBM’s first internal AWS consultancy practice, generating $15M+ in new revenue streams
- Led cloud, AI and digital transformation for 50+ enterprise clients in banking, fintech and multinationals
- Delivered major bank cloud migrations that reduced infrastructure costs by 35–60%
- Set executive architecture, operating models and stakeholder alignment
- Fast-tracked for the IBM Distinguished Engineer programme
Impact: New AWS revenue stream across ASEAN and major cost reductions for bank clients.
- AWS
- Cloud Transformation
- Banking
- Fintech
- Cloud Architecture
- Enterprise Consulting
-
Mar 2019 - Feb 2020
ICompaz (Temasek / Infosys JV)
Head of Cloud & AI
Cloud & AI Centre of Excellence
- Built the cloud and AI Centre of Excellence for Temasek portfolio companies
- Implemented low-touch operations
Impact: Reduced daily operational workload by 80%.
- Cloud
- AI
- Operating Models
-
Sep 2015 - May 2018
Amazon Web Services
Principal Architect / Consultant
Professional Services, APAC
- Led the DevOps and microservices specialties
- Architected the 7-Eleven ticketing system handling millions of transactions per minute
- Led the DevOps, microservices and big-data programme for Astro, Malaysia’s largest media company
Impact: Production-scale DevOps and microservices architecture for major APAC enterprises.
- AWS
- DevOps
- Microservices
- Big Data
- Real-time Systems
-
Jun 2014 - Aug 2015
UCanPay
Interim CTO
Fintech & Commerce Products
- Created a Bitcoin EPOS system
- Built restaurant management software
- Built a B2B marketplace
- Crypto Payments
- EPOS
- Marketplaces
-
Jan 2012 - Aug 2015
10xLabs
Founder
Container PaaS Before Containers Were Mainstream
- Invented and built one of the first container platform-as-a-service and service-mesh platforms
- Led a team of 25
- Ran Startup Weekend and accelerator programmes that helped bootstrap the Hong Kong startup ecosystem
- Source repositories public on GitHub: github.com/10xEngineer
- Containers
- PaaS
- Service Mesh
- Software-Defined Networking
- Filesystem Layering
-
Jul 2013 - May 2014
Standard Chartered Bank
Consultant, Cloud & DevOps Lead
China Engineering Centre of Excellence
- Established the China engineering Centre of Excellence in Tianjin with a team of 8
- Created the first Cloud Lab
- Rolled out cloud/DevOps practices across 15+ countries
Impact: Delivered three months ahead of schedule.
- DevOps
- Cloud
- Engineering CoE
- Cloud Computing
- Operations Automation
- Financial Markets
-
Jun 2012 - Dec 2012
UBS
Consultant CTO, Cloud Strategy
Innovation & Cloud Strategy
- Created the innovation centre of excellence and startup accelerator programmes
- Defined the enterprise cloud operating model and transformation strategy
- Implemented innovation labs across global UBS operations
- Cloud Strategy
- Innovation
- Operating Models
-
Apr 2010 - Dec 2011
Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Global Banking Chief Architect
Architecture Function for Global Markets & Operations
- Built and led the 50-person architecture function for Global Markets and Operations
- Created an award-winning in-house settlement system
- Established APAC as the primary global technology centre
- Introduced the global private cloud and DevOps practices
- Enterprise Architecture
- Settlement Systems
- Private Cloud
- DevOps
- Banking Systems
- Global Standards
- Infrastructure
-
Dec 2007 - Mar 2010
HSBC Global Banking & Markets
Global Banking Chief Architect
Global Architecture & One-HSBC
- Implemented the Global Methods Architecture
- Led the reference data programme and unified global data warehouse, including NLP tooling for regulatory compliance
- Led architecture of the One-HSBC programme unifying 60+ countries
- Global Architecture
- Reference Data
- Regulatory Compliance
- NLP
- Enterprise Standardization
- Governance
-
Mar 2006 - Nov 2007
Morgan Stanley Private Wealth
Vice President / Technical Architect
Early Pioneer in Founding DevOps (2006)
- Authored the operations automation vision paper “Development Operations Done Right” (PDF), which pre-dated the DevOps movement
- Led the operations restructuring across Private Wealth technology
- DevOps
- Operations Automation
- Digital Transformation
- Operations
- Industry Standards
-
Jul 2000 - Dec 2005
UBS
Architect & Lead, Portfolio Trading
Portfolio Trading Systems
- Architected and led development of portfolio trading systems for UBS Investment Bank
- Trading Systems
- Capital Markets
-
Jun 1995 - Feb 1999
Apollo AI Hedge Fund
Architect & Lead Developer
Automated AI Trading
- Architected and coded an automated commodity trading platform using neural networks and genetic algorithms
- Neural Networks
- Genetic Algorithms
- Automated Trading
- Algorithmic Trading
- Machine Learning
Skills &
Tools
Core Expertise
- Agentic AI & LLM Systems
- Generative AI Strategy & Governance
- AI Security, Guardrails & Evaluation
- Enterprise & Solution Architecture
- Cloud Transformation (AWS)
- Banking, Capital Markets & Trading Systems
- Regulatory Compliance & Reference Data
- Microservices, APIs & Platform Engineering
- Data & AI Platforms
- MLOps & DevOps
- AI Product Go-to-Market
- Team Building & Operating Models
AI / GenAI
- Large Language Models (LLM)
- Agentic AI
- LangChain
- LangGraph
- Model Context Protocol (MCP)
- Agent Orchestration
- Retrieval-Augmented Generation (Adaptive RAG)
- Postgres BM25
- Pydantic Evals
- LLM Judges
- Guardrails
- Fine-tuning
- MLOps
- Coding Harnesses
- OpenAI API
- Anthropic Claude API
- Neural Networks
- Genetic Algorithms
Banking & Trading
- Global Markets
- Settlement
- Reference Data
- Regulatory Compliance
- Quantitative Trading
- Automated Trading Systems
- Fintech
- Crypto Payments
Cloud, Data & Engineering
- AWS
- Kubernetes
- Terraform
- Docker
- Microservices
- APIs
- DevOps
- Python
- FastAPI
- Flask
- Rust
- TypeScript
- React
- PostgreSQL
- ClickHouse
- AWS Glue
- PySpark
- Weaviate
- Neo4j
- Twilio
- LiveKit
Education &
Certifications
-
AWS Certifications (2016)
Certified Solutions Architect – Professional, Certified Developer – Associate, Certified Solutions Architect – Associate
-
Financial Certifications (2007)
Partial Certified Quantitative Finance, Securities II Certificates
-
MMath programme (degree not completed)
Open University / Birkbeck — mathematical modelling, pure mathematics, probability, physics, astronomy
Let’s build the next thing
Currently accepting select consulting engagements and board advisory positions.