Evidence over fashion
Choose technology because it fits the problem and constraints—not because it dominates the conversation.
About KDS
Senior expertise.
Practical delivery.
Independent consultancy for organisations that need clear technical direction and data platforms that perform in the real world.
Founder & Principal Consultant
The person behind the work
Architecture informed by engineering.
James is a very experienced Data architect and engineer specialising in large-scale data platforms, distributed systems and low-latency data processing.
His recent work has focused on evolving a high-throughput platform for near-real-time operational and analytical use cases: optimising Spark and Cassandra workloads, introducing Flink-based ingestion into Elasticsearch and Iceberg, expanding analytics with a StarRocks based OLAP solution, and improving gRPC load balancing and end-to-end latency.
More recently, James has been developing agentic engineering workflows, using OpenCode and coordinated multi-agent approaches to build useful tools and reusable agent skills that support implementation and diagnostics. He treats AI as a precise engineering instrument rather than a substitute for expertise: applying it selectively where it can accelerate investigation, automate bounded work or extend diagnostic coverage, while retaining human ownership of architecture, verification and production decisions.
He combines hands-on engineering with architectural leadership and consulting experience, working comfortably with senior stakeholders, delivery teams and individual engineers. The result is independent advice grounded in what organisations can actually build, operate and sustain.
View James on LinkedInWorking principles
No theatre.
Just useful change.
Simplicity has value
Every moving part needs to justify its operational and cognitive cost.
Capability should stay
Every engagement should leave teams with stronger understanding and ownership, not dependency.
Areas of depth
Credentials
The Open University
The Open Group
A difficult problem is a good place to start
Let’s talk it through.
Share a little about the system, decision or delivery challenge in front of you.
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