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Cygnus Engineering · Riley Moynihan

Production-ready AI and data systems that work under real-world conditions.

Whether you're turning loose ideas into working prototypes or scaling a POC to handle real traffic—I help you figure out what's actually possible, build it to last, and get it into production.

Portrait of Riley Moynihan

Riley Moynihan

What I do

  • Data engineering: pipelines with contracts, quality gates, and lineage—so your AI doesn't hallucinate from garbage data, and your team can trace errors back to their source.
  • AI retrieval (RAG/IR): systems that find the right documents, resist prompt injection, and stay fast under load—not just on your test set.
  • Agents & autonomy: systems that call APIs reliably, fail gracefully when confused, and give you the visibility to debug them when they don't.
Built production LLM systems before ChatGPT launched—back when there was no ecosystem, no safety rails, and no room for handwaving. That experience means I know which corners you can cut and which ones will bite you later.

Data Engineering

Dependable data flows

Contracts, quality gates, and lineage—so your AI doesn't hallucinate from garbage data, and your team can trace errors back to their source.

AI retrieval (RAG/IR)

Search that holds up

Retrieval that finds the right documents, resists prompt injection, and stays fast under load—not just on your test set.

Agents & autonomy

Systems that act

Agent systems that call APIs reliably, fail gracefully when confused, and give you the visibility to debug them when they don't.

Approach

Pragmatic, measurable delivery

Thin slices, fast feedback, and observability from day one. I focus on measurable outcomes: latency, cost, reliability, and user satisfaction.

More about me

Experience

5+ years

Education

M.S. UT Austin

Focus

Data · AI retrieval · Agents

Let's talk

Ready to build production-ready AI systems?

Email me with a brief description of what you're building and where you're stuck. I'll send back specific feedback on what it'll take to productionize it.