The Journey: Pipelines, AI Data Engineering, and Specialty Brews.
I'm a London-based Lead / Senior Data Engineer with 15+ years in technology. When I'm not orchestrating 50+ source Snowflake platforms or building trustworthy data for AI agents, you'll find me pulling morning flat whites on my Sage Barista Pro & DF54 flat burrs, dialing in unimodal pour-overs on my 1Zpresso ZP6 Special with strictly London-roasted beans, brewing draft beer at home with my Pinter, stamping my London Beer Passport across microbreweries and historic pubs, hunting down the city's finest artisan sourdough loaves, or, on weekends, watching Formula 1, cheering on Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari and enjoying all the engineering and technicalities behind it.
My Engineering Evolution
The Foundation: Mainframes & DB2
Started with COBOL and IBM DB2 systems under rigorous ITIL incident and change management. This taught me system resilience, deterministic transaction integrity, and respect for business-critical core ledgers.
The Shift: Enterprise Data Platform Modernisation
At Lloyds Banking Group (via TCS), led data services teams, built scalable ETL pipelines that reduced load times by 50%, and worked on Teradata modernisation as part of the enterprise data platform, exploring a move to Google BigQuery.
Modern Lakehouse Scale: NatWest ESG Platform
Built customer, mortgage and deposit data marts for retail leadership, then led the team delivering NatWest's ESG and climate data platform on Snowflake with Airflow and dbt: 50+ sources, 1TB+/month, a Data Guardian framework for contracts and data quality, third-party enrichment, and emissions data products on a data marketplace. Batch times fell 40% and data quality incidents 30%.
The Frontier: AI Data Engineering at NatWest
Leading data engineering for agentic AI projects at NatWest: connecting agents to data sources, giving them trustworthy datasets and context, and building reusable MCP servers, Pydantic validation gates and observability. The agentic workflows cut manual investigation time by over 90%. See the Agentic Lab →
How I Think About Engineering
1. Determinism Over Vibes
Whether building an agentic loop or a PySpark aggregation, don't let models or scripts guess. Use typed data contracts, deterministic Python math, and Pydantic schemas.
2. Decouple Tooling with MCP
Agents should never write ad-hoc database queries. Expose standardized, sandboxed Model Context Protocol servers so multiple agents share clean, audited interfaces.
3. Measure and Observability First
Track tool-call latency, schema validation failures, and model reasoning drift in Splunk and automated LLM-as-a-judge pipelines.
Dialing In: The Science of Brewing & Grinding
Outside of data lakehouses and autonomous agent loops, I am deeply into specialty coffee brewing. Every morning starts with dialing in a velvety flat white on my Sage Barista Pro and DF54 flat burr grinder, followed by afternoon precision pour-overs dialed on the 1Zpresso ZP6 Special. To me, extraction dynamics match distributed data systems: flow rates, particle size distributions, and precision feedback loops.
- Pour-Over Grinder: 1Zpresso ZP6 Special (Unimodal clarity king)
- Espresso Grinder: DF54 Flat Burr (Single-dose zero retention)
- Espresso Machine: Sage Barista Pro (Daily morning flat whites)
- Drippers: Hario V60 (Ceramic & Plastic), Kalita 185
- Kettle: Fellow Stagg EKG (Variable Temp Gooseneck)
- Scale: Timemore Black Mirror (0.1g auto-timer & matte stealth display)
- Water: Filtered (limescale filter)
- Roasteries: Strictly London-based (Assembly, Workshop, WatchHouse, Climpson & Sons, Square Mile)
1. Grind Particle Distribution
Extraction ceiling is set by the grinder, not the kettle. Controlled burr geometry minimizes fines (<100µm) that choke paper filters, preventing astringent channeling and unlocking floral, tea-like clarity.
2. Water & Solvents
Coffee is 98.5% water. London tap water is hard, so I run it through a limescale filter: less scale in the kettle and a cleaner, brighter cup.
3. Flow Dynamics & Geometry
Conical 60° drippers provide high bypass for sparkling transparency. Flat-bottom beds maximize contact uniformity for dense, syrupy sweetness and balanced chocolate notes.
Sage Barista Pro + DF54 Flat Burrs
Zero-retention single-dosing through the 54mm custom flat burrs into an 18g precision basket. Extracted at 9-bar with low-pressure pre-infusion, followed by steaming glossy, tight-bubble microfoam at 62°C for a rich, balanced flat white.
1Zpresso ZP6 Special + Hario V60 / Kalita
Hand-cranked with the legendary ZP6 unimodal burr set on calibrated external dial (~4.0 - 4.5). Minimizes fines for high bypass flow, extracting sweet peach, jasmine, and bergamot tea notes with high clarity.
Robin's Precision Pour-Over Calculator
Exploring London: Beer, Sourdough & Local Roasteries
Beyond data pipelines, I have a deep love for the craft of fermentation and extraction. In London, that means stamping my Beer Passport across independent microbreweries and historic pubs, hunting down naturally leavened sourdough from neighborhood bakeries, and sourcing beans strictly from London-based roasteries.
Fresh Draft Brewing with Pinter
Brewing fresh craft beer at home using my Pinter. Exploring cold conditioning, precise fermentation temperature control, and tapping fresh carbonated IPAs, hazy pales, and stouts straight from the draft handle.
Artisan Baking & Wild Yeast
Fascinated by high-hydration doughs, open crumb structures, and wild lactobacillus fermentation. Constantly visiting London's artisan bakeries to analyze blistered crusts and baking sourdough at home.
London Microbreweries & Old Pubs
Proud holder of the London Beer Passport. Tracking independent railway arch taprooms (Bermondsey Beer Mile) and 400-year-old historic riverside coaching inns along the Thames.
Local Roasting Pioneers
- Assembly Coffee (Brixton) Clean, expressive micro-lots; exceptional transparency in roast development.
- WatchHouse (Bermondsey / City) Architectural brew bars highlighting rare anaerobic & thermal shock Geishas.
- Workshop Coffee (Marylebone) Consistent benchmark Scandinavian roast profiles; stellar morning espresso.
- Climpson & Sons & Origin Pioneers of London specialty coffee; perfect single-origins for V60 dialing.
Craft Breweries & Old Pubs
- Bermondsey Beer Mile The Kernel, Anspach & Hobday, Moor Beer, and Cloudwater taprooms under the brick arches.
- The Mayflower (Rotherhithe) Historic 1620 Thames-side pub with a jetty over the river and cozy timber interiors.
- The Dove (Hammersmith) Riverside terrace pub where Charles II romance was whispered; superb real ales.
- Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese (Fleet St) Rebuilt in 1667 after the Great Fire; atmospheric stone vaults and historic beers.
Crust, Crumb & Wild Yeast
- The Dusty Knuckle (Dalston / Green Lanes) Legendary potato sourdough loaves and blistered crusts that set the London standard.
- Toad Bakery (Camberwell) Unmatched creativity with whole grains, dark crusts, and morning pastries.
- Jolene (Newington Green) Wild fermented loaves milled from regenerative UK grains; extraordinary crumb.
- The Snapery & E5 Bakehouse Traditional sourdough heritage, community mills, and rich fermented sour tang.
Kew, Richmond & Chiswick
- Kew Bridge & Brentford Lock Peaceful riverside paths, canal barges, and quiet weekend walks along the water.
- Richmond Green & Richmond Hill Historic riverside strolls, craft taprooms, and the iconic Turner viewpoint.
- Chiswick High Road & Chief Coffee Specialty roasts, artisan bakeries, and quiet leafy West London brunch spots.
- Petersham Nurseries Dining in a botanical glasshouse surrounded by fragrant jasmine and seasonal produce.
Craft & Texture
- Bancone (Covent Garden & Soho) Silk handkerchiefs with walnut butter and confit egg yolk; pure comfort.
- Padella (Borough Market) Pici cacio e pepe and slow-cooked beef shin ragu right alongside the food stalls.
- Manteca (Shoreditch) Nose-to-tail Italian with handmade duck ragu fazzoletti and wood-fired focaccia.
Vibrant Dining Spaces
- Kiln (Soho) Charcoal clay pot cooking with northern Thai wood-fired herbs and spices.
- Brat (Shoreditch) Basque-inspired cooking: wood-fired bread, smoked potatoes, and wild turbot over embers.
- Dishoom & Roti King 24-hour slow-cooked Black Daal and freshly stretched flaky roti canai.
The Kew-to-Richmond River Walk
Grab a morning flat white near Kew Bridge ➔ Pick up a warm sourdough loaf along Chiswick High Road ➔ Walk the Thames towpath past Old Deer Park and the historic weir ➔ Stroll across Richmond riverside green and end with a pint of fresh cask ale at an old riverside pub.
The Bermondsey Mile & South Bank Route
Start with a single-origin V60 at WatchHouse Bermondsey ➔ Pick up a loaf at The Snapery Bakery ➔ Walk down the railway arches stamping your Beer Passport at The Kernel & Anspach & Hobday ➔ Finish crossing London Bridge towards the historic City alleyways.