About

Daniel Walls

Principal Architect & Founder

Senior enterprise technologist and AI architect with over 25 years of experience building production systems at the intersection of data engineering, cloud infrastructure, and security. Currently operating at the intersection of AI solution architecture and security engineering for state government, while building enterprise consulting and product ventures through Dash-Squared.

My credibility comes from hands-on delivery, not commentary. I architect, build, and ship systems in regulated environments where compliance timelines are real, security reviews have teeth, and architecture decisions compound for years.

Greater Phoenix Area25+ Years Experience

Focus Areas

AI Architecture & RAG Systems
Security Engineering & Compliance
Cloud-Native Platform Design
AI Governance & Risk Management
Enterprise Data Systems
Multi-Agent Orchestration

Compliance Expertise

FedRAMPNIST 800-53HIPAASOC 2StateRAMPZero Trust

Professional Background

2024 — Present

Founder & Principal Architect

Dash-Squared Consulting

AI architecture and security consulting for government, healthcare, and regulated enterprise. Building GovSecure, TalentTuner, and enterprise AI platforms.

2023 — Present

Senior Security Engineer & AI Solution Architect

Arizona Department of Economic Security

Enterprise AI integration, security architecture, and compliance automation for state government systems serving millions of Arizona residents.

2000 — 2023

Enterprise Architect & Technical Lead

Various Organizations

25+ years designing and delivering enterprise systems across financial services, healthcare, government, and technology sectors. Specialty in data systems, security architecture, and platform engineering.

Technical Expertise

AI & Machine Learning

  • RAG architecture and optimization
  • LLM orchestration and multi-model systems
  • AI agent platforms and tool-use frameworks
  • ML infrastructure and model serving
  • Prompt engineering and evaluation systems

Security & Compliance

  • FedRAMP authorization and continuous monitoring
  • NIST 800-53 control implementation
  • HIPAA technical safeguards
  • SOC 2 Type II preparation
  • Zero Trust architecture design
  • StateRAMP alignment

Cloud & Infrastructure

  • GCP architecture (Cloud Run, Vertex AI, BigQuery)
  • Azure and AWS multi-cloud strategy
  • Terraform and Pulumi IaC
  • Docker and Kubernetes orchestration
  • CI/CD and GitOps pipelines
  • Network segmentation and mTLS

Enterprise Architecture

  • Platform engineering and developer experience
  • Data pipeline design (ETL/ELT/streaming)
  • Event-driven architecture (Pub/Sub, Kafka)
  • API design and gateway strategy
  • Observability and SRE practices

Let's discuss your architecture

Whether you're starting an AI initiative or scaling an existing system, a 30-minute conversation can clarify the path forward.

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