Synthetic Data Generator
Synthetic commercial telemetry data generator with cryptographic watermarking. I built the generator, the full API, and the application workflows myself before scaling the effort to a team.
I build engineering organizations. I still write the code.
Practitioner CTO who builds modern engineering organizations and stays hands-on. Fifteen years of senior leadership across defense, financial services, and consumer SaaS, leading cloud transformation, API-first product development, and agentic engineering practices in regulated environments.
- AI-assisted & agentic engineering
- API-first product development
- Engineering organization design
- Regulated environments (DoD, financial services)
- Cloud-native architecture
- NIST 800-171, SOC 2, GDPR compliance
Selected work
Spatial Data Service
High-performance geospatial compute engine in Rust, running multiple algorithms over telemetry data at scale. It is the company's geospatial algorithm core.
Capability Lifecycle
A research-to-production process with formal artifacts and gating criteria, plus the analytics-to-production pipeline that makes data science models versioned, callable, and independently deployable.
Experience
Torchlight Analytics
Chief Technology Officer
– Present
Defense technology firm building behavioral analytics and geospatial intelligence platforms for DoD and commercial markets. I lead engineering, data science and analytics, IT, and quality across teams in the US and internationally.
- Drove organization-wide adoption of agentic coding practices: spec-driven development, shared prompt engineering, repository context standards, and quality controls, delivering 2–4x throughput.
- Launched Catalyst 2, a rebuilt SaaS platform supporting 200% growth, and championed an API-first development culture.
- Rebuilt a key US Government program office relationship and secured a strategic two-year, $10M OTA contract.
- Driving technical strategy for the expansion from defense into commercial markets.
Equifax
Senior Vice President, Product Architecture
–
Owned product architecture for all product and data exchanges in the US Technology division, and led delivery for products moving to a cloud, service-based platform.
- Led technology delivery and cloud transformation for the US identity and fraud portfolio.
- Launched Synthetic ID Alerts, the first new product on the company's cloud architecture.
- Launched Luminate, an analytical fraud platform, and AML Connect with FICO.
- Drove engineering teams toward compliance with the post-2017 consent order.
Truth Technologies
Chief Technology Officer
–
AML/KYC and FinTech SaaS. Reported to the CEO with end-to-end responsibility for product, technology, and operations.
- Led architecture, UX, and hands-on development of a new GCP platform replacing the primary product line.
- Brought the company into GDPR and SOC 2 compliance in the same year.
- Moved off physical infrastructure to cloud and put SDLC and cost controls in place.
Cross Country Home Services
Director, IT Applications
–
Home warranty and services. Owned the application lifecycle, software engineering, and partner oversight for a team of 100+ at peak.
- Designed the resource and budget model for a $15M Oracle ERP program with 100+ people and 12+ vendors.
- Led the technology side of a new direct-to-consumer e-commerce channel through launch.
- Architected an early IoT platform for connected-home partnerships.
Earlier career
Before 2011
- Enterprise Applications Architect, World Fuel Services
- Sr. Programmer Analyst, Broadspire
- Engineer Technician, Florida State University
Background
Education
- MBA, University of Phoenix
- MS, Geology, University of South Florida
- BS, Geology, University of Florida
Certifications
- Google Cloud Digital Leader
- Google Generative AI Leader
- Open source contributor
Contact
- linkedin.com/in/darrenspurgeon
- Alpharetta, GA