The engineer you get
DBHQ is Daniel Grimes. When you hire DBHQ, you get me - 26 years of building software where it had to work, now applied with AI at a pace that was not possible three years ago.
The short version
I have spent 26 years building systems for organisations where failure was expensive - across UK defence, banking, energy, commodities and digital identity. I have been the first engineer on a defence programme, the design authority on a £1B regulated banking platform, and the sole architect behind a national digital identity infrastructure. I have experience delivering into security-cleared environments.
For the last few years I have worked at the intersection of that discipline and modern AI - deploying production AI platforms inside secure boundaries, and running what amounts to a team of AI under my direction: it does the heavy lifting and never sleeps; I decide what to ask, what to build and what ships. In 2026 I designed, built and launched a complete AI-powered consumer platform on my own, in months, alongside a full-time engagement. That pace, with a senior engineer in command of it, is what DBHQ clients get.
How I work
Remote-first from the UK, on-site when it counts. I price on the outcome wherever I can, and on a clear day rate where that fits better - either way you know the cost before we start. No juniors, no hand-offs, no forty-page decks: a working system and a clean handover.
What I actually do
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Cloud architecture
Azure end to end: landing zones, networking, security, cost. Platforms from zero, and rescues of platforms that grew without a plan.
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Integration and automation
Connecting the systems that do not talk: CRMs, finance stacks, databases, SaaS estates, legacy applications. The unglamorous work where the value is.
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AI delivery
Getting AI out of the pilot and into production: LLM platforms, retrieval and recommendation systems, agentic workflows, and the guardrails that make them safe to run.
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Full-stack engineering
.NET, data and SQL at performance-tuning depth, infrastructure as code with Terraform. One person, the whole stack.
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Regulated-grade delivery
FCA, SOX and defence-grade practices, applied in proportion at commercial pace.
Fifteen minutes will tell you if this fits
Bring the problem - the stalled pilot, the systems that don't talk, the manual process eating your team. You will get a straight answer on whether it is sprint-shaped, what it would cost, and when it could be running.
I reply within 24 hours