Hello, I'm

Daniel Takabayashi

Event-Driven AI & Multi-Agent Systems for the Enterprise

Engineering Leader / AI Architect

Austin, TX | English / Portuguese / Spanish / Japanese
Let's Talk View Projects
20+ Years in Engineering
$15M+ Deals Supported
50+ Enterprise Customers
2 Startups Founded

About Me

I build the bridge between AI and production-scale streaming systems.

At Confluent, I architect AI-powered streaming pipelines for 50+ enterprise customers and serve as the AI Subject Matter Expert, working on multi-agent systems, MCP integrations, and Flink-based inference architectures that have supported over $15M in deals.

Before that, I co-founded two startups — Boolabs, acquired by B2W Digital in 2016, and Dr. Opinion — led engineering at Overjet where we cut AI inference latency by 20x, and created Marvin AI, the first Brazilian project incubated by the Apache Foundation. Marvin won PwC's Innovation Value Award in the Retail category in 2018.

Published researcher, international conference speaker, and BJJ practitioner. I genuinely believe the best AI systems are event-driven, and I'm still building.

Career Highlights

Supported $15M+ in enterprise deals as Solutions Engineer and AI SME at Confluent

Co-founded two startups: Boolabs (acquired by B2W Digital, 2016) and Dr. Opinion

Created Marvin AI, the first Brazilian open-source project incubated by Apache Foundation

Received 'The Innovation Value Award' from PwC as most innovative project in Retail category (2018)

AI Leadership at Confluent

Leading AI initiatives across Confluent's DSP Solutions Engineering since mid-2024, from technical architecture and customer PoCs to internal enablement programs.

Internal Programs

  • Founded and lead the Data+AI Monthly Internal Meetup: deep dives into multi-agent frameworks, GenAI use cases, and technical how-tos
  • Created 'AI in Action' enablement series covering evolution from rules-based to reasoning-based AI
  • Active in GenAI AMA and Office Hours for SEs, AEs, CEs, and partners

Product & Feature Enablement

  • Test user and internal advocate for Streaming Agents capability
  • Contributed to Flink Agents (FLIP-531), Streaming Agents for Confluent Cloud, MCP Server, Lightning Tables, and Symphony gateway
  • Provided structured feedback on gaps/limitations discovered in customer PoCs to PM and engineering leads

Customer-Facing AI Solutions

  • Technical architect for AI-centric solutions across 8+ high-profile LATAM accounts
  • Designed RAG patterns, Flink ML model inference, streaming pipelines, and fraud detection architectures
  • Led rollout of MCP and GenAI demos for internal and external audiences

Thought Leadership

  • Authored 'Every AI Opportunity is a DSP Opportunity': architecture patterns for event-driven AI
  • Created technical content on CrewAI-Flink integration and Multi-Agent System design
  • Scheduled talks for TDC Brazil, Python meetups, and customer AI accelerator programs

Also co-hosting Act4AI — a Portuguese-language podcast interviewing AI/ML specialists about the real impact of AI.

Technical Skills & Expertise

Languages

  • Python
  • Java
  • JavaScript / TypeScript
  • SQL
  • Scala
  • C / C++

AI & Machine Learning

  • GenAI / LLMs
  • Multi-Agent Systems (MAS)
  • RAG
  • Agentic Workflows
  • MCP (Model Context Protocol)
  • A2A (Agent-to-Agent)
  • Deep Learning
  • Computer Vision
  • NLP
  • CrewAI / LangChain / AutoGen
  • PyTorch / TensorFlow

Data & Streaming

  • Apache Kafka
  • Apache Flink
  • Apache Spark
  • PostgreSQL
  • MongoDB
  • DynamoDB / Cassandra
  • Elasticsearch
  • Redis
  • VectorDB
  • BigQuery / Looker

Cloud & DevOps

  • AWS
  • GCP
  • Azure
  • Kubernetes / Docker
  • Terraform
  • CI/CD
  • GPU Computing
  • MLFlow / Kubeflow / Ray Serve

Architecture

  • Event-Driven Architecture
  • Distributed Systems
  • Microservices
  • Data & ML Pipelines
  • Streaming
  • REST / gRPC / WebSocket

Leadership

  • System Design & Technical Strategy
  • Team Building & Mentoring
  • Agile / Sprint Planning
  • Cross-functional Collaboration
  • Startup Leadership (2x Co-Founder)

Mentorship & Volunteering

Confluent AI Startup Accelerator

Mentor (2024-Present)

Mentored technical founders on using Confluent AI products, building event-driven AI architectures, and shipping streaming AI solutions.

Founder Institute

Mentor (2019-2021)

Mentored early-stage startup founders on technical strategy, product development, and engineering team building

Cotidiano Startup Accelerator

Mentor (2018-2022)

Guided startup teams on technology choices, scalable architecture, and AI/ML product development