Jon Gebhardt

I build data and AI solutions.
I fix programmes that aren't landing.

Data platforms. AI data products. Agentic AI workflows.

25 years’ experience.

EU & Australian citizen · based in Europe · English and German

Jon Gebhardt

Two ways to work with me

Implementation

Senior Data & AI Architect · AI Delivery Lead.

  • Data platforms and data engineering: medallion lakehouse builds on Microsoft Fabric, Databricks and Snowflake
  • AI data products built directly into the analytics platform: chunking, embedding and governed retrieval for RAG
  • Agentic AI workflows, with a human in the loop
  • AI product development

Most recently Relia AI: taken from zero to App Store approval single-handed. The iOS app, OpenAI models on Azure, the prompt pipeline and RAG.

Building with now: Claude Code · Claude, OpenAI and Gemini APIs · RAG · Python · SQL

Data platforms: Snowflake · Databricks · Microsoft Fabric · Azure · Azure AI Foundry · AWS · GCP

Consulting

Fractional or interim leadership

  • Fractional or interim CTO, CAIO or Head of Data

Advisory projects (fixed scope)

  • Data and AI operating model and team structure, including restructuring data and analytics functions
  • Data platform selection and review
  • AI readiness assessment of your existing warehouse: can it feed an AI application safely, and what has to change first
  • AI programme review, for programmes that aren't landing
  • AI workflow opportunity assessment: where agentic AI would pay off, sized and sequenced

Engagements are outcome-scoped. Retainers for fractional and interim roles, fixed price or time-and-materials for advisory projects and builds, whichever fits the project.

Data platforms

I architect and build data platforms on Microsoft Fabric, Databricks and Snowflake: medallion lakehouses with dimensional warehouse design, data marts and semantic models. I implement the design myself or work with your engineering team, then hand over with technical architecture and operations guides, because running it should be your team's job and not a dependency on me.

Where a platform isn't yet chosen, or needs validating, I run a consultative process covering current capabilities, business data domains, operating model and business goals before recommending one. Several organisations came to me with the platform already chosen and left on a different one. The questions I work through are here.

I build AI products too, so the platforms I design are meant to feed them: governed, versioned data, with PII handled before it reaches a model.

AI data products

The data layer an AI application runs on, built inside your analytics platform and not beside it.

I build AI data products directly into the platform, applying the same lakehouse architecture, data engineering and privacy principles as any other data product to RAG: chunking, embedding and governed retrieval. The model gets data that is governed, versioned and joined to your master data, with PII handled before it reaches a model.

It works on the warehouse you already have, with no rebuild. It starts with a readiness assessment: can your warehouse feed an AI application safely, and what has to change first.

Agentic AI workflows

Workflows that run real operational work, with a human in the loop on the decisions that matter. Not a chatbot, and not a pilot that never leaves the demo.

I have built and run these myself, including outreach and qualification: the system does the research, the drafting and the triage, and I approve what goes out. I run the same pattern over my own software engineering, where a ticket goes through implementation and review as an agent pipeline. I built Relia AI with that pipeline, from zero to App Store approval.

A masters in business analytics, a computer science degree and 25 years of delivery. I can model the process, size the value and ship the system.

What I bring

Builds platforms

25 years building software and data platforms, and helping organisations use data and AI starting with their business model, not the technology.

Restructures divisions

Led an analytics division restructure and an organisation-wide performance framework at NSW Justice. Director of data analytics and engineering at diconium.

Ships end to end

Co-founder of Relia AI and its CTO/CAIO through the build. I set the AI direction and owned the product decisions as well as the architecture, and ran my own agent-based engineering workflow throughout. I still write the code.

Now

I build with AI tooling every day and most of what I know about making it work in production comes from doing it: agentic workflows, RAG, the data architecture underneath, and the judgement AI doesn't have.

Selected experience

Sydney · London · Munich

Education

Writing

I write on LinkedIn about building with AI in production, including what didn't work.

Read on LinkedIn