Richard Kicklighter

About Richard Kicklighter

I\'m a data-driven Product Manager and engineer with over 20 years of experience leading data products in financial services and HR. At Wells Fargo, I led HR Data Services as a Product Owner, managing 30 engineers/analysts to deliver an enterprise HR data warehouse with 800+ datasets, integrating billions of records via Workday and Oracle Exadata. I drove 75% incident reductions and 10x delivery acceleration through CI/CD, collaborating with vendors like Workday, Bloomberg, and marketing, analytics, and strategy teams to align roadmaps and size opportunities. Previously, I led 4-7 developers in research and trade analytics, launching a Bloomberg publishing pipeline for ~500 reports and ensuring MiFID compliance. Since 2003, I\'ve built deep expertise in data warehousing, ETL architecture, and data platform engineering across financial services, HR, and research domains. Currently building production AI agent infrastructure and applied research systems — including multi-agent orchestration platforms with context engineering and harness engineering disciplines, a 100+ tool MCP server for PostgreSQL, hybrid knowledge stores combining relational, vector, and property graph tiers, multi-stage prompt injection defense pipelines, and a full LSP developer tooling stack for AI-augmented workflows. Separately architecting a whole-genome research platform processing 4.9M variants across a 4.7M-node knowledge graph with LLM-driven literature surveillance. Applying two decades of data platform engineering to the architectural challenges of autonomous AI systems. Specialties: AI Agent Infrastructure, Context Engineering, Harness Engineering, Knowledge Graphs, Multi-Agent Orchestration, MCP Servers, Data Products, Data Warehousing, ETL, Agile Leadership

Experience

1. Senior Lead Digital Product Manager, Executive Director

   Wells Fargo

   Oct 2020 — Present · Charlotte, NC, US

   Promoted to Technical Product Owner to formalize and expand strategic leadership of enterprise HR Data Services, building on Tech Lead role driving next-generation Human Resources Data Warehouse (HRDS).* Established HRDS as the enterprise’s authoritative source for human capital management data, integrating billions of records across HR sub-domains (e.g, compensation, performance management, absence, learning) to support 400+ internal/external application consumers and HR analytics teams.* Expanded leadership from 8 US engineers to 30 engineers/analysts across US/India, fostering career growth, advocating for development, and enhancing team delivery and innovation.* Defined HRDS product vision and analytic data strategy, delivering 800+ consumable datasets for enterprise HR reporting and analytics, anticipating stakeholder needs.* Streamlined business and technology workflows, reducing redundancy and cutting overhead by 33%, while driving enterprise-wide agile adoption through CIO roundtable presentations.* Drove CI/CD adoption with custom GitHub/Jenkins/UDeploy enterprise-aligned pipelines, accelerating delivery for 400+ application consumers by 10X through weekly enhancements and data provisioning.* Developed bulk load ETL patterns for Workday SaaS with vendor collaboration, processing millions of records daily to support transition from PeopleSoft HCM, improving efficiency for enterprise consumers.* Leveraged Data Vault 2.0 for change data capture, ensuring auditable data views for regulatory compliance and analytics, supporting millions of records.* Built robust solutions for data quality and performance, achieving a 75% reduction in data quality and availability incidents, and ensured SDLC compliance via Jira Data Center automation, improving audit readiness and transparency.* Fostered innovation by allocating 15% of sprint capacity to R&D and leading community of practice to align skills with industry standards.

Education

• The Globecon Group

  Risk, Suitability, and Financial Derivatives: In-depth Fundamentals and Applications

  2012 — 2012

• The Globecon Group

  Risk Fundamentals and Skills

  2012 — 2012

Skills

• Sql Tuning
• Database Tuning
• Endur Trading System
• System Integration
• Database Optimization
• Ser
• Asp
• Code Review
• Eis
• Microsoft Sql 2005
• Visual Basic
• Integration
• Connect Direct
• Microsoft Sql 2008
• Solutions Development
• Javascript
• Ndm
• Database Development
• Sybase
• Netezza
• Web Development
• Sql Server Management Studio
• Code Standardization
• Oracle
• Siebel Analytics
• Microsoft Sql Server 2012
• Html
• Etl
• Microsoft Sql 2008 R2
• Microsoft Sql Server
• Dts
• .net Clr
• T-Sql
• Obiee
• Ensercle
• Databases
• Code Documentation
• Ssis
• Business Intelligence
• Olap