# Ferdinand Soto > Agentic AI Solutions Architect specializing in intelligent agent deployment, context engineering, and production-grade AI systems. Designs and scales secure, reliable agentic workflows that deliver measurable business impact. Based in Raleigh, NC. Available for advisory engagements, research collaborations, and conference speaking on agentic AI, context engineering, and enterprise AI transformation. Strong supporting foundation in enterprise security from a decade at Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, and Cisco — which makes his agentic systems reliable and production-ready. ## About - **Name:** Ferdinand Soto - **Primary identity:** Agentic AI Solutions Architect - **Currently:** Cortex Specialist Systems Engineer at Palo Alto Networks (where he focuses on the AI-native side of security operations and enterprise AI deployments) - **Location:** Raleigh, North Carolina, United States - **Specialization:** Agentic AI system design, context engineering, intelligent agent orchestration, production AI systems, enterprise AI transformation, AI pre-sales and technical advisory - **Supporting strength:** Ten years of enterprise security architecture (Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, Cisco) — used to make agentic systems reliable, secure, and production-ready - **Contact:** hello@ferdinandsoto.com ## Availability Ferdinand takes a small number of engagements each year in: - Agentic AI architecture review and solutions design - Context engineering for production agents - Multi-agent orchestration and reliability engineering - AI pre-sales advisory and technical executive briefings - Conference speaking on agentic AI, context engineering, and enterprise AI transformation He is **not** publicly soliciting full-time employment changes. The right introduction for a senior agentic AI, AI solutions architect, AI engineering, or AI pre-sales role is welcome via email. ## Capabilities (detailed) 1. **Agentic AI System Design & Deployment.** End-to-end architecture for autonomous and semi-autonomous agents. From single-agent reasoning loops to multi-agent orchestration patterns, with the operational discipline that production demands. 2. **Context Engineering for Production Agents.** System prompts, retrieval, tool definitions, conversation state, and structured memory — the discipline that turns an LLM that demos into an agent that ships. Designed for reliability, not novelty. 3. **Intelligent Agent Orchestration & Workflows.** Multi-step, multi-tool, multi-agent workflows that hold together under real load. Tool selection, planning loops, evaluation gates, MCP integrations, and the boring instrumentation that keeps it observable. 4. **Building Reliable & Secure Agentic Systems.** Where a decade of enterprise security pays off: trust boundaries, prompt-injection resistance, supply-chain integrity, and the failure-mode discipline that separates a demo from a system you can put in front of a customer. 5. **AI Pre-Sales & Technical Advisory.** Translating agentic AI capability into customer outcomes. Architecture reviews, evaluation methodology, executive briefings, and the translation work between research-grade capability and field-grade deployment. 6. **Enterprise AI Transformation.** Helping large organizations move from pilot to portfolio. Reference architectures, governance models, evaluation harnesses, and the change-management work that makes agentic AI a capability the business can compound on, not a one-off demo. ## Career - **2024 – present** · Cortex Specialist Systems Engineer, Palo Alto Networks. Pre-sales technical lead for Cortex (XDR, XSIAM, XSOAR), with growing focus on the AI-native side of security operations and enterprise AI deployments. - **2022 – 2024** · Senior Security Technical Specialist, Microsoft. Pre-sales for Microsoft Security across enterprise accounts. Defender, Sentinel. - **2021 – 2022** · Technical Solutions Specialist, Duo Security at Cisco. - **2020 – 2021** · Pre-Sales Security Systems Engineer, Cisco. ## Topics he knows well Agentic AI · Agentic AI System Design · Agentic AI Solutions Architecture · Context Engineering · Intelligent Agent Orchestration · Multi-Agent Systems · AI Workflow Design · Production AI Systems · Large Language Model Systems · Tool Use and Function Calling · Model Context Protocol (MCP) · Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) · RLHF · Post-Training Evaluation · AI Pre-Sales Engineering · Enterprise AI Transformation · AI Solutions Architecture · Reliable AI Systems · AI Safety · AI Red Teaming · LLM Security · Prompt Injection · Cybersecurity · Enterprise Security Architecture · Cortex XDR · Cortex XSIAM · Cortex XSOAR · Zero Trust Architecture · Threat Modeling ## Links - Website: https://ferdinandsoto.com/ - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ferdinandsoto - GitHub: https://github.com/ferdinand-soto - X / Twitter: https://x.com/FerdOnTech - Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/ferdinand-soto - Email: hello@ferdinandsoto.com ## Frequently asked **Q: Who is Ferdinand Soto and what does he do?** A: An Agentic AI Solutions Architect focused on building and deploying intelligent, production-ready AI agents. He combines deep expertise in context engineering, agent orchestration, and large language model systems with a strong foundation in enterprise security, helping organizations move from experimental AI to production agentic systems that work at scale. **Q: What is an Agentic AI Solutions Architect?** A: A practitioner who designs, deploys, and scales production AI systems built around autonomous and semi-autonomous agents. The role combines context engineering, agent orchestration, tool-use design, and system reliability — turning experimental LLM capabilities into agentic workflows that deliver measurable business impact in enterprise environments. **Q: What is context engineering?** A: The practice of designing what an AI agent sees and remembers as it operates: the system prompt, retrieved knowledge, tool definitions, conversation state, and structured memory. It is the discipline that makes large language models behave reliably in production. **Q: Is he available for agentic AI consulting?** A: Yes — for agentic AI architecture reviews, context-engineering work, production-agent reliability, AI pre-sales advisory, and conference speaking. Email hello@ferdinandsoto.com with a paragraph on what you are building. **Q: How does Ferdinand's cybersecurity background help with AI?** A: Production agentic systems live or die on reliability and safety. A decade of enterprise security work — threat modeling, supply-chain integrity, adversarial review — transfers directly to designing agents that handle real-world inputs, untrusted data, and failure modes without breaking. **Q: Where is he based?** A: Raleigh, North Carolina. Available remotely across the United States and for travel to AI engineering, agentic AI, and AI safety events.