Independent thinking. Practical engineering.
We turn complex problems into clear software and systems architectures, with a practical plan for delivery.
Fractional CTO support, technical strategy and hands-on prototyping. We help you devise your tech strategy, what to build, how to build it, and what your organisation needs to deliver.
01 / How we can help
Ongoing technical leadership, a structured consultancy engagement, or hands-on prototyping. We’ll agree the scope, deliverables and approach around the problem you need to solve.
Executive technical leadership when you need sustained direction, without a full-time appointment.
We connect your business goals to a technical roadmap, shape your engineering organisation and guide decisions on technology, hiring and budget.
A clear structure for a complex product, system or technical decision.
We translate business goals and requirements into software and systems architectures, define the interfaces and responsibilities, and set out a plan for implementation.
Find out whether an idea is worth pursuing before committing a team to it.
We build and test the uncertain parts. Understand what works, what still needs proving and what it would take to carry the work into production.
Have a defined engineering project? We also take on selected delivery and embedded engineering engagements. Let’s discuss the scope.
The approach
A useful strategy has to survive contact with the engineering. And good engineering starts with understanding what the business actually needs.
We work across both. We break complex problems down into systems, interfaces and responsibilities, then connect those decisions to an organisational structure, a hiring plan and a sequence of work your business can execute.
Practical AI adoption The same discipline applies to AI: choose a bounded use case, define how you’ll evaluate it and keep human review where it matters.
02 / Who you’ll work with
I’m Dr Kier Dugan, founder of Dugan Research and a software and systems architect at heart.
My background spans neuromorphic computing, autonomous maritime systems, drone operations, cloud software and engineering management. The thread through my research and career is taking complex problems apart, understanding how the pieces fit together, and turning that understanding into something we can build.
Selected experience
Former Autonomy & Control Director at Kraken Technology, leading work on autonomy and control systems for maritime vehicles.
Cloud software leadership at sees.ai, supporting drone flight operations, asset management and mission data.
Software engineering management and systems architecture at ASV and L3Harris, connecting requirements with implementation and trials.
My research on SpiNNaker covered interconnection and self-configuration. The project reached a million processor cores in 2018, when it was recognised as the world’s largest neuromorphic supercomputer.
PhD in Electronic Engineering
University of Southampton
Selected roles from my engineering career.
03 / Start a conversation
Tell us what you have in mind, what you want it to achieve and where we can help. A few lines are enough to start.
contact@duganresearch.comPrefer email? Use the address above.