Life at WeBuild-AI: meet Vincent Farah, Lead Consultant - from love letters to Python, to coffee as a debugging tool

What’s your role here at WeBuild-AI?

I wear multiple hats as an AI Consultant and Full-Stack Software Engineer, orchestrating a symphony between cutting-edge AI and practical business solutions. Picture me as part-architect, part-translator, part-magician: I take clients from "What even is AI?" to "I can't believe we built that!".

My recent adventures include architecting a pension investment proof of concept (POC) in just five weeks (yes, really!), proving that a tiny team can move mountains when armed with the right tech and enough coffee. I also crafted a clever Python automation tool that transforms annual questionnaires from mind-numbing paperwork into AI-powered insights for pension advisory firms, all in a single week. Currently, I'm deep in the trenches of our platform development, adding features and squashing bugs, like a digital gardener tending to their prized roses.

What does a typical day look like for you?

Imagine meeting complete strangers who hand you a blank canvas and say, "Surprise us with AI magic and we don't know what we want, but we'll know it when we see it." That's my Tuesday.

My days are a delightful cocktail of detective work and digital wizardry. I decode job titles into user journeys, sketch possibilities on digital napkins, and scaffold data models that bring their world to life. I breathe life into AI agents, giving them personalities that mirror real-world roles and capabilities. By day's end, we've taken clients on what I call "the Figma-on-steroids experience", all complete with diagrams that actually make sense and solutions that feel like they've always existed.

On quieter days (if such things exist), you'll find me developing with our talented team on our proprietary Pathway platform, crafting tools that make this magic reproducible and scalable for multi-tenant cloud environments. It's like building a workshop, whilst simultaneously creating masterpieces in it.

What’s your career journey been like so far?

My programming journey began in the most wonderfully unglamorous way, creating mail shots on a clunky Dbase system during high school. That brave soul who took a chance on a teenage coder later invited me to join his software firm, where I cut my teeth as an apprentice building telecoms and CAD solutions in C++. Working alongside brilliant engineers who could make electrons dance, I caught the bug (the programming bug, that is).

Since then, I've been a technological nomad, wandering through virtually every industry that needs code. I've spoken fluently in C++, Delphi, Visual Basic, .NET, Node, and Python (though Dotnet remains my secret love language). I've architected with UML, romanced databases from SQL to NoSQL to Graph, and worn every hat from junior developer to solution architect to principal engineer.

My philosophy? Create clean, elegant systems that make users smile and developers weep with joy. Every problem is a puzzle waiting to be solved with the right combination of logic, creativity, and occasionally, a bit of stubbornness.

What do you enjoy the most about your job here?

The unpredictability is absolutely intoxicating. Every day at WeBuild-AI feels like opening a mystery box and you just never know if you'll be revolutionising pensions or teaching AI to read questionnaires. The intensive AI work has transformed how I think about augmenting my capabilities; it's like discovering you've had superpowers all along, but never knew how to activate them.

Our clients aren't just curious, they're adventurous. They want us to catapult them beyond conventional solutions into territories they didn't know existed. The adrenaline rush of delivering something completely unexpected, yet perfectly suited to their needs? Better than any roller coaster.

The WeBuild-AI team itself is a collection of brilliant minds constantly pushing boundaries, questioning the status quo, and dreaming up platform features that make me genuinely excited for Mondays (yes, really). We're not just building software; we're crafting the future of how businesses interact with AI.

Engineers: what’s a piece of code/work you’ve recently written that you’d be proud to show your past self, and why?

I recently built a CLI tool that's essentially my love letter to Python and clean architecture. It's the Swiss Army knife I wish I'd had years ago - automating AWS setups, onboarding developers, and configuring machines faster than you can say "dependency hell."

What makes me particularly proud? It demonstrates that you can have your cake and eat it too: clean architecture, UV packaging, test-driven development and AI augmentation all playing nicely together. It's proof that good practices don't have to be painful – they can actually make life easier for everyone. Check it out and tell me what you think.

Quick fire

Dark mode or light mode?

Dark mode because my retinas deserve respect, and it makes me feel like a proper hacker.

How many languages do you speak (and which ones)? 

Afrikaans (my secret superpower) and English, plus a babel of programming languages if those count. My favourite untranslatable word: "Eina!" - it's what "ouch" wishes it could be when it grows up. More expressive, more dramatic, perfectly captures that special kind of pain when you stub your toe on furniture that definitely moved itself.

Coffee or tea?

Coffee. It's not a beverage; it's a personality trait and a debugging tool.

Go-to playlist or genre for deep focus work?

Antonio Forcione: acoustic guitar that makes my neurons fire in perfect harmony.

What’s our company culture in 3 emojis?

💪 🎉 🏹 Strength, celebration and precision, because we work hard, celebrate wins and always aim true.

Most British thing you’ve done this week?

Conquered Welsh hills on bike and foot, then promptly celebrated survival with a proper pint at the local. Because nothing says "I've integrated" quite like weather-inappropriate outdoor activities, followed by pub therapy.

Are you a nerd (and if so, what topics are you nerdiest in)?

Absolutely, and I wear that badge with pride. I'm particularly evangelical about XP practices and Clean Architecture: having worked alongside legends like Uncle Bob and Sandro Mancuso, I caught the clean code religion. 

But here's the twist: I'm not chasing perfection for its own sake. I'm just fundamentally lazy in the best way and I'd rather spend time making things elegant now than wrestling with spaghetti code later.

What’s one thing people in work are surprised to learn about you personally?

I genuinely enjoy being battered by coastal wind storms. There's something oddly therapeutic about nature reminding you who's boss.