AI conversations can feel like alphabet soup—but building a custom AI agent doesn’t have to. In this episode, we break down custom AI agent architecture end-to-end so you can make the right build decisions with confidence.

What you’ll learn

• The key layers of a custom AI agent: UI/interaction → hosting/orchestration → tools & memory → LLMs → monitoring
• The six core tech-stack decisions most teams must make to ship a custom agent
• A concrete example architecture: an agent that triages Zendesk tickets and takes actions in Salesforce

Who it’s for
Decision makers and technical teams evaluating whether to build vs. buy agentic AI.

Guest + credibility
Tim Harting and Gavin Franklin share a practical, implementation-focused breakdown based on how modern teams assemble real agent stacks in the enterprise.

CTA
Explore the resources and companion artifact in the show notes—and share this episode with a leader or team wrestling with AI implementation. (Follow the show for more Agentic AI architecture deep dives.)

Recommended Links

Gavin Franklin on LinkedIn
Tim Harting on LinkedIn
Episode Artifact

Cirrius Solutions
Cirrius Blog

Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Youtube
Greg Banks on LinkedIn
Jason Fowler Music

For questions or feedback, please contact us at [email protected]

Merivis went from a side-project in Central Texas to a nationwide engine for military tech careers—and Kate Stoker explains exactly how they scaled without losing the “high-touch” support that makes Veteran transition programs actually work.

What you’ll learn

• How Merivis built a structured cohort model (coaches, squads, accountability) that helps people finish—and get hired
• The 10-year milestones that changed everything: Salesforce seed funding, Dreamforce spotlight, and the pandemic pivot to virtual
• What Merivis is shifting toward next: platform-agnostic foundations + AI/data skills + soft skills that don’t get automated
  
  
  

Who it’s for
For veterans, military spouses, and supporters who want a clear path into tech (and a community that sticks).

Guest + credibility
Kate Stoker, Executive Director of Merivis —nonprofit builder and tech marketing leader who helped grow Merivis from its first cohort (Oct 2015) into a national model.

Call to action
Explore Merivis programs (or volunteer as a coach/mentor) to help the next cohort transition into tech.

Recommended Links

Kate Stoker on LinkedIn

Merivis Website

How to become a volunteer

How to apply to a fellowship

Fourblock Foundation

Hiring our Heroes

Hire Heroes USA

American Corporate Partners

Candorful

Texas Dreamin

Blue Star Families

Patriots Hall

Greg Banks on LinkedIn

Jason Fowler Music

Cirrius Solutions

Cirrius Blog

For questions or feedback, please contact us at [email protected]

Salesforce UI decisions quietly determine whether users adopt your platform—or work around it. In this episode, we unpack why UI is a strategic lever, not a cosmetic choice.

What you’ll learn

• The real difference between Salesforce UI and UX—and why it matters
• How poor UI design creates technical debt and data quality issues
• Practical ways to simplify pages, flows, and navigation without breaking trust

Who it’s for
Salesforce leaders, architects, admins, and delivery teams designing for scale.

Guests + credibility
Greg Banks is joined by Allie Nelson and Al Huerta, drawing on years of real-world Salesforce delivery experience across complex orgs and long-term implementations.

Primary CTA
Follow Cirrius Talk: Salesforce at Scale and share this episode with peers responsible for Salesforce strategy.

Want More: 

Watch: Youtube

Listen: Apple Podcasts \ Spotify

Recommended Links

Allie Nelson on LinkedIn

Al Huerta on LinkedIn

Greg Banks on LinkedIn 

Cirrius Blog

Cirrius Solutions

Jason Fowler Music

For questions or feedback, please contact us at [email protected]

Agentic AI frameworks are multiplying fast—but most teams only need a clear “when to use what” map to start building. In this episode, we break down the top agentic AI frameworks and how to pick the right one without getting stuck in analysis paralysis.

What you’ll learn

• How LangChain, Pydantic AI, and Anthropic’s Agent SDK differ in structure, community support, and best-fit use cases
• Simple rules of thumb: when you want RAG + ecosystem, typed/structured outputs, or autonomous delegation
• The decision most teams underestimate: why the framework choice is harder to swap than the model

Who it’s for
For product leaders, engineers, and teams building custom agent workflows in production.

Guests
Tim Harting and Gavin Franklin join host Greg Banks to compare their go-to frameworks from real build experience—what works, what’s painful, and what to choose first.

CTA
Follow the show for more practical breakdowns and upcoming agent architecture artifacts.

For questions or feedback, please contact us at [email protected]

Recommended Links
Link to referenced artifact:

Gavin Franklin on LinkedIn
Tim Harting on LinkedIn
Cirrius Solutions
Cirrius Blog
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Youtube
iHeartRadio
Greg Banks on LinkedIn
Jason Fowler Music

From stay-at-home mom to 11x-certified Salesforce consultant—Joanah Gacuya breaks down how military spouse careers can thrive in tech (even if you’re starting from zero).

What you’ll learn

• How Joanah found Salesforce through a Facebook post—and turned curiosity into a real career plan
• Why volunteering (even small tasks) can give you the “real experience” that unlocks interviews
• The mindset shift that helped her lead discovery: follow the data in, through, and out

Who it’s for
For military spouses (and supporters) mapping a practical path into a portable career.

Guest + credibility
Joanah Gacuya — Hiring Our Heroes alum, Revenue Cloud/CPQ consultant at Cirrius, and 11x Salesforce certified. She also mentors new fellows making the same leap she did.

Call to action
Follow the show and share this episode with a military spouse who needs a fresh career blueprint.

Recommended Links

Joanah Gacuya on LinkedIn

Cirrius Solutions
ACP
Candorful
Hiring our Heroes
HOH Military Spouse Network
HOH-Amplify events for Military Spouses
Hire Heroes USA
Merivis
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Youtube
iHeartRadio
Cirrius Blog
Greg Banks on LinkedIn
Jason Fowler Music

For questions or feedback, please contact us at [email protected]

Technical debt in Salesforce rarely feels urgent—until it is. In the first episode of the Salesforce at Scale series, host Greg Banks is joined by Allie Nelson and Al Huerta (Cirrius Solutions) to break down what technical debt looks like in real orgs, why it piles up, and how it quietly slows performance, blocks new features, and inflates the cost of future change. They share practical examples and discuss the most common blockers preventing companies from doing what MUST be done. They offer concrete starting steps—like analyzing report usage, taking an automation inventory, and using documentation and DevOps tools to regain control.

What you’ll learn (key takeaways)

• Technical debt is anything you build that becomes a drag later—often invisible until it hits limits or breaks change efforts.
• Common culprits: unused flows/fields/layouts/apps, hard-coded processes tied to specific users, and formula fields that push org limits.
• The “real” cost shows up during upgrades—new clouds, re-architecture, or leadership initiatives can balloon to 2–3× expected cost when debt must be unwound first.
• Debt blocks innovation: over-customization can prevent adoption of newly released Salesforce capabilities.
• Prevention = governance + expectation management: define requirements, triage requests, and design intentionally before building.

Call to Action:

Start small and measurable: report on report usage; identify low/zero-use assets; then expand into fields and automations.

Want More: 

Watch: Youtube

Listen: Apple Podcasts \ Spotify

Recommended Links

Allie Nelson on LinkedIn

Al Huerta on LinkedIn

Greg Banks on LinkedIn 

Cirrius Blog

Cirrius Solutions

Jason Fowler Music

For questions or feedback, please contact us at [email protected]

 AI agents are powerful—but without the right “tooling layer,” they can be risky, inconsistent, and hard to scale. In this episode, Tim Harting and Gavin Franklin break down what an MCP server is (think: a secure, deterministic API layer for agents), why it exists even when you already have APIs, and how it improves reusability across multiple agents. They also walk through three practical adoption paths—existing MCPs, MCP governance platforms, and DIY MCP servers—plus what leaders should ask vendors in 2026 as MCP becomes a standard integration pathway.

Highlights / Takeaways:

• 🧠 Agents reason; MCPs execute. Keep the “brain” non-deterministic and the “tools” deterministic.
• 🔒 Less scope = more safety. Expose only the minimum set of tools your agents truly need.
• 🔁 Build once, reuse everywhere. One MCP server can power multiple agents across your ecosystem.
• 🧩 Three adoption lanes: pre-built MCPs, governance platforms (ex: integration/ETL-style), or DIY.
• ❓ New vendor question: “Are you MCP-capable—and what’s your roadmap?”
  
  

Call to Action:

Take one system in your stack this week and ask “What’s our MCP plan?” Do we use an existing MCP, a governance platform like what we discussed, or do we need to build one? If you need help, reach out to us at Cirrius. Contact details below

Want More: 

Watch: Youtube

Listen: Apple Podcasts \ Spotify

Down the referenced visuals

Recommended Links

Gavin Franklin on LinkedIn

Tim Harting on LinkedIn

Greg Banks on LinkedIn 

Cirrius Blog

Cirrius Solutions

Jason Fowler Music

For questions or feedback, please contact us at [email protected]

What if one conversation could turn your military experience into a career-changing opportunity? In this episode, Navy veteran and ACP staff member Andrea Bryant breaks down how American Corporate Partners connects veterans and military spouses with high-level mentors for a full year—at no cost—to help them land meaningful, better-paying roles after service. We unpack eligibility, what actually happens inside a mentorship, and why networking and referrals matter more than blindly applying online. Whether you’re months from separation or years into underemployment, this episode shows you how to stop going it alone and start building a real support system.

What you’ll learn

• What ACP does and why the mentorship is free (corporate partners fund it and supply mentors).
•  Who qualifies: post-9/11 veterans (including a 180-day active duty threshold) and several spouse categories. 
•  Why ACP is not “job placement,” but a structure that improves outcomes through strategy and preparation. 
•  How the human matching process works and why buy-in on both sides matters. 
•  What mentorship looks like in practice: 1 hour/month minimum for a full year, agenda-driven by the protégé. 
•  The non-obvious transition skills: networking without the cringe, interview readiness, salary negotiation, performance reviews, and long-term planning. 

Call to Action:  If you’re a veteran or military spouse navigating transition: don’t do it alone. Apply for mentorship, start building connections, and take one concrete step this week toward the career you want. 

If you're NOT a veteran or military spouse but are moved by this discussion, apply to be a mentor. There is wonderful support FOR the mentors to help you maximize the value you can bring to the table!

Recommended Links

Andrea Bryant on LinkedIn

Cirrius Solutions
American Corporate Partners
ACP - Become a Mentor
ACP - Veteran protege application
ACP - Military Spouse protege application

Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Youtube
iHeartRadio
Castbox
Goodpods
Cirrius Blog
Greg Banks on LinkedIn
Jason Fowler Music

For questions or feedback, please contact us at [email protected]

AI agents don’t fail because they’re “not smart enough”—they fail because they’re missing the right context. In this episode of Cirrius Talk, Greg Banks sits down with Tim and Gavin to break down context engineering: the practical evolution beyond prompt engineering that’s shaping modern agent performance. You’ll learn the five core context sources agents draw from (prompts, system instructions, memory, RAG, and external tools) and why smaller, curated context windows often produce the most accurate results. If you’re building agents in the Salesforce ecosystem—or anywhere—this is your blueprint for making them faster, safer, and more reliable. 

Highlights / Takeaways

• 🧠 Context > prompts: prompt engineering evolved—now it’s about managing what the agent knows
• 🧱 5 context types to design for: prompts, system instructions, memory, RAG, and external tools
• 🎯 Less is more: bloated context increases hallucinations and misfires—curate ruthlessly
• 🗂️ RAG is your process-at-scale: SOPs, checklists, and guidelines become agent-ready knowledge
• 🛠️ Tools unlock real work: CRMs, ERPs, weather APIs, and databases turn chat into outcomes

Recommended Links

Episode Artifact

Gavin Franklin on LinkedIn

Tim Harting on LinkedIn

Greg Banks on LinkedIn

Cirrius Solutions

Cirrius Blog

Mental Model Diagram

Jason Fowler Music

Send questions to [email protected]

When a Nebraska math teacher meets a Marine on leave at a small-town charity dinner, her life takes a sharp turn into deployments, cross-country moves, and the invisible load of being a military spouse. In this episode, Marine spouse and Salesforce consultant Emily Skelton shares how she went from “passenger” in her own life to building a remote tech career through Family Readiness, Merivis, and Hiring Our Heroes. She breaks down the reality of loneliness, resilience, and parenting through deployments—and how she reinvented herself as a 7x-certified Salesforce professional working in CPQ and Data Cloud. Whether you’re a veteran, a spouse, or just standing on the edge of a big transition, Emily’s story gives you both the inspiration and the playbook for what to do next.

Takeaways

• How a charity dinner at an Elks Lodge turned into a lifelong military adventure and marriage
• The honest truth about being “okay being alone” while still saying yes to the adventure of military life
• Why Family Readiness Centers can be the hidden gateway to career resources you didn’t know existed
• How Emily used Merivis and Hiring Our Heroes to break into the Salesforce ecosystem without a tech degree
• Turning a teaching background and math brain into real value as a Salesforce consultant in CPQ and Data Cloud
• What it’s like to go from “brand-new fellow” to “go-to Data Cloud person” in just a few months
• The mindset shift from “I just need a job” to “I want to bring value everywhere I go”
• Practical ideas for maintaining work–life balance, mental health, and movement in a fully remote tech job
• What Emily would tell her younger self
• Concrete advice for military spouses: “Don’t wait until you’re desperate—go introduce yourself at Family Readiness now.”

Recommended Links

Emily Skelton on LinkedIn
Cirrius Solutions
ACP
Candorful
Hiring our Heroes
HOH Military Spouse Network
HOH-Amplify events for Military Spouses
Hire Heroes USA
Merivis
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Youtube
iHeartRadio
Castbox
Goodpods
Cirrius Blog
Greg Banks on LinkedIn
Jason Fowler Music

For questions or feedback, please contact us at [email protected]