DSE's first dedicated technology and product executive — a founding-caliber, part-time executive engagement reporting to the CEO, not an architecture-review seat or an advisory role. This is an operating role: it owns the technology function end to end — technology strategy, platform architecture, engineering leadership, and execution across PrivateStack, internal systems, and supporting technical assets.
Compensation is tied to commercial success: an equity grant plus success-based cash fees tied to closed, paid business. There is no fixed base salary or immediate fixed monthly retainer.
This posting describes an independent contractor engagement, not an offer of employment. The selected individual will enter into a written services agreement with DSE as a self-employed independent contractor (1099). No employer-employee relationship, base salary, or employee benefits are created by this posting or any subsequent agreement.
Technology is currently driven directly by the CEO. This engagement is DSE's first dedicated technology and product executive.
Data Science & Engineering Experts, Inc. ("DSE") is a senior-only boutique consultancy and Delaware C-corp that prepares US regulated financial institutions — banks, credit unions, insurers, broker-dealers, RIAs, and fintechs — for AI governance, security, and regulatory compliance across NIST AI RMF, NIST CSF 2.0, ISO/IEC 42001, the EU AI Act, SR 11-7 model risk management, GLBA, NYDFS Part 500, SEC Reg S-P, and CCPA/CPRA. DSE's practitioners run hands-on AI security red-teaming and deliver audit-readiness engagements — DSE prepares clients for audit; it does not certify.
Beyond consulting, DSE is active in federal contracting, operates PrivateStack (a private multi-model LLM SaaS platform), and authors open-source IP — including mcp-warden and conclave. The company's technology estate is central to both client delivery and product growth, and this engagement owns and leads the technology function from day one.
Four pillars run through the engagement, all pointed at the same outcome: a secure, scalable technology function that grows revenue, delivery capability, and long-term enterprise value.
Product & platform ownership. Define and own the technical roadmap and architecture for PrivateStack and the related technical assets that support DSE's AI governance, security, and compliance services.
Engineering leadership. Build and lead a lean, senior-oriented engineering capability, and establish the standards for software quality, delivery, and operational discipline.
Security, compliance & reliability. Design and maintain a technical environment aligned with the expectations of regulated financial institutions and federal customers.
Commercial partnership & equity stake. Operate as a commercial partner to the CEO, aligning technical decisions with revenue, delivery capability, and long-term enterprise value. This is a technology owner's stake, with the mindset and urgency that come with it.
The role owns the technology function end to end. In practice that breaks down into five surfaces.
Own end-to-end PrivateStack architecture as a private multi-model LLM SaaS for regulated institutions — tenant isolation, data boundaries, observability, logging, and auditability; design secure, scalable patterns that support consulting delivery (AI red-teaming environments, evidence-generation workflows, reusable delivery components); develop and maintain the platform and technology roadmap with the CEO, aligned to revenue and delivery commitments; select, standardize, and periodically reassess core platforms across cloud, data, AI/LLM infrastructure, CI/CD, and observability; and document architectural decisions defensibly for client IT, security, risk, and audit stakeholders.
Build and manage a small, senior-leaning engineering bench (contractors, firms, and future internal hires); establish standards for secure software development, code quality, testing, deployment, change management, and incident response; implement lightweight-but-real delivery discipline (backlog, release planning, prioritization, post-incident review); stay hands-on enough to review designs, unblock critical issues, and make build-vs-buy-vs-partner calls; and track delivery metrics — deployment cadence, cycle time, change failure rate, and time to restore.
Design and maintain cloud and data architectures consistent with regulated-FI expectations — access control, secrets management, key management, logging, backup, recovery, and environment segmentation; support technical alignment with NIST CSF 2.0, NIST AI RMF, privacy obligations, and contract-driven control commitments; ensure technical controls and documentation support DSE's contractual commitments on privacy, data handling, audit support, and security representations; establish evidence-generation (config baselines, deployment records, access logs, vulnerability-management artifacts) for client reviews and audits; and evaluate and integrate security tooling for internal posture and for PrivateStack.
Partner with the CEO in pre-sales and late-stage opportunities where platform architecture, integration, security posture, and delivery feasibility affect outcomes; translate complex technical concepts into business language for procurement, IT, security, compliance, and risk; advise on pricing, scoping, solution feasibility, and delivery risk for the technical portions of proposals, SOWs, and client discussions; prioritize roadmap items that support near-term revenue, retention, renewals, and growth; and provide technical support on federal and public-sector opportunities where architecture, hosting models, or compliance expectations affect competitiveness.
Design pragmatic internal data and analytics infrastructure supporting delivery, reporting, automation, and product telemetry; standardize dev, staging, and prod environments to balance iteration speed with security and reliability; ensure OSS components — including DSE-authored projects — are integrated supportably and license-aware; and identify and implement automation that reduces manual work for the CEO and the consulting team (environment setup, reporting workflows, evidence packaging).
Required qualifications are non-negotiable; preferred qualifications shorten the ramp.
These four questions are how we screen. A clear yes — with specifics — moves the conversation forward quickly.
Compensation is disclosed as a structure, not a number. All terms are negotiated individually and set in a written services agreement.
Compensation: This is a 1099 independent contractor engagement with no fixed base salary or immediate fixed monthly retainer. Compensation consists of: (1) an equity grant in DSE (subject to vesting and Board approval, with the range negotiated individually); and (2) success-based cash fees tied to closed, paid business. All terms are negotiated individually and memorialized in a written services agreement. No compensation is earned until a signed agreement is in place.
An equity stake in DSE, subject to a vesting schedule and Board approval. The grant is documented in a board resolution and reflected in the cap table. The size of the grant is negotiated individually in the services agreement.
Success-based cash fees tied to closed, paid business — paid as DSE collects revenue, never on signature alone. The rate and qualifying terms are negotiated individually in the services agreement.
Part-time and fractional, fully remote and open to applicants based in the United States. The engagement is sized to a senior operator who can own the technology function without a large internal team.
Independent contractor (1099). DSE does not provide employee benefits. The engagement is governed by a written services agreement executed before commencement; nothing is earned until that agreement is signed.
This is an equity-plus-success-fee founding technology engagement, not a paid-retainer relationship. The right candidate is motivated by a meaningful stake and a path to cash as DSE grows.
Send a brief introduction. Please include: (1) a short note on why DSE's market — AI governance and security for regulated financial institutions — fits your background; (2) two or three representative platforms or systems you personally architected and operated, ideally secure multi-tenant SaaS for enterprise or regulated customers; and (3) confirmation of your willingness to engage as a 1099, part-time fractional CTO with equity upside and no base salary. A résumé or LinkedIn profile is welcome but not required in the first message. First conversations are 30 minutes with the CEO — direct, no committee, no recruiter screen.
By submitting your information, you acknowledge that DSE will process your personal data for recruiting and evaluation purposes in accordance with our Applicant Privacy Notice.
Reasonable accommodation: if you require a reasonable accommodation to participate in the application or engagement-inquiry process, please contact hiring@thedataexperts.us. Any background checks would occur later in the process and in compliance with applicable fair-chance laws.
DSE is an equal opportunity organization. We engage contractors and vendors without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.
Independent contractor status and an equity-plus-success-fee compensation structure are defining terms of this engagement. This page describes an independent contractor engagement, not employment; it does not create an employer-employee relationship, base salary, or employee benefits, and is not an offer or a contract. Compensation terms are disclosed in good faith and are negotiated individually in a written services agreement.