Contractor pipeline · 2026 cohort

We're not hiring employees.
We're assembling
the A-team for the agentic era.

Nine specialist roles. Project-based. Remote-first. Vetted through talent.myndQ.ai, paid like specialists, deployed against regulated-industry work that ships in production.

If you've shipped AI inside a bank, a hospital, a pharma R&D group, or a plant floor, you're exactly who we're looking for. We pay above market because we expect senior judgment, not seat-time.

Active openings
9 roles
Industries
FS · Health · Energy
Engagement
Contract / 1099
Our
contractor
promise

01Trust

Day rates posted. NDAs you can read. No bait-and-switch on scope after you sign.

02Transparency

You see the client, the budget, and the success metrics from day one. No middleman tax.

03Candidate Experience

Screening via myndQ takes 90 minutes, two rounds. Instant transparent scoring with clear feedback. Top scores and qualified counts published on job leaderboard.

Where this work actually lands

Three industries.
One throughline: regulated, complex, expensive to get wrong.

We don't take work in industries we can't ship in. The pipeline you're applying to gets deployed against three sectors where AI judgment matters more than AI hype: financial services, healthcare and pharma, and energy and manufacturing. Industry depth pays a premium on every role, in every tier. If you've shipped inside one of these, tell us in your application.

Sector 01

Financial Services

Banks, insurers, asset managers, fintech. The places where one hallucinated number creates a regulatory paper trail.

"We have 14 generative AI pilots and zero of them have model risk management sign-off."
Compliance overlays we work to
SR 11-7 / MRM SOC 2 FINRA SEC AI Rules EU AI Act DORA
+15–25% Industry rate premium
42% Of active pipeline
Sector 02

Healthcare & Pharma

Payers, providers, life sciences R&D, medical devices. Where AI meets PHI, FDA, and a patient on the other end.

"Our researchers want copilots. Compliance wants air gaps. Both are right."
Compliance overlays we work to
HIPAA HITRUST GxP / GAMP 5 FDA AI/ML SaMD 21 CFR Part 11 EU MDR
+20–30% Industry rate premium
35% Of active pipeline
Sector 03

Energy & Manufacturing

Utilities, oil and gas, industrial manufacturing, advanced supply chain. Where AI meets OT systems, plant safety, and ESG reporting.

"Our SCADA team and our AI team have never been in the same meeting."
Compliance overlays we work to
NERC CIP IEC 62443 ISO 27001 ISA-95 EU CSRD SEC Climate
+15–20% Industry rate premium
23% Of active pipeline
Open roles 01 · Diagnose 02 · Build 03 · Run 04 · Verticals & supporting 05 · Regulated industries Industry matrix How we work FAQ
01
Diagnose tier · Senior judgment work

Lead the conversation that everything else flows from.

D / 01 · Pipeline lead
Flagship Remote

AI Diagnostic Lead

"You've run two transformations. You know what 'change resistance' actually feels like at 4pm on a Friday."

You're the person in the room when the CEO asks, "what should we actually do about AI?" You interview their leaders, audit the stack, separate signal from vendor noise, and walk out with a 12-month roadmap the board will fund. We hand you the engagement. You hand us a brief that closes the next three.

  • Lead 8–12 leader and operator interviews per engagement, mostly C-suite and VP-level
  • Audit AI/data stack, shadow tool usage, and data flow risks
  • Rank the top 3 opportunities by ROI, time-to-value, and execution risk
  • Write the board-ready brief and present it to the exec team
  • Hand off cleanly to the Build squad with a scope they can sprint against
  • 10+ years in strategy consulting, transformation, or operator C-suite (CTO/CDO/CIO)
  • You've run AI or digital programs end-to-end, not just slides
  • You can disagree with a CEO in week one and still close the engagement
  • Excellent written English. The brief is the deliverable.
Industry depth required FinServ Health/Pharma Energy/Mfg Pick one + cross-sector range
Day rate
$1,800–$2,200 / day
Cadence
3–5 days/wk · 4–6 wks
Location
Remote · US/EU overlap
Why we're hiring this way
Read this first

Specialists, not seats.

We do AI judgment and delivery for serious companies. That doesn't scale by hiring 200 generalist consultants. It scales by curating a small, deep bench of specialists we can deploy in days.

Every contractor in this pipeline is a single point of leverage. One person who can lead a Diagnostic. One who can architect a RAG stack. One who's debugged enough drift incidents to know what's worth a 2am page. We pay accordingly.

  • You're paid per outcome or per engagement, not per hour. Done early = full fee.
  • Work flows through hr.myndQ.ai so the matching is fast, fair, and documented
  • You can take or pass on any engagement. No exclusivity unless we both want it.
  • Rate cards are public-internal. You'll know what every other contractor on your project is making.
  • You ship. Production code, real briefs, things that actually run.
  • You write things down. Our IP is the playbook, not the person.
  • You behave like an owner with the client. We don't manage humans, we coordinate adults.
02
Build tier · Ship-it specialists

Take the diagnostic and turn it into systems that run on Monday morning.

B / 01 · Top demand
Highest demand Remote

Agentic AI Engineer

"You've put an agent in production, watched it break, and rebuilt the eval loop. Twice."

You build the multi-step agents that actually do work. Claims triage. Lead qualification. Document review. The kind of thing where one bad output costs the client money and trust, so you obsess over tool design, escalation paths, and the boring 80% of failure modes nobody demos.

  • Architect agent workflows using Claude, GPT, or open-weight models per client constraints
  • Design tool integrations and human-in-the-loop handoff points that work in messy reality
  • Ship to production with proper logging, eval harnesses, and cost monitoring on day one
  • Pair with the client team. Nothing leaves as a black box. Documentation is part of the job.
  • Production experience with at least one major model API and one agent framework (LangGraph, CrewAI, custom)
  • Strong Python or TypeScript. Comfortable with async, queues, and tool-use patterns.
  • You've broken things in prod and know how that shapes design decisions
  • Bonus: experience with MCP, Anthropic's tool-use, or function-calling at scale
Industry depth premium FinServ +20% Health +25% Energy/OT +18% Cross-sector OK
Day rate
$1,200–$1,800 / day
Cadence
Full-time · 8–12 wks
Stack
Python/TS · model-agnostic
B / 02 · Foundation
Foundation layer Remote

RAG & Data Pipeline Architect

"You know that 70% of 'AI failures' are actually retrieval problems."

Every AI system the client wants depends on data they don't think about. You're the person who fixes the ingestion, the chunking, the embeddings, and the retrieval, so the model has a fighting chance. Less glamorous than agents. Twice as important.

  • Audit source data and remediate quality issues before they become hallucination problems
  • Design and ship RAG pipelines: chunking, embedding, retrieval tuning, re-ranking
  • Set up vector stores and the access controls/permissions that keep them safe
  • Build the eval harness that proves retrieval is actually working, before the model gets blamed
  • Strong data engineering chops: SQL, Python, batch and streaming pipelines
  • Hands-on with at least two vector DBs (pgvector, Pinecone, Weaviate, Qdrant, Turbopuffer)
  • You've tuned a real retrieval system and have opinions about chunking strategies
  • Bonus: experience with Snowflake, Databricks, or enterprise data lake architectures
Industry data we wrangle Trades · CRM · KYC EHR · Claims · Lit SCADA · IoT · MES
Day rate
$1,100–$1,600 / day
Cadence
Full-time · 6–10 wks
Stack
Python · vector DBs
B / 03 · Differentiator
Fastest growing Remote

AI Evals, Guardrails & Governance Specialist

"You believe 'we'll add evals later' is how regulated industries get their CEOs in front of a senate hearing."

Most consultancies skip this. We don't, because it's where our retention comes from. You build the eval suites, the red-team scenarios, the guardrails, and the audit trails that let a CIO or CISO actually sign off on production AI. You also write the policy doc that matches.

  • Design custom eval suites tied to the client's actual use cases and risk tolerance
  • Run red-team scenarios and adversarial testing across prompt-injection, jailbreaks, and PII leakage
  • Implement output guardrails, content filters, and the audit-logging architecture behind them
  • Build the executive dashboard that tells the board "your AI is healthy" with actual numbers
  • Map the work to EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF, sector-specific frameworks (HIPAA, SOC2, FINRA)
  • Background spans security, ML ops, or AI safety. Pure ML researchers welcome if you've shipped to prod.
  • You've built or maintained an eval framework (LangSmith, Braintrust, Inspect, custom)
  • You read regulation for fun. Or at least, you read it before the client asks.
  • Bonus: red-team experience or an AI safety/security cert
Frameworks you'll work to SR 11-7 · DORA HIPAA · GxP NERC CIP · IEC 62443 EU AI Act · NIST RMF
Day rate
$1,200–$1,700 / day
Cadence
Part to full · 6–8 wks
Specialty
AI risk · governance
B / 04 · Adoption
Underrated Remote

AI Adoption & Change Designer

"You know that the model isn't the problem. The Tuesday 10am team meeting is the problem."

Most AI rollouts don't fail at the model layer. They fail because the people who were supposed to use the thing didn't change how they worked. You're a hybrid: part instructional designer, part change consultant, part workflow engineer. You make adoption the thing the client brags about.

  • Design role-specific training programs that go beyond "here's a prompt template"
  • Map the current workflow, the future workflow, and the messy transition between them
  • Build prompt libraries, playbooks, and the change-comms exec team needs to back the rollout
  • Set up adoption tracking. Coach the team for the first 60 days post-launch.
  • Background in change management, L&D, or org design. ADKAR or Prosci a plus, not required.
  • Hands-on AI fluency. You use the tools daily, not just talk about them.
  • You can write a one-page comms note the CEO will actually send
  • Bonus: domain depth in healthcare, financial services, or large-team ops
Workforces we change Bankers · advisors · ops Clinicians · researchers Plant ops · field crews
Day rate
$900–$1,400 / day
Cadence
Part-time · 6–12 wks
Skills
Change · L&D · comms
03
Run tier · Recurring revenue engine

Keep client AI sharp, safe, and scoring, month after month.

R / 01 · Annuity
Recurring revenue Remote

Fractional AI Operations Lead

"You've watched a 'finished' AI system quietly degrade for six months. You've also fixed one before the customer noticed."

You're the person who keeps shipped systems alive. Drift monitoring, prompt and eval tuning, vendor change management, monthly exec readouts. You operate as a fractional AI Ops lead across 3–5 client accounts at a time, with your own playbook and dashboard rhythm.

  • Own the monthly health report and exec readout for assigned client accounts
  • Run bi-weekly iteration sprints: prompt tuning, eval refresh, cost optimization
  • Catch and triage drift, vendor model swaps, and regression incidents before they hit customers
  • Be the named operator the client Slack channels reach when something feels off
  • You've operated AI or data systems in production for 3+ years. SRE, DevOps, MLOps backgrounds all welcome.
  • You can write an exec update that doesn't sound like a tool screenshot
  • You like steady work over hero work. Annuity-shaped, not project-shaped.
  • Bonus: experience with Datadog, Helicone, LangSmith, or custom obs stacks for LLM apps
Your account mix will include FinServ Health/Pharma Energy/Mfg 2 of 3 strongly preferred
Effective rate
$1,000–$1,500 / day equiv
Cadence
~50% time · ongoing
Accounts
3–5 clients · concurrent
Why Run is the best gig in the pipeline
Read this

Steady cash. Real work. No re-selling yourself every 8 weeks.

Most contractors hate the feast-or-famine cycle. Run engagements solve that. You get a guaranteed monthly retainer across 3–5 accounts, predictable hours, and the kind of compounding context that makes you genuinely irreplaceable to the client.
  • $12k–$28k MRR per client account, you keep ~70%
  • 3–4 accounts = comfortable six figures, with capacity left over for Build sprints
  • Renewal is the default. Most Run accounts run 18+ months once they go live.
  • Year-2 contractors get first right of refusal on Co-Pilot tier engagements
  • One async case study (90 mins, paid)
  • One conversation with the Diagnostic Lead who'd hand you accounts
  • One trial month on a small account before you're routed to bigger ones
04
Verticals + supporting · Domain depth & demand gen

Productized accelerators and the connective tissue that keeps the engine running.

V / 01 · Vertical lead
Dual mandate Remote

Vertical Solutions Lead — HR & Talent

"You've sat on both sides of the hiring table and you're tired of how broken the middle is."

Dual-purpose role. You'll lead AI-for-People-Ops engagements for clients (resume triage, JD optimization, interview prep, onboarding copilots), AND you'll feed the roadmap for our own talent platforms hr.myndQ.ai and talent.myndQ.ai. You see what hurts in the field, we ship product against it.

  • Lead the HR vertical accelerator engagements end-to-end (typically 6 weeks, $85k+ packages)
  • Translate field learnings into product feature requests for the myndQ team
  • Run the trust framework for AI-conducted interviews. Get the bias review and audit trail right.
  • Co-author thought leadership on agentic-era hiring (we'll publish, you'll get the byline)
  • 10+ years across HR tech, talent acquisition leadership, or HR transformation consulting
  • Strong AI fluency. You can scope an agent build even if you don't write the code.
  • You care about candidate experience as much as recruiter throughput
  • Bonus: experience hiring inside FinServ, Health/Pharma, or Energy/Mfg, where compliance overlays change the playbook
Sector-specific HR we run FinServ · FINRA-licensed talent Pharma · GxP-credentialed roles Energy · OT/safety-cert hires
Day rate
$1,200–$1,500 / day
Cadence
3–4 days/wk · ongoing
Mix
70% client · 30% product
V / 02 · Demand gen
Connective tissue Remote

Brand & Content Strategist — AI Category

"You've seen what 'AI thought leadership' looks like at most consultancies and you can do better in your sleep."

Our pipeline runs on differentiated thought leadership, not paid ads. You'll own the content engine: research briefs, LinkedIn carousels, the diagnostic tool funnel, and the campaign architecture that turns a 2026 AI Readiness Brief reader into a booked diagnostic. You write like an executive talks, not like a copywriter trying to sound smart.

  • Run the editorial calendar across blog, LinkedIn, briefs, and the AI Success Pack collateral
  • Brief and oversee designers on carousel and asset production. We've already got the brand system.
  • Build content-to-conversion funnels: research brief → diagnostic tool → booked consult
  • Coordinate with the Vertical Solutions Leads to surface field stories worth publishing
  • 5+ years in B2B content strategy. You've run a content engine that drove pipeline, not vanity metrics.
  • Sharp opinion on the AI category. You can tell good thought leadership from recycled vendor talk.
  • You write fast and edit ruthlessly. You're comfortable using AI as a co-author, not a crutch.
  • Bonus: experience with HubSpot, WordPress, LinkedIn analytics, and SEO for B2B
Audiences you'll write for CIOs · CDOs · MRM CMIOs · clinical leaders COOs · plant directors
Day rate
$700–$1,100 / day
Cadence
2–3 days/wk · retainer
Format
Retainer · 6 mo min
05
Cross-tier role · Industry shield

The person who keeps us from shipping clever AI into a regulated environment that wasn't ready for it.

RI / 01 · Industry shield
New role · 2026 Remote

Regulated Industries Lead — FinServ, Health, Energy

"You've sat across from a regulator and you know that 'the model said so' is not a defensible answer."

You're the person we put on every engagement in a regulated sector. You translate between the AI engineers, the compliance officers, the model risk team, and the auditor who shows up next Q. Less about writing policy from scratch, more about making sure what we ship maps cleanly to the framework the client has to defend.

  • Sit in on every Diagnostic in financial services, healthcare/pharma, or energy/manufacturing
  • Pre-clear the Build squad's architecture decisions against the client's regulatory posture, before code gets written
  • Own the audit trail and documentation pack that turns a Build deliverable into something a regulator can review
  • Run quarterly compliance refresh for Run-tier accounts: new rules in, controls updated, board memo out
  • Co-author sector-specific thought leadership ("AI under SR 11-7," "GxP-grade copilots," "OT/IT AI convergence")
  • Background in financial regulation, healthcare compliance, or industrial cybersecurity. Lawyers, ex-regulators, ex-Big-4 risk partners welcome.
  • Strong technical literacy. You can read an architecture diagram and ask the right questions.
  • You've shipped at least one regulated AI/ML system through audit. Once is enough. Twice is preferred.
  • You have professional currency: CIPP/E, CISA, PMR, FRM, RAC, or equivalent. We don't care which, we care that you've earned one.
Pick at least one as primary FinServ · MRM/SR 11-7 Health · HIPAA/GxP Energy · NERC/IEC 62443
Day rate
$1,500–$2,000 / day
Cadence
3–4 days/wk · 12 mo min
Mix
Cross-tier · all engagements
Why this is a category role, not a checkbox
Strategic

Most consultancies bolt compliance on at the end. We let it shape the work from day one.

In the three sectors we serve, the AI question and the compliance question aren't separate conversations. They're the same conversation. Pretending otherwise is how 80% of regulated-industry AI pilots end up shelved.
  • Pre-empts the most expensive failure mode: a Build that ships, a customer issue surfaces, and the client realizes there's no audit trail
  • Turns the "AI risk" conversation into a sales advantage. We close FinServ and Pharma deals Big 4 firms don't even bid on.
  • Shortens the Diagnose-to-Build handoff by 2–3 weeks. The compliance review happens in parallel, not after.
  • Becomes the named expert on our content engine. Bylines on briefs, podcast invites, conference panels.
  • You have veto power on architecture choices for regulated clients. Engineers know that.
  • You're not the compliance department's nag. You're the engineering team's senior partner.
  • You're never billable on a project where you can't be effective. Better for everyone.
Quick reference

Which role gets deployed where, and how often.

Industry depth is rewarded everywhere on the bench. This is roughly how the demand splits across the three sectors we serve, based on Q1–Q2 2026 active and forecast pipeline.

Role
Financial Services
Health & Pharma
Energy & Mfg
2026 Demand
D/01AI Diagnostic Lead
Heavy
Heavy
Mid
High
B/01Agentic AI Engineer
Heavy
Heavy
Mid
Very high
B/02RAG & Data Pipeline Architect
Heavy
Heavy
Heavy
Very high
B/03Evals, Guardrails & Governance
Heavy
Heavy
Mid
High & rising
B/04Adoption & Change Designer
Mid
Heavy
Heavy
Mid
R/01Fractional AI Operations Lead
Heavy
Mid
Mid
Annuity
V/01HR & Talent Vertical Lead
Heavy
Heavy
Mid
Cross-sector
V/02Brand & Content Strategist
Heavy
Heavy
Mid
Steady
RI/01Regulated Industries Lead
Heavy
Heavy
Heavy
Strategic
Heavy demand
Mid demand
Light / opportunistic
How we work with contractors

Four steps. No discovery theatre. Real work in your hands as soon as you're ready.

The process is short on purpose. Long screening pipelines are how you lose senior people. We do enough to know you can ship, then we put work in front of you. If something doesn't fit, we tell you why and move on, fast.

Step 01

Apply

~15 min

Submit through talent.myndQ.ai. No cover letter. Pick the role, paste links, answer three questions about a real project.

Step 02

AI screen

2 rounds · ~90 min total

Role-specific screening conducted by myndQ. Instant transparent scoring, clear feedback. Top scores show on the public job leaderboard.

Step 03

Human conversation

~45 min

One call with the Diagnostic Lead or Vertical Lead who'd actually staff you. We answer your questions about the work and the rate.

Step 04

First project

When the right fit lands

You're on the bench. We match you to a real engagement, brief you in, and you start. You can pass on it. We won't take it personally.

Real questions, real answers

What contractors actually want to know before they apply.

Why is the screening done by an AI, and what does the leaderboard actually do?

+
It would be hypocritical to sell AI talent solutions and screen everyone with five rounds of human calls. The myndQ screen is two structured rounds, role-specific, that take ~90 minutes total. Scoring is instant and transparent. You see how you scored, what was strong, what was weak. Top scores and qualified candidate counts get published on the job leaderboard so the process is visible to everyone, not just hiring managers. A human reviews every borderline score before any deployment decision.

Are these actually 1099 / contract roles, or "contract-to-hire" bait?

+
These are real contractor roles. We don't have an HR department actively trying to convert you. Some folks do eventually take FTE roles at Ariana.Digital, but the bench is the product. We make money by deploying specialists to clients. Trying to "convert" you to FTE would break the model.

I'm not based in the US. Does that disqualify me?

+
No. We work with contractors in NA, EMEA, LatAm, and APAC. Most engagements need overlap with either US Eastern or European hours. We use Deel, Remote, or direct invoicing depending on your jurisdiction. Rates are quoted in USD and adjusted up, not down, in expensive markets.

How do you actually decide the rate?

+
Rate cards are public-internal. The bands you see on each role are real. Where you land in the band depends on the depth of your portfolio and the complexity of the engagement we deploy you to, not your geography or how hard you negotiate. If we offer you the bottom of a band, we'll tell you what would move you to the top, in writing.

What happens if a client wants to hire me directly?

+
It happens. There's a standard buyout in our client agreements that kicks in after the engagement closes. We don't add restrictive covenants to your contractor agreement. If you and a client want to work together long-term, we'd rather make that easy and stay friendly.

Can I work for other consultancies while on the bench?

+
Yes, with two reasonable rules: don't take work from a direct competitor of an active client without flagging it, and don't double-book the same week to two of our engagements. Outside that, we don't care. Most of our best contractors are running their own practices on the side.

I have industry depth (FinServ / Health / Energy) but my AI tooling is rusty. Worth applying?

+
Absolutely worth it. Industry depth in our three target sectors is harder to acquire than a new framework. We'll often pair you with an Agentic Engineer or a RAG Architect who has the opposite shape. The Diagnostic Lead and Regulated Industries Lead roles in particular are explicitly designed for senior operators with sector depth and working AI fluency, not pure-play AI engineers.

What if I'm strong in one area but green in another?

+
Tell us. We pair specialists into squads, so a strong agent engineer with weak data instincts gets paired with a RAG architect who has the opposite shape. The screen is built to find your edges, not to fail you on them. We just don't want surprises in front of clients.

Ready to do
the work that
actually ships?

One application form. One AI-conducted screen. One human conversation. Then real work, on real engagements, with rates you can read out loud. The 2026 cohort is forming now.

Free · ~15 minutes to apply

Get on the bench

  • Pick from 9 specialist roles
  • Public-internal day rates, no negotiation theatre
  • Industry depth premiums for FS, Health, Energy
  • Pass on any engagement, no penalty
Apply on talent.myndQ.ai →