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Consulting

Start a project, or borrow the judgement to scope one.

I build agentic and neuro-symbolic systems and I help teams decide what to build. Most of what I am asked is some version of the same question — will this hold under real load, real adversaries and a real audit — and the useful answer is usually architectural rather than a model choice.

The rates are below rather than behind a call. If the order of magnitude is wrong for you, you should find that out in ten seconds, not in the second meeting.

Background
Ph.D. in AI · 9 peer-reviewed papers
Citations
380 · h-index 8
Based in
Austria · remote, or on site
  • Advisory

    €280 per hour

    You have a decision to make and want it stress-tested by someone who has built the thing.

    Single sessions or a standing slot. Architecture reviews, build-versus-buy, model and harness selection, evaluation design, or a second opinion on a plan you have already written.

    • A written summary after each session — the recommendation, the reasoning, and what would change it
    • Async follow-up on the same thread, not metered by the minute
    • Named alternatives, including the ones that mean not hiring me

    Booked by the hour, minimum one. Usually a handful of sessions.

  • Technical diagnostic

    €2,200 per day

    Something is being built and you want to know, honestly, whether it will hold.

    A bounded review of an existing system: the architecture, the evaluation, the failure modes and the governance around it. Ends in a document your team can act on without me.

    • A written report: what is sound, what will break, what to do first
    • Findings ranked by cost of being wrong, not by ease of fixing
    • A walkthrough with the engineers who have to live with it

    Typically three to five days, quoted as a fixed scope.

  • Project delivery

    From €12,000 per engagement

    You want the system built, not just specified.

    Design and implementation of agentic or neuro-symbolic systems: governed agent harnesses, evaluation and benchmark infrastructure, retrieval and memory layers, research automation. Delivered as working software with the tests and the documentation.

    • A written technical specification first, priced separately and credited in full against delivery
    • A fixed scope and a fixed price before any implementation starts
    • Working software in your repository, under your licence, with its evaluation harness
    • A handover that assumes I am not around afterwards

    Four weeks and up. Begins with the scoping step below.

  • Fractional CAIO

    On request monthly retainer

    You need senior AI leadership but not a full-time hire yet.

    Standing responsibility rather than standing availability: technical direction, hiring and reviewing the AI team's work, vendor and model strategy, and answering to a board for it.

    • A fixed number of days a month, agreed up front
    • Direct involvement in hiring and technical review
    • Board- and investor-facing material when it is needed

    Three-month minimum, one month notice.

Net of VAT, travel excluded. A fixed-scope quote replaces the hourly figure as soon as the scope is known — billing a defined deliverable by the hour prices the wrong thing. Non-profit and academic work is charged at a rate that reflects that; ask.

How it goes

  1. A call, free, thirty minutes

    You describe the problem. I tell you whether it is one I can help with, and what I would do first. If the answer is somebody else, I will say so and usually name them.

  2. A written scope

    €2,200 credited against delivery

    A written technical specification: the architecture, the interfaces, the evaluation plan, the risks ranked by cost of being wrong, and an itemised estimate. What is being delivered, what it costs, when it lands, and what is explicitly not included. Nothing starts before both of us have read the same page.

    This step is charged, because it is the project's hardest thinking done early rather than a sales document. Yours to keep and to build from, with me or with anyone else. Credited in full against the project if delivery starts within 60 days. If you decide not to build it, or to build it with someone else, you have paid for a specification and you keep it — nothing is owed beyond that, and there is no cancellation fee.

  3. The work, visibly

    Progress in your repository and your tracker, not in a monthly status deck. You should be able to end the engagement at any point and still own something that runs.

Prefer to write first? Email reaches me directly. For teaching rather than project work, the three courses are on /teaching.

Start a project

Tell me what you are trying to build or decide, and roughly when. You get a reply from me, not a sales sequence — a scope, a quote, and an honest answer if I am the wrong person for it.

Goes to my own server and straight to me. No mailing list.