Meeting Title: Brainforge x Dennis Oliver Interview Date: 2026-03-12 Meeting participants: Dennis Oliver, Kaela Gallagher
WEBVTT
1 00:01:33.720 ⇒ 00:01:35.870 Kaela Gallagher: Hey, Dennis, how’s it going?
2 00:01:37.550 ⇒ 00:01:38.790 Dennis Oliver: Hey, how you doing?
3 00:01:38.970 ⇒ 00:01:49.779 Kaela Gallagher: Good! Thanks so much for taking the time for me. Yeah, thanks for chatting over LinkedIn and everything, and really excited to get to know a little bit more about you.
4 00:01:49.940 ⇒ 00:01:52.579 Dennis Oliver: Oh yeah, no, thank you so much, I really appreciate you reaching out.
5 00:01:52.740 ⇒ 00:02:03.649 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, absolutely. I guess just starting off our conversation, like, curious what makes you interested in general in maybe exploring something new.
6 00:02:04.450 ⇒ 00:02:23.369 Dennis Oliver: I guess I’ve been at Search Discovery for… well, Search Discovery initially, further now for over 4 years, and some change, and it’s been pretty cool working here. I guess I kind of came into this role not really knowing what to expect. I did software engineering initially.
7 00:02:23.580 ⇒ 00:02:24.050 Kaela Gallagher: Mmm.
8 00:02:24.050 ⇒ 00:02:28.419 Dennis Oliver: school, and then I kind of was applying for roles. Oh, man, my camera went kind of crazy there.
9 00:02:28.420 ⇒ 00:02:29.330 Kaela Gallagher: again.
10 00:02:30.630 ⇒ 00:02:31.360 Dennis Oliver: There we go
11 00:02:31.430 ⇒ 00:02:49.950 Dennis Oliver: Yeah, I did software engineering for a little while, and I was applying for roles to do that, but then the opportunity to do analytical engineering opened up, and I was like, oh, well, this is something cool. I love new challenges, so I kind of jumped into it, and I’ve been doing that for a while, but I guess, like, we’ve done a lot of changes in our company, and
12 00:02:49.970 ⇒ 00:02:58.900 Dennis Oliver: even from those changes, I guess, like, I’ve gotten raises, but not quite as much, or just kind of a little bit of is, like, interested to see what is out there.
13 00:02:58.930 ⇒ 00:03:14.020 Dennis Oliver: Interested to see what is available, interested to see just, like, the new opportunities that are there, and then with the knowledge that I’ve gained as well, I’m interested to see how does that rack, like, I guess how… for me personally, how does what I get paid now
14 00:03:14.390 ⇒ 00:03:34.329 Dennis Oliver: rack up with, I guess, what is expected in the work, I guess in the work arena at the moment. So it’s kind of like a little bit of that, like, I enjoy the job and the work that I do now, but I don’t really want to take for granted the skills that I’ve gained, just kind of being there when there’s other opportunities that are available as well, so…
15 00:03:34.840 ⇒ 00:03:35.480 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.
16 00:03:35.480 ⇒ 00:03:37.489 Dennis Oliver: I think that’s kind of the main gist of it.
17 00:03:37.890 ⇒ 00:03:48.099 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, that makes a ton of sense. I know you mentioned compensation being, like, a motivator there. Curious, what’s the range you’re looking in right now?
18 00:03:48.100 ⇒ 00:04:00.549 Dennis Oliver: Well, I guess it really depends on the work, but I would be looking right around, like, $100,000, like, 100 to 105, possibly. But I guess that’s kind of the range. I don’t know what…
19 00:04:00.730 ⇒ 00:04:06.769 Dennis Oliver: you guys kind of were offering for this position, but then I also would be open to this kind of hearing as well, so…
20 00:04:07.460 ⇒ 00:04:12.310 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We are…
21 00:04:12.730 ⇒ 00:04:30.440 Kaela Gallagher: figuring out our structure a little bit around pay, to be transparent with you. I was brought in recently, to lead, like, people in recruiting efforts, and so I’m bringing a lot of structure to things. But currently, our setup is that we do have everybody on a 1099 basis.
22 00:04:30.510 ⇒ 00:04:32.459 Kaela Gallagher: And so…
23 00:04:32.480 ⇒ 00:04:52.309 Kaela Gallagher: your, like, total comp basically comes through an hourly rate. So that’s our current setup. We’re hoping to be able to convert people to W-2 down the line, and be able to offer benefits and all of those things, but, right now we’d probably be looking at, like, an hourly or a monthly,
24 00:04:53.030 ⇒ 00:04:53.940 Kaela Gallagher: Rate.
25 00:04:54.270 ⇒ 00:04:56.289 Dennis Oliver: Gotcha. This is understandable.
26 00:04:56.680 ⇒ 00:05:02.080 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay, cool. And then another thing is, like, we’re fully remote, so…
27 00:05:02.470 ⇒ 00:05:10.219 Kaela Gallagher: global team, we have a few people even outside of the US, but, for the most part, we’re working either, like, Central or Eastern hours.
28 00:05:10.450 ⇒ 00:05:13.980 Dennis Oliver: Gotcha. Well, yeah, I’m in Atlanta, so more so Eastern makes sense.
29 00:05:13.980 ⇒ 00:05:19.900 Kaela Gallagher: Okay. Okay. Okay, cool, so that… that works for you then. Have you worked fully remotely before?
30 00:05:20.070 ⇒ 00:05:41.619 Dennis Oliver: Not fully remotely. I would say where I’m at now, we do hybrid, and I kind of was shooting more so for… I mean, like, I would be open to remote, but I guess with this role, it’s cool being hybrid because you get to have the conversations with people in person and kind of build those relationships, so I feel like it would be different to do a fully remote job if that was the case, but I think, like, I’m…
31 00:05:41.620 ⇒ 00:05:49.550 Dennis Oliver: I guess, all in all, not shutting off doors based off of it. Okay. But, yeah, it’s one of those things that’s like, it would be something new to me to do, a fully remote.
32 00:05:49.550 ⇒ 00:05:50.650 Dennis Oliver: Like, what? Yeah.
33 00:05:50.650 ⇒ 00:06:12.109 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, that makes sense. Honestly, when I came here, it was my first, like, remote, fully remote situation as well. I’m based in LA, and there’s actually a few of us here, so we get together and co-work pretty regularly. So it’s definitely, like, encouraged by the company, although I will say I don’t think we have anyone else… anyone else in Atlanta yet.
34 00:06:12.110 ⇒ 00:06:15.850 Kaela Gallagher: So, just to be transparent there.
35 00:06:15.850 ⇒ 00:06:21.990 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, cool. And, yeah, the… your company right now, are you guys, like.
36 00:06:22.190 ⇒ 00:06:25.639 Kaela Gallagher: consulting, or I guess, what does Search Discovery do?
37 00:06:25.640 ⇒ 00:06:36.019 Dennis Oliver: Yeah, we’re consulting for the most part. I mean, we have in-house things that we do, but we generally consult, our, like, engineering and stuff like that with our clients that we work with as well, so…
38 00:06:36.020 ⇒ 00:06:41.430 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay. Are you, like, communi- communicating with clients as well? Like…
39 00:06:41.430 ⇒ 00:06:44.010 Dennis Oliver: Yeah. On calls with them? Okay.
40 00:06:44.010 ⇒ 00:07:03.899 Dennis Oliver: Pretty much on a… I mean, like, at this moment, I guess I have maybe, like, 6, 7 clients, and we have weekly calls or bi-weekly calls that we have with most of those clients, so working with them to figure out what their analytical needs are, engineering needs are, and making sure that their websites are up to the standards that they’re expecting, so…
41 00:07:04.110 ⇒ 00:07:07.689 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay. And what kind of, like, analytics…
42 00:07:08.050 ⇒ 00:07:11.189 Kaela Gallagher: Tools or, like, services are you typically providing?
43 00:07:11.190 ⇒ 00:07:20.169 Dennis Oliver: So I guess in that way, if you’re asking, like, particular tools that I use, I… I… I guess, my bad, kind of got time.
44 00:07:20.170 ⇒ 00:07:21.090 Kaela Gallagher: You’re good.
45 00:07:21.090 ⇒ 00:07:30.929 Dennis Oliver: I’ve used a lot of Google, so I mean, like, I would say, I started off with such discovery, I used Google, GA4, GA360 initially beginning. From there, I…
46 00:07:30.980 ⇒ 00:07:55.789 Dennis Oliver: focus kind of shifted over to a new technology, it was called Celebis. So, like, I went through and did the Celebis documenta- like, I guess, the certifications for that, got those, then we kind of shifted a little bit away from Celebris. So, from there… I mean, I have a pretty good verse of, like, just analytical tools, but then we kind of went to Adobe from there, so I’ve been working a lot lately in Adobe with CJA, working with Adobe Analytics.
47 00:07:55.790 ⇒ 00:07:59.370 Dennis Oliver: and getting my feet wet with Web SDK as well.
48 00:07:59.370 ⇒ 00:08:07.159 Dennis Oliver: So, I’ve been doing those things. Also, I guess as a OneTrust Fellow, I’ve been doing a lot of privacy work as well, so if a client has.
49 00:08:07.540 ⇒ 00:08:19.340 Dennis Oliver: different cookies and things like that that they’re trying to track and make sure, you know, they are compliant with. I’m able to help out with that as well, so it’s been pretty cool working through those… those areas as well. So, I feel like a pretty…
50 00:08:19.340 ⇒ 00:08:34.899 Dennis Oliver: wide range of tools, and more recently, I’ve been getting a chance to kind of dabble around with Telium a little bit as well, so it’s kind of cool utilizing those different systems for at least that, I guess, the analytical side of things. But, I guess…
51 00:08:34.900 ⇒ 00:08:46.839 Dennis Oliver: we use… well, my bad, I was gonna say, we… I don’t know if, I guess going a little bit deeper, as far as just, like, day-to-day, we use a lot of Slack, Wrike, and Jira for tickets.
52 00:08:46.850 ⇒ 00:08:57.090 Dennis Oliver: GitHub for different code bases, so, like, if we’re holding code or telling clients what we expect a data layer to look like, we use GitHub to be able to pass on those specifications, so…
53 00:08:57.370 ⇒ 00:09:09.939 Kaela Gallagher: Okay. Okay, cool. This experience sounds, like, super relevant to what we’re doing. So, like, a little bit more about Brainforge. We are doing data and AI consulting services for various clients.
54 00:09:09.940 ⇒ 00:09:17.750 Kaela Gallagher: A lot of, like, CPG brands, e-com, some, like, healthcare, some, like, finance.
55 00:09:17.750 ⇒ 00:09:36.389 Kaela Gallagher: So yeah, you would be staffed to multiple clients in the way that you are now, and we do have our engineers, like, communicating directly with clients too, so I think your experience there is super relevant. And just given that we, like, work with various different clients, like, sometimes we’re coming into situations where they might already have
56 00:09:36.390 ⇒ 00:09:40.940 Kaela Gallagher: some tooling set up, and so we’re kind of adapting to that, so I like that you’ve worked with
57 00:09:40.940 ⇒ 00:09:59.610 Kaela Gallagher: you know, a wide range of tools as well. It seems like you would be able to kind of adapt, to our clients’ needs, so that’s great to hear. The way that we’re structured is we have, like, three kind of service lines that we offer our clients. One is strategy, and then we have data, and then AI.
58 00:09:59.830 ⇒ 00:10:08.659 Kaela Gallagher: So we kind of structure our organization to have those three teams as well, so as an analytics engineer, you would be part of our data team.
59 00:10:08.800 ⇒ 00:10:16.809 Kaela Gallagher: So that’s kind of how we operate. Curious if you have any, like, questions for me about Brainforge.
60 00:10:16.950 ⇒ 00:10:24.429 Dennis Oliver: I mean, that seems pretty straightforward. I guess the question I would have is, regarding, like, the data side, do y’all have, like, some…
61 00:10:24.690 ⇒ 00:10:39.950 Dennis Oliver: it’s the structure, do y’all have architects who maybe function more so with, like, Google or Folk… Man. Do y’all have architects who might focus more of Google, or, like, Adobe, or, like, TDM, or tools like that? And then, like, I guess, how’s the structure for the projects?
62 00:10:39.950 ⇒ 00:10:48.610 Dennis Oliver: Are there generally, like, project leads, or… I know that… I guess I saw online that it was kind of like a smaller team as well, so I was like, I didn’t know how that kind of works.
63 00:10:48.610 ⇒ 00:10:50.700 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, so we have 25…
64 00:10:50.700 ⇒ 00:11:15.449 Kaela Gallagher: ish people right now, so, like, a pretty kind of flat hierarchy, I would say. We do have designated, what we call, like, CSOs for each project, so client success owners. They’re, like, kind of managing all of the work streams and ensuring that the relationship with the client is a really positive one. But then each work stream, like, we might have, like, a MarTech workstream, or
65 00:11:15.450 ⇒ 00:11:26.700 Kaela Gallagher: you know, database, warehousing, workstream, or whatever we’re partnering with a client on. Each of those would probably have, like, something we call service lead, so kind of, like.
66 00:11:26.700 ⇒ 00:11:33.559 Kaela Gallagher: The team lead or the expert in that area, kind of leading those, like, engineering technical efforts.
67 00:11:33.810 ⇒ 00:11:36.550 Dennis Oliver: Gotcha. Okay, that makes sense.
68 00:11:36.550 ⇒ 00:11:56.369 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, awesome. And just for transparency, I did join a few weeks ago, so I’m still learning everything, but, like, as the interview process progresses, you’ll speak with people who are actually, like, doing this workday today, and I’m sure they can give you much more information on the technical side, especially.
69 00:11:56.370 ⇒ 00:12:03.129 Kaela Gallagher: And yeah, kind of the way our interview process would look from here is we have, like, a first round, kind of.
70 00:12:03.130 ⇒ 00:12:16.719 Kaela Gallagher: you know, cultural interview about your experience, like, overall. The second round is, like, a little bit more technical. It doesn’t involve any, like, live coding or anything, but just, like, really diving into your technical experience.
71 00:12:16.720 ⇒ 00:12:23.689 Kaela Gallagher: And then our final round is, like a challenge, like a take-home challenge, so we’ll send you,
72 00:12:23.690 ⇒ 00:12:35.250 Kaela Gallagher: through GitHub, like, a challenge to complete, and then you’ll bring that to the final panel, and kind of, like, present your solution, and then they can have a chance to ask questions about it.
73 00:12:35.550 ⇒ 00:12:38.120 Dennis Oliver: Gotcha. Okay. That makes pretty good sense.
74 00:12:38.120 ⇒ 00:12:39.180 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.
75 00:12:39.180 ⇒ 00:12:52.580 Dennis Oliver: I guess… I think that’s kind of it. You kind of answered one of the… I guess, the bigger questions I was wondering about earlier, I guess, when it comes to… I don’t really know what for 1099 is, so I had to do a little bit of research on that side of it.
76 00:12:52.580 ⇒ 00:13:08.550 Kaela Gallagher: No worries. 1099 basically means you’re an independent contractor, whereas W-2 is, like, you are kind of, like, a legal employee of the company. So right now, our entire team is on, like, a 1099 basis contracting.
77 00:13:08.730 ⇒ 00:13:09.540 Dennis Oliver: Okay.
78 00:13:09.540 ⇒ 00:13:15.950 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah. So, yeah, that 100K target, I think, is definitely something we could reach.
79 00:13:16.240 ⇒ 00:13:23.510 Kaela Gallagher: And we could also talk about ways to, you know, support any, like, healthcare costs, benefits costs, anything like that.
80 00:13:23.900 ⇒ 00:13:25.210 Dennis Oliver: Gotcha. Okay.
81 00:13:25.620 ⇒ 00:13:26.330 Kaela Gallagher: Cool.
82 00:13:26.500 ⇒ 00:13:29.569 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, any other questions I can help answer?
83 00:13:29.960 ⇒ 00:13:48.879 Dennis Oliver: I think that’s pretty much everything there. As… how… I know you were saying that you just joined as well, but as I was looking up a little bit, I saw… I read a little bit about Brain’s Forge, but not, you know, I wasn’t able to get, like, super in-depth. How long has the company been around now?
84 00:13:49.000 ⇒ 00:13:49.750 Dennis Oliver: It seems like.
85 00:13:49.750 ⇒ 00:13:51.470 Kaela Gallagher: 2… 2 years.
86 00:13:51.470 ⇒ 00:13:51.890 Dennis Oliver: Okay.
87 00:13:51.890 ⇒ 00:13:52.510 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.
88 00:13:52.510 ⇒ 00:14:05.469 Dennis Oliver: It feels like it’s a little bit fresher. I don’t know if you would know, like, dude, I haven’t done too many of them, but as far as, like, the Adobe Summits and, like, Google events and things like that, do they attend those, or…
89 00:14:05.990 ⇒ 00:14:14.740 Kaela Gallagher: So we do attend, like, a few events a year. I think it’s mostly our CEOs that are attending those.
90 00:14:15.100 ⇒ 00:14:30.840 Kaela Gallagher: However, like, we do have a program in place to, basically award, like, certifications that people are obtaining, so definitely, like, wanting to continue supporting you in your growth at the organization.
91 00:14:30.960 ⇒ 00:14:32.889 Dennis Oliver: Gotcha. Yeah.
92 00:14:33.410 ⇒ 00:14:34.170 Kaela Gallagher: Cool.
93 00:14:34.430 ⇒ 00:14:49.719 Kaela Gallagher: Awesome. Well, I will get an email sent over to you with a first-round invitation, and then you’ll be meeting with, Awash for the first interview, so, yeah, excited for you to chat with him soon.
94 00:14:49.940 ⇒ 00:14:52.699 Dennis Oliver: Gotcha. Well, thank you for reaching out, I appreciate it.
95 00:14:52.700 ⇒ 00:14:56.569 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, awesome! Excited to have you meet the team.
96 00:14:56.770 ⇒ 00:14:58.290 Kaela Gallagher: Gotcha. Awesome.
97 00:14:58.510 ⇒ 00:15:00.700 Dennis Oliver: You have a great one, hope you take care, alright?
98 00:15:00.700 ⇒ 00:15:02.809 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, have a great night. Talk to you later.
99 00:15:02.810 ⇒ 00:15:03.360 Dennis Oliver: Later.
100 00:15:03.360 ⇒ 00:15:04.420 Kaela Gallagher: Alright, bye.