Meeting Title: Brainforge Recruitment Interview with David Date: 2026-03-19 Meeting participants: David Rose, Kaela Gallagher
WEBVTT
1 00:02:34.120 ⇒ 00:02:36.109 Kaela Gallagher: Hey David, how’s it going?
2 00:02:36.980 ⇒ 00:02:38.440 David Rose: Hello, good, how are y’all?
3 00:02:38.440 ⇒ 00:02:48.730 Kaela Gallagher: Good! Thanks for taking time to meet with me, appreciate it. Yeah, I think we were… we were connected, like, on LinkedIn by somebody else, right?
4 00:02:49.140 ⇒ 00:03:01.989 David Rose: Yes, my, one of my friends, the data, analytics engineer, for a consultancy, and I think you messaged him and forwarded me
5 00:03:02.340 ⇒ 00:03:03.250 David Rose: Information.
6 00:03:03.550 ⇒ 00:03:11.510 Kaela Gallagher: Yes, okay, cool. Yeah, I think you said you were kind of looking for something new, so curious, like, what’s putting you on the market right now?
7 00:03:12.450 ⇒ 00:03:19.479 David Rose: Just two things. I have a little more experience, now, so I’m… because I’m more…
8 00:03:19.600 ⇒ 00:03:24.090 David Rose: More marketable, but, the two things are basically…
9 00:03:24.460 ⇒ 00:03:26.929 David Rose: My current job is very…
10 00:03:26.940 ⇒ 00:03:32.439 David Rose: Like, very niche-specific analytics, and not…
11 00:03:32.450 ⇒ 00:03:46.870 David Rose: a lot of opportunity to grow and learn from others. So, in the analytics engineering role, I’m sort of the most senior person at my company, even though I’m a base analytics engineer.
12 00:03:46.870 ⇒ 00:03:57.700 David Rose: And wearing… wearing many hats in that area. I can do lots of learning myself, but, I think to really grow my career.
13 00:03:57.710 ⇒ 00:04:03.889 David Rose: Be good to have more senior folks that I can… that I can learn from.
14 00:04:03.890 ⇒ 00:04:04.280 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.
15 00:04:04.280 ⇒ 00:04:10.450 David Rose: That’s the main, main problem I have with my, my current role and positioning.
16 00:04:10.800 ⇒ 00:04:21.209 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, that… that makes a lot of sense. Can you tell me more about, like, the kinds… you mentioned it’s, like, more of a niche analytics role, like, what kind of, projects are you working on?
17 00:04:21.839 ⇒ 00:04:26.349 David Rose: So it’s, it’s essentially creating metrics,
18 00:04:26.649 ⇒ 00:04:34.329 David Rose: or KPI suites for, healthcare analytics, and it’s… it’s like a very,
19 00:04:34.539 ⇒ 00:04:39.049 David Rose: I guess, well-defined, regulated space where,
20 00:04:39.049 ⇒ 00:04:54.639 David Rose: data… data in the healthcare world, is mostly onto a standard now called the… the FHIR standard, but it’s… it’s JSONs, it’s unflattened data, and it’s a very complex standard way to store, basically, you know.
21 00:04:54.639 ⇒ 00:04:58.509 David Rose: Patient test results, observations, doctor visits, everything.
22 00:04:59.250 ⇒ 00:05:09.599 David Rose: my company specializes in flattening that data and making it available to folks, in a data warehouse in Redshift, but,
23 00:05:09.870 ⇒ 00:05:20.009 David Rose: the part on top of that is the analytics for these specific metrics, and even more specifically, one called the HEDIS scores, which are nationally…
24 00:05:20.150 ⇒ 00:05:37.199 David Rose: basically a national standard set of measures, say, your breast cancer screening rate, your colorectal cancer screening rate among your population. So it’s population-level healthcare metrics that, we essentially get a natural language definition and
25 00:05:37.350 ⇒ 00:05:46.299 David Rose: Write it into… into code to calculate for, different customers based on their data, although it’s getting more and more standardized now.
26 00:05:46.830 ⇒ 00:05:49.920 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay, got it. And you guys are kind of…
27 00:05:50.120 ⇒ 00:05:55.699 Kaela Gallagher: Like, a consulting organization, basically, like, for different healthcare clients.
28 00:05:56.180 ⇒ 00:05:58.099 David Rose: So we…
29 00:05:58.230 ⇒ 00:06:06.179 David Rose: we, we sell two… there’s two main parts of the business that we sell. One is a, like, electronic health record system.
30 00:06:06.180 ⇒ 00:06:07.160 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.
31 00:06:07.160 ⇒ 00:06:17.099 David Rose: That folks will use, and then on top of that, there’s… you want to do analytics on your… on your data, we can add that on. So we… we work with.
32 00:06:17.730 ⇒ 00:06:21.509 David Rose: Mostly healthcare information exchanges, so it’d be like a state-level
33 00:06:21.580 ⇒ 00:06:38.120 David Rose: You know, people have to opt in, depending on the state, opt in to participate in the program, but it’s sort of a state-level aggregate of all of the healthcare data. We will essentially consult to work with those folks to get their data engineering platform set up.
34 00:06:38.130 ⇒ 00:06:47.770 David Rose: The part that I’m working on is the next piece off of that, which is the analytics that we’ve developed ourselves and said.
35 00:06:47.770 ⇒ 00:07:03.509 David Rose: hey, instead of doing all this from scratch, we can give you these standard sets, because everyone’s data’s in this standard format, and help you. Here’s your outputs you can look at now. You don’t need to spend months developing, these measures themselves, because they’re pretty standard from
36 00:07:03.510 ⇒ 00:07:18.340 David Rose: Medicare or the Center for Medicaid Studies will put out, like, here’s our list of recommended metrics that a hospital system or a insurance company should be looking at, and sort of scoring themselves and how well they’re doing with their
37 00:07:18.370 ⇒ 00:07:20.909 David Rose: preventative health, it’s mostly.
38 00:07:21.540 ⇒ 00:07:30.000 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay, cool. I guess, like, in terms of location, right now you’re in Boulder, right?
39 00:07:30.680 ⇒ 00:07:36.989 David Rose: I’m in Golden, Colorado now, but yeah. Okay. Similar area, mountain time.
40 00:07:37.410 ⇒ 00:07:46.590 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay, cool. Are you, by chance, open to, like, relocation? Like, would you ever consider somewhere like Austin or LA?
41 00:07:47.360 ⇒ 00:07:50.129 David Rose: I would consider it,
42 00:07:50.240 ⇒ 00:07:58.579 David Rose: Obviously, I love being remote, or, I think I would only consider that if it was able to be hybrid.
43 00:07:59.150 ⇒ 00:08:04.829 David Rose: But I would consider it, if it was the right, you know, career move for me.
44 00:08:05.200 ⇒ 00:08:12.089 Kaela Gallagher: Sure. Okay, got it. Yeah, the reason I ask is, right now we’re fully remote. We actually have a global team, so we even have some.
45 00:08:12.490 ⇒ 00:08:20.370 Kaela Gallagher: outside of the US. For the most part, right now, we’re all kind of working, I would say, like, central time zone.
46 00:08:21.480 ⇒ 00:08:36.980 Kaela Gallagher: And we’re starting to build out teams in LA and Austin. I’m based in LA, we have, like, 5 people here right now, and growing, and our CEO’s in Austin, so that’s why I ask, is because, in terms of, like, long-term planning.
47 00:08:37.039 ⇒ 00:08:43.429 Kaela Gallagher: it’s definitely a bonus for us to have people that are in those locations or open to moving there, so… Sure.
48 00:08:43.539 ⇒ 00:08:49.279 Kaela Gallagher: Cool. And then in terms of compensation, what’s the range that you’re looking at right now?
49 00:08:49.970 ⇒ 00:08:57.899 David Rose: I’m looking at about, like, 140 or up, would be my… my target goal for my next career moves.
50 00:08:58.130 ⇒ 00:09:11.589 Kaela Gallagher: Okay. Okay, got it. I think that’s, definitely, like, a range we could be in. I will say right now, we are onboarding everybody, on a 1099 basis, so contracting basis.
51 00:09:12.450 ⇒ 00:09:20.749 Kaela Gallagher: hourly to start. We do hope in the future to be able to, like, convert to W-2, but,
52 00:09:20.930 ⇒ 00:09:25.380 Kaela Gallagher: Right now, we’re 1099, so just wanted to, call that out.
53 00:09:27.340 ⇒ 00:09:39.860 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, and just a little bit more about, like, Brainforge. We’re a data and AI consultancy. So, working with a variety of clients, although most of our clients are small or medium-sized companies.
54 00:09:39.900 ⇒ 00:09:54.080 Kaela Gallagher: We have a lot of, like, CPG and e-com brands that we work with, but we also have, like, a healthcare client that we’ve been partnering with for over a year now, so I definitely think your experience could be relevant there.
55 00:09:55.620 ⇒ 00:10:01.659 Kaela Gallagher: So yeah, exposure to, like, a lot of… a lot of different things. Our business, is kind of…
56 00:10:01.820 ⇒ 00:10:10.499 Kaela Gallagher: Split into three segments right now that we’re able to offer services to clients. So we have a data team, which is where this analytics engineer role would sit. We have an AI.
57 00:10:10.860 ⇒ 00:10:16.739 Kaela Gallagher: strategy team. So most of our business, like, sits within those service lines.
58 00:10:17.080 ⇒ 00:10:22.159 Kaela Gallagher: Any other, like, questions I can help answer for you?
59 00:10:24.130 ⇒ 00:10:32.159 David Rose: Yes, I have some. So, I guess, I was gonna ask about benefits. So, if it’s… if it’s a contract hourly, then there’s not…
60 00:10:32.270 ⇒ 00:10:39.409 David Rose: PTO and, healthcare, I assume, would be… it’s on me to figure out. Okay, great. Yeah.
61 00:10:42.710 ⇒ 00:10:52.210 Kaela Gallagher: I know COBRA is something that, like, a lot of our team has been able to utilize, but there might be, like, other options, too, just through the state.
62 00:10:52.910 ⇒ 00:10:53.460 David Rose: Yep.
63 00:10:53.860 ⇒ 00:11:03.830 David Rose: And you said it’s 1099 now, but, is… might not… might not have a plan or know this, but the, you know, if you’re…
64 00:11:04.020 ⇒ 00:11:05.220 David Rose: say, worked.
65 00:11:05.260 ⇒ 00:11:24.839 David Rose: worked as a contract for a while, and then, you know, the company starts moving to having salaried folks, is that something that would be, you know, where there would be other, I guess, salary, but other stake in the company, not necessarily, like, stock, but, you know, incentive bonuses, or… that’s something I’m also
66 00:11:25.180 ⇒ 00:11:36.060 David Rose: for is, you know, connecting my work, not just to salary and, but, like, a bonus or ownership in some way of the company I’m working for.
67 00:11:36.470 ⇒ 00:11:43.549 Kaela Gallagher: Yes. So we’re not currently offering equity, but in terms of bonuses, we have, like.
68 00:11:43.550 ⇒ 00:12:01.850 Kaela Gallagher: referral bonuses and certification bonuses in place right now, and then we’re currently working on building out more of, like, a structured bonus program for our engineers. I think right now, only, like, maybe executives have specific KPIs tied to bonus.
69 00:12:01.860 ⇒ 00:12:04.770 Kaela Gallagher: So we are working on, like, building out
70 00:12:04.980 ⇒ 00:12:07.580 Kaela Gallagher: More of a program there for the rest of our team.
71 00:12:08.270 ⇒ 00:12:23.019 David Rose: Okay, great. So I have two more questions written down, which is, what is your… your timeline? I know I put in, like, a date on my, when I would be earliest available, but is there a timeline that you guys are looking to hire for?
72 00:12:23.220 ⇒ 00:12:41.040 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, so we, just to give, like, an overview of the interview process, it’s 3 rounds. So the first one would be with Awash, that would be, kind of, like, cultural about your experience, and then he also starts diving into, like, some technical topics, but then.
73 00:12:41.040 ⇒ 00:12:46.749 Kaela Gallagher: The second round with Dami really gets more into the technical topics. There’s no, like, live…
74 00:12:46.870 ⇒ 00:13:03.529 Kaela Gallagher: coding, but because we are a smaller organization, about 25 people right now, we do expect engineers to be on client calls and interacting with clients, and so I think that second technical round is really about how well you can communicate technical concepts.
75 00:13:03.930 ⇒ 00:13:04.610 David Rose: Hmm.
76 00:13:04.610 ⇒ 00:13:06.859 Kaela Gallagher: And then the third and final round
77 00:13:06.860 ⇒ 00:13:25.180 Kaela Gallagher: is, like, a challenge, so we’ll give you a take-home challenge to do, and then you would bring kind of your solution to the final panel and walk… walk through that. So, that’s how that is structured. In terms of timeline, we can typically get through those three,
78 00:13:25.490 ⇒ 00:13:36.450 Kaela Gallagher: three steps in a couple weeks. So, I would say this can move pretty quickly. What… what is your, like, earliest start date? Does that kind of align for you?
79 00:13:37.000 ⇒ 00:13:40.199 David Rose: That would align, yeah, it’d be in about, you know…
80 00:13:40.630 ⇒ 00:13:42.720 David Rose: 3 weeks from now or so.
81 00:13:43.090 ⇒ 00:13:50.010 Kaela Gallagher: Okay. Okay. Yeah, that sounds totally fine. Cool. Any other questions for me?
82 00:13:50.930 ⇒ 00:14:02.400 David Rose: Yes, my last one is… I guess it’s two parts, but what’s your favorite and least favorite part about working for Brainforge right now, as an employee yourself?
83 00:14:02.660 ⇒ 00:14:08.809 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, so just for context, I did join, like, less than a month ago.
84 00:14:08.810 ⇒ 00:14:09.190 David Rose: Yeah.
85 00:14:09.190 ⇒ 00:14:14.470 Kaela Gallagher: Lead, like, all of, basically, like, our people and recruiting processes.
86 00:14:15.360 ⇒ 00:14:29.409 Kaela Gallagher: So, definitely still… still newer, but my favorite part so far is just, like, the amount of ownership I’m able to have. Being a smaller company, like, everybody’s kind of able to hop in wherever they’d like, and
87 00:14:29.440 ⇒ 00:14:43.149 Kaela Gallagher: when people express, like, oh, I want to explore this side of the business. Like, we have an engineer who’s like, oh, I want to look into sales, and he’s joining sales calls. So, like, you really get the opportunity to explore whatever you’d like.
88 00:14:43.150 ⇒ 00:14:50.099 Kaela Gallagher: And I will say, like, I feel like I’m surrounded by a lot of very smart people that I get to learn from every day, so…
89 00:14:50.100 ⇒ 00:14:58.839 Kaela Gallagher: Those are my favorite parts. I did come from, like, larger organizations, so I would say the biggest adjustment for me is just…
90 00:14:59.040 ⇒ 00:15:08.659 Kaela Gallagher: Kind of being in more of a startup environment, but, everybody’s super supportive, so I wouldn’t say that’s been, like, a huge challenge or blocker.
91 00:15:10.040 ⇒ 00:15:11.900 David Rose: Got it. Nice.
92 00:15:13.210 ⇒ 00:15:29.560 Kaela Gallagher: Cool. Well, I can send over, after this, the link to the first round, and get the process started. And if you have any questions along the way, like, I’m here to help, so, just let me know if you need anything at all.
93 00:15:30.070 ⇒ 00:15:36.749 David Rose: Okay, great. So my next steps then are just, look for that from you, and find a time for…
94 00:15:36.880 ⇒ 00:15:37.970 David Rose: Round 1.
95 00:15:38.000 ⇒ 00:15:42.579 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, yeah, you should see that come from me, like, in the next couple hours.
96 00:15:43.090 ⇒ 00:15:45.320 David Rose: Okay, sounds good. Thank you.
97 00:15:45.640 ⇒ 00:15:49.219 Kaela Gallagher: Well, thanks for your time, David. Great to meet you. Have a good one.
98 00:15:49.350 ⇒ 00:15:50.460 Kaela Gallagher: Alright, bye.