Meeting Title: Brainforge AI Engineer Candidate Interview Date: 2026-04-09 Meeting participants: Aarish, Kaela Gallagher
WEBVTT
1 00:00:21.670 ⇒ 00:00:23.500 Kaela Gallagher: Hi, how’s it going?
2 00:00:26.340 ⇒ 00:00:28.859 Aarish: Hey, hi, hi, Kayla, how are you?
3 00:00:28.930 ⇒ 00:00:34.909 Kaela Gallagher: Doing well, thank you. Yeah, thanks for taking some time. Is it Arish?
4 00:00:35.130 ⇒ 00:00:37.290 Aarish: Yes, that’s pronounced right, yes.
5 00:00:37.290 ⇒ 00:00:40.430 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, awesome, nice to meet you.
6 00:00:40.430 ⇒ 00:00:41.769 Aarish: There’s a… yeah.
7 00:00:41.770 ⇒ 00:00:58.759 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, I’m Kayla, I lead people and recruiting at Brainforge, and yeah, I think you had maybe interacted with one of our posts recently, and, seems like you’re interested in our role, so would love to just take some time to get to know more about you, and
8 00:00:58.870 ⇒ 00:01:04.170 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, I wanted to start off by asking, like, why are you looking for a new position?
9 00:01:04.690 ⇒ 00:01:21.229 Aarish: Yeah, sure. Yeah, so I’ve been working for the past, 3 to 4 years in AI space right now, and primarily during the last year, I’ve been working with a company which is, specifically working on agents, evaluations and hardness engineering.
10 00:01:21.260 ⇒ 00:01:41.130 Aarish: And I was going through LinkedIn, and your post came up on my field, and I saw that, you guys are also looking for similar persons in similar verticals, right? So part of the reason why I’m looking out is basically, currently I work, on, contract-based projects, right?
11 00:01:41.450 ⇒ 00:01:49.449 Aarish: And, I’ve been working, in that particular format for the past, one year now.
12 00:01:49.630 ⇒ 00:01:57.020 Aarish: So I wanted to shift that format by a little bit, so that’s why I’m now starting to hunt for new positions and new roles.
13 00:01:58.030 ⇒ 00:02:04.420 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay, cool. And, you’re interested in, like, staying in the AI space?
14 00:02:04.420 ⇒ 00:02:05.999 Aarish: Yes, I am, definitely.
15 00:02:06.000 ⇒ 00:02:06.520 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.
16 00:02:06.820 ⇒ 00:02:11.530 Kaela Gallagher: Awesome. Can you tell me more about the AI projects that you’re working on right now?
17 00:02:11.710 ⇒ 00:02:26.580 Aarish: Sure. So, currently, I’m working with a setup harness engineering setup on agent sandboxes. So, I’m creating an agent for Slack. What happens, basically, it’s able to answer any question from your internal documents. It can
18 00:02:26.580 ⇒ 00:02:40.999 Aarish: It have, like, more than a thousand integrations, which is… which can connect to your Notion, which can connect to your Drive, which can connect to your SharePoint account, etc, and can answer questions directly from, those integrations in the Slack UI itself.
19 00:02:41.080 ⇒ 00:02:55.970 Aarish: the way we have engineered is that each of the query that goes through the Slack to our agent is executed in a specialized sandbox, so that those queries are disposable, right? Because a lot of times, what you require is that
20 00:02:55.970 ⇒ 00:03:05.760 Aarish: while running code, or while running anything of importance, right? You need that to be disposable, so that you don’t destroy your environment completely.
21 00:03:05.940 ⇒ 00:03:16.080 Aarish: While doing so, we have also researched a lot about, state-of-the-art, sandboxed agents, such as, OpenClaw and Hermes agents.
22 00:03:16.770 ⇒ 00:03:29.959 Aarish: So that is what I’m recently working on. Before that, I was working on evaluations for all of these AI agents, right? So, I’ve set up evaluations and observability setup for,
23 00:03:30.070 ⇒ 00:03:48.359 Aarish: clients handling more than 1 million data points a day. So, for observability, I primarily go to, Arise Phoenix, and, there’s another solution called Landface for observability, so we have set up both of them, for two different clients.
24 00:03:49.130 ⇒ 00:03:55.080 Kaela Gallagher: Okay. Okay. Cool. Yeah, that work seems super relevant. We actually have, like, a…
25 00:03:55.380 ⇒ 00:04:11.830 Kaela Gallagher: we have an agent that’s built into our Slack that connects to Notion, that connects to, like, GitHub and Cursor, and so, like, these are very much tools that we… we already have internally, so cool to see that you’re working on similar things.
26 00:04:12.490 ⇒ 00:04:16.790 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, awesome. And you’re… you’re based in India right now, right?
27 00:04:16.790 ⇒ 00:04:18.499 Aarish: Yes, I’m based in India right now.
28 00:04:18.990 ⇒ 00:04:19.750 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.
29 00:04:19.870 ⇒ 00:04:23.990 Kaela Gallagher: What’s the, like, pay range that you’d be targeting for your next role?
30 00:04:24.820 ⇒ 00:04:28.230 Kaela Gallagher: You work, like, hourly basis, I’m guessing?
31 00:04:28.400 ⇒ 00:04:39.880 Aarish: Right now, yes, I’m on a retainer basis, so, the cost is around 45 an hour, which is 60 an hour, rate.
32 00:04:41.180 ⇒ 00:04:59.029 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay, got it. Yeah, right now, our entire team is, like, on a contracting basis, so in the US, we call it 1099, but, basically, we’re all contractors currently, so that’s how we’re looking to hire for this role as well.
33 00:04:59.210 ⇒ 00:05:11.080 Kaela Gallagher: And just a little bit more, like, information about us and what we’re looking for. So, we are a data and AI consulting company. We work with, like, small to mid-sized companies,
34 00:05:11.080 ⇒ 00:05:24.090 Kaela Gallagher: to help implement either data solutions, AI solutions, or we also have a strategy and analytics service line as well. This AI engineer position obviously falls under our AI team.
35 00:05:24.090 ⇒ 00:05:33.280 Kaela Gallagher: And yeah, we’re all fully remote currently, kind of across the globe, but we do have the entire team working US time zones.
36 00:05:33.280 ⇒ 00:05:48.049 Kaela Gallagher: So that would be a key part of this role. And given that we do consulting, and that you would be supporting probably, like, 2 to 3 clients at a time, we are looking for people that can contact switch really easily,
37 00:05:48.110 ⇒ 00:06:02.470 Kaela Gallagher: And then we are about 25 people right now, so given that we’re a bit smaller, we do have our engineers joining calls with clients as well. So, curious if you’ve, like, worked directly with clients in the past.
38 00:06:02.850 ⇒ 00:06:17.830 Aarish: Yes, I do work directly with the clients, so, as I said, in my previous engagement, I’ve worked with, like, 3-4 clients, where I’ve also, like, since these roles were based out of India, so I’ve directly visited these clients in India itself, but we have had US clients as well, so I’m not sure if you have heard…
39 00:06:17.830 ⇒ 00:06:29.629 Aarish: There’s this company called Little Bird, which I’ve recently raised, I think $11 million. So, this was a company where, for whom we consulted on evals and other stuff.
40 00:06:29.770 ⇒ 00:06:41.199 Aarish: There was directly involved with their engineering team and helping them set up all of their eval layer and all of their JS, etc. So, yeah, I’d say that my client exposure is very decent.
41 00:06:42.120 ⇒ 00:06:49.249 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay, great. Are there any questions that you have for me about Brainforge that I can help answer?
42 00:06:49.360 ⇒ 00:07:02.869 Aarish: Sure, yes. I kind of wanted to ask that, what is the weekly commitment that you would require out of me? So, just that I have an idea where… whether I have to do this, like, full-time, or, like, is it, like, a part-time thing? So, yeah.
43 00:07:03.480 ⇒ 00:07:14.299 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, ideally, we would be looking for somebody full-time, like, 40 hours a week, but if you are looking for, like, part-time, I think that’s something we could talk about as well.
44 00:07:15.920 ⇒ 00:07:32.539 Aarish: Yeah, so I am okay with full-time, given that if you’re able to match my hourly rate, I would be willing to join on a full-time basis, so that’s alright. And you mentioned that you handle 2-3 clients, so I just wanted to know that what are the type of
45 00:07:32.560 ⇒ 00:07:40.090 Aarish: problem statements that you are picking in. Is there a specific vertical which you are targeting, or is it, general as of now?
46 00:07:41.070 ⇒ 00:07:49.520 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, so our clients are currently across different industries, so we’re not, like, focused on a certain industry.
47 00:07:49.970 ⇒ 00:07:53.049 Kaela Gallagher: What was the other question that you had outside of that?
48 00:07:53.690 ⇒ 00:07:59.010 Aarish: Yeah, whether you are focusing on a specific vertical, so let’s say healthcare, education, etc, or…
49 00:07:59.010 ⇒ 00:07:59.550 Kaela Gallagher: Oh.
50 00:07:59.550 ⇒ 00:08:01.789 Aarish: That’s from any domain or any space.
51 00:08:01.910 ⇒ 00:08:02.640 Aarish: That.
52 00:08:02.640 ⇒ 00:08:19.170 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, no, no, our clients are across, like, lots of different industries. Like, we work with a healthcare client, a financial client, some, like, B2B, like, SaaS organizations, and then we have, like, a few CPG, like.
53 00:08:19.430 ⇒ 00:08:22.430 Kaela Gallagher: Consumer goods brands as well.
54 00:08:22.610 ⇒ 00:08:24.780 Aarish: Okay. Cool.
55 00:08:24.890 ⇒ 00:08:33.129 Aarish: And all of your team right now is remote, and do you have any plans on expansion or, bringing them in office or something, or do you…
56 00:08:33.280 ⇒ 00:08:38.290 Aarish: For the pneumofacia, you think that you guys are going to work out remotely only?
57 00:08:38.909 ⇒ 00:08:43.839 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, near future, like, we’re definitely gonna keep that flexibility,
58 00:08:43.999 ⇒ 00:08:56.919 Kaela Gallagher: like I said, like, our team is all over the world right now, so, yeah, we’re gonna keep that. I will say, like, I’m based in Los Angeles, and there’s 5 of us here, and so we usually just get together, like.
59 00:08:56.919 ⇒ 00:09:04.749 Kaela Gallagher: once a week to co-work and, like, just eat lunch together. So, that is something that…
60 00:09:05.549 ⇒ 00:09:07.889 Kaela Gallagher: We’ll probably continue doing as well.
61 00:09:08.300 ⇒ 00:09:09.500 Aarish: Okay, nice.
62 00:09:09.650 ⇒ 00:09:27.660 Aarish: No, I think that’s it. Most of my questions have been answered, and I think, the engagement where you want me to work, in US also, I’ve been doing that, for the previous year or so as well, so I don’t think I would have problem calibrating there.
63 00:09:27.900 ⇒ 00:09:29.340 Aarish: Mmm, yeah.
64 00:09:29.900 ⇒ 00:09:33.399 Aarish: Let me know how How we can take it forward from there.
65 00:09:34.080 ⇒ 00:09:48.879 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, great. Yeah, I’m chatting with quite a few candidates over the next few days, so, I’ll be getting with my engineering team, and we’ll make a decision on who to bring to interviews, so I’ll keep you posted if we decide to move you forward.
66 00:09:49.090 ⇒ 00:09:50.560 Aarish: Sure, sure. Cool.
67 00:09:51.170 ⇒ 00:09:53.460 Kaela Gallagher: Cool, thanks so much for your time.
68 00:09:53.800 ⇒ 00:09:54.740 Aarish: Oh, sorry, one.
69 00:09:54.740 ⇒ 00:09:55.959 Kaela Gallagher: One more thing?
70 00:09:55.960 ⇒ 00:10:06.349 Aarish: The form which I filled, I think the video URL is something which I skipped. I have added my link to my website instead, so if you want me to redo that, refill that, I mean…
71 00:10:06.500 ⇒ 00:10:09.630 Aarish: I’ll… I’ll do that probably back tomorrow.
72 00:10:10.210 ⇒ 00:10:15.719 Kaela Gallagher: No, no, all good. This, this kind of takes place at the video, so, no need to worry about that.
73 00:10:15.930 ⇒ 00:10:17.879 Aarish: Cool, okay, cool. Thanks, guys.
74 00:10:18.200 ⇒ 00:10:21.130 Kaela Gallagher: Awesome, yeah, thanks for your time. Talk to you later.
75 00:10:21.130 ⇒ 00:10:23.159 Aarish: Yep. Thanks, Gary. Bye.