Weekly MLOps Consultant

Building a machine learning platform for an insurance related product, with a focus on data pipelines, feature and label design, model development, deployment planning, monitoring, and business impact. Looking for an experienced MLOps or applied ML engineer to provide weekly mentorship through structured project check ins. The implementation will remain entirely my responsibility. Each meeting will focus on the current state of the project. I will provide detailed context on what has been completed, the decisions being considered, current blockers, and the next stage of work. The mentor will review that specific situation, challenge assumptions, identify gaps, and provide direct feedback based on how the issue would be handled in a real production environment. The goal is not general instruction. Feedback should be specific to the project, its architecture, data, constraints, and business use case. Meeting Structure: - Approximately 60 minutes per week - Review of progress since the previous meeting - Discussion of current technical and business decisions - Review of architecture, pipelines, model design, or deployment planning - Identification of risks, missing requirements, and unnecessary complexity - Clear recommendations and next steps for me to complete independently Scope of Guidance: - Business use case and ROI analysis - Data architecture, quality, lineage, and source contracts - Record grain, joins, and entity matching - Feature engineering and leakage prevention - Label and outcome design - Model evaluation and business metrics - Experiment and dataset versioning - Batch and real time deployment - Monitoring, drift, retraining, and rollback - Reliability, privacy, security, and governance Work Expectations: This is a meeting based mentorship role only. The mentor will not be expected to: - perform implementation work outside scheduled meetings - write or maintain the codebase - prepare separate reports or deliverables between meetings - manage the project - provide ongoing asynchronous support - take ownership of delivery Required Experience: - Professional experience building or operating production ML systems - Strong understanding of MLOps, data engineering, deployment, and monitoring - Experience reviewing real technical systems and making practical recommendations - Ability to explain tradeoffs clearly and give direct, specific feedback - Willingness to challenge weak decisions rather than provide generic advice Working Style: Direct communication and practical feedback are important. I will prepare the project context and questions before each meeting, complete the work independently afterward, and return with results for review. Initial Engagement: The engagement will begin with one paid consultation. The session will be used to review the project, discuss the expected mentorship style, and determine whether recurring weekly meetings are a good fit.