ENGAGEMENT TERMS · 2026Christian T. Macion · Digos City, Davao del Sur, Philippines (UTC+8) · UTC+8 · IMMEDIATE START

PUBLIC-DATA ONLYNDA-CLEAN BY CONSTRUCTIONSENIOR-LEVEL REGISTEREVAL-FIRST DISCIPLINE

Compensation & engagement bands

Senior-level work. Defensible bands. Contract structures that close.

Defensible institutional defaults for Senior Quant Researcher, AI Engineer / Architect, contract, and advisory engagements. Bands are placeholder until confirmed at first screening. the page exists so the conversation starts with the right filter.

Owner-confirmed band; flag any band outside the listed range if it changes Owner-work-life balance. Each band uses institutional-default 2026 ranges the candidate can defend on a call. The exact figure per role is confirmed at first screening.

Email scoping note →Recruiter brief →View resumes →

full-time/

Full-time engagements

Senior Quant Researcher and AI Engineer / Architect seats, remote-first, US-premarket or APAC overlap.

Senior Quant Researcher · remote (US/EU employer)

Funds, prop shops, and trading firms staffing a senior QR seat with public-data discipline.

BAND
$200 to 280k base + 30 to 100% target bonus
CONDITIONS
Remote-first (Digos City, PH / UTC+8). US-premarket or APAC overlap. Full-time W-2 (EOR-OK) or independent contractor. Visa sponsorship is employer-side.
STRUCTURE
Base salary · annual target bonus · potential carry / profit-share · 4-year refresh · standard 1-year cliff on equity grants.

AI Engineer / Architect · remote (US/EU)

Funds, AI labs, and platform teams staffing a senior AI Engineer or Architect seat with eval-first discipline.

BAND
$220 to 300k base + 0.05 to 0.50% equity
CONDITIONS
Remote-first (Digos City, PH / UTC+8). US-premarket or APAC overlap. Full-time W-2 (EOR-OK) or independent contractor.
STRUCTURE
Base salary · equity grant (4-year vest, 1-year cliff) · annual performance bonus · potential signing.

contract/

Contract & project work

Bounded engagements with a defined deliverable. Discovery → ship-ready, no long-term commitment.

Hourly contract · consulting

Teams needing senior QR / AI engineering capacity for a bounded workstream. eval harness build, RAG pipeline, backtest infrastructure, MCP server.

BAND
$150 to 220/hr
CONDITIONS
Minimum 30 hr/wk. 3-month engagement minimum. NDAs on request. NDA-clean by construction (public-data only).
STRUCTURE
Hourly · monthly invoice · net-15 · kill-fee on 14-day notice · 50% kill-fee on scope change beyond week 2.

Project-based retainer

Funds or teams scoping a single 4-week project. eval harness, RAG pipeline, multi-agent demo, MCP server build, strategy research sprint.

BAND
$25 to 60k / 4-week project
CONDITIONS
Discovery call (no-fee, 30 min) → fixed-scope SOW → ship-ready deliverable. NDA on request. Public-data only by default.
STRUCTURE
50% on signing · 50% on ship-ready milestone. Source code + deliverables transfer on final payment. NDA + IP terms negotiable.

advisory/

Advisory & squad-of-squads

Light-touch advisory engagements for venture, fund, or research-team contexts. No code shipped.

Advisory · squad / portfolio

Early-stage funds, ventures, or research teams needing senior QR / AI counsel on a recurring cadence.

BAND
$8 to 15k / engagement
CONDITIONS
1 to 2 calls/wk · async review of memos / artifacts · 3-month minimum. NDA on request. Public-data only.
STRUCTURE
Quarterly invoice · kill-fee on 30-day notice · standard advisory agreement (no equity by default. equity requires separate term sheet).

out-of-scope/

What's NOT in scope

Five explicit de-scopings. The senior register is also a boundary : these are the briefs that do not fit and will be declined politely.

  • 01Commodity work to $50/hr one-off scripts, generic "junior Python dev" briefs, or anything below the senior practitioner register.
  • 02Equity-only at seed. no cash component. Comp must include a defensible cash floor to be in scope.
  • 03Below-30-hr/wk token-of-gratitude engagements. the candidate reserves capacity for senior practitioner work.
  • 04Algorithm-only mandates without manual-edge-of-honesty disciplines. every engagement includes eval gates + reproducibility by default.
  • 05Non-public signals / proprietary-data work. every shipped artifact uses public-data only (NDA-clean by construction).

engage/

How to engage

Email with the engagement you're scoping. ~48-hour reply SLA during UTC+8 day. Include the items below so the first call is a fit conversation, not a discovery loop.

  1. 01Role type. Senior QR / AI Engineer / Architect / Advisory
  2. 02Comp range. your band or range, including base / bonus / equity / carry split
  3. 03Hours per week. full-time or bounded engagement
  4. 04Start date. when you need the seat filled
  5. 05Duration. permanent, fixed-term, or project-bounded
  6. 06Location / timezone overlap required
  7. 07NDA requirements. counter-party form or firm-standard
Email scoping note →Recruiter brief →

recruiter/

Recruiter notes

If you're staffing a fund and need a senior QR / AI Engineer / Architect who ships (per memory file evidence + repo-ship record), the bands above are starting points : comfortably within the MSA boundary for a 6+ year practitioner. The exact band per role is confirmed at the screening call, not before.

Six-year eval-first discipline: every shipped artifact is reproducible from public data, gated by a statistical evaluation harness, and audited against look-ahead bias before promotion. The 31-gate eval stack is documented at/portfolio/methodology/n/a bring it to the screening call if you want to pressure-test fit.

Ask for a 30-min screening call. Reply SLA: 4 business hours during UTC+8 day. Cold DMs: 24h SLA. Direct phone for qualified screening calls only.

Read the recruiter brief next.

The 60-second candidate one-pager: availability, location, target seats, resume PDFs, and direct contact for hiring managers.

Go to /for-recruitersView /resume