← EngageVol. 01 / 2026
03 / Engagement

Engineering leadership.

RateFrom $18,000/ wk

Senior ownership of the AI engineering function. Without the full-time hire.

The brief

Most organizations need senior AI leadership before they are ready for a full-time hire. That is the gap this engagement fills. Two tiers: weekly embed for active builds, monthly fractional for executive ownership.

We do not replace your CTO. We own the AI layer. The role works when the organization is ready to treat AI as a serious strategic investment.

Two tiers

Weekly embed

$18,000/ wk

8-week minimum

A senior operator inside the work, every week. Hands-on architecture, code review, design decisions, the technical conversations your team is missing.

Best for

  • An active build needs senior judgment continuously.
  • Your team wants a second pair of senior eyes on every decision.
  • You need engineering depth, not executive ownership.

Monthly fractional

$35,000/ mo

6-month minimum, 20 hrs/wk floor

Executive-level ownership of the AI function. Strategy, architecture decisions, vendor selection, governance, hiring input, board reporting. A fractional Chief AI Officer engagement.

Best for

  • AI is becoming central to the business and needs an owner.
  • A full-time Chief AI Officer is not yet warranted.
  • The board is asking about AI governance and the answer needs to come from one person.
Fit

When this fits

  • AI is becoming central to the business and nobody owns it strategically.
  • Your board is asking about AI governance and there is no one to answer.
  • Your team ships fast and wants senior code review and design pairing on every architecture decision.
  • A full-time Chief AI Officer is not yet warranted, but executive ownership is.

When it does not

  • You are not yet ready to invest in AI. A strategist without budget creates frustration.
  • Your needs are narrow and well-defined. Hire an engineer instead, or run a project build.
  • A CTO or CDO is already doing the work well. Give them the title. Do not create a parallel role.
  • Executive commitment is missing. Fix alignment first.
What happens
  1. Days 1–14

    Discovery and audit

    Map the current state of AI across the organization. Tools in use. Projects in flight. Data assets. Organizational dynamics. Why past initiatives succeeded or failed.

  2. Days 15–30

    Roadmap

    Prioritized use cases scored by business impact, technical feasibility, and data readiness. Governance framework. Approval and rollback protocol. Who decides.

  3. Months 2–3

    First implementation

    Highest-value, lowest-risk use case shepherded to production. Not to prove AI works in general. To prove AI works in this organization, with this data, under these constraints.

  4. Day 90

    First board update

    What is running. What is coming. What the next quarter looks like. By this point the organization has a strategy, a governance framework, and one production system delivering measurable value.

What you walk away with
Who runs it
Pricing

Both tiers are flat fee. No success fees, no equity asks. Each engagement is scoped to your stack and your roadmap.

Read further
Bring us in

Tell us what you are looking at. We will tell you whether this is the right engagement, a different one, or none of them.

Direct line.

info@swenor.us
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