Let's Get Together: More Details on Me, You and My Dream Gig

Hello!

We may not know each other, but here you are on my website -- perhaps because you saw a post or someone shared a link. I'm resourceful, determined, intelligent and looking for new challenges. Welcome!

Here's more about me, in case it is news to you:

[About Me]

• Co-founder of KIProtect, a startup with a mission to make privacy easier. Our main technology was developing new encryption methods allowing you to do more secure and privacy-aware machine learning. I led our business, sales, product and marketing efforts.
• More than 10 years in the technology industry, with broad engineering and product experience in data engineering, machine learning and data science, software design and development, large-scale AWS, Rackspace and Google Cloud deployment and automation. Deep understanding of data privacy and information security best practices for compliance with GDPR, HIPAA and new privacy regulations in Brazil and California.
• Extremely interested in making machine learning more fair, just, accountable, secure and privacy-aware.
• Regular speaker and keynoter at international conferences such as CCC, Strangeloop, QCon, ACM, PyData, PyCon, EuroPython. Due to my strong engineering and organizing background, have covered topics like data privacy, machine learning security and AI ethics and continue to be invited to speak on these topics.
• Adjunct professor at the University of Florida and teacher for several online platforms (O'Reilly Safari, DataCamp) and offline ones (Frauenloop, PyLadies).
• Interested in sharpening my security engineering chops. Implemented basic security automation and monitoring, possess an in-depth understanding of machine learning security. Now anticipate gaining further expertise in the areas of pen-testing, network and container security, and exploit / vulnerability discovery.
• Years of experience in business and product side, thus a capable and resourceful intermediary for tech and business/product teams (i.e. I am product-tech bilingual).
• Excel at rapid grasp of new technologies, and asking difficult questions to surface critical issues -- driving teams to research, learn, debate and decisively resolve issues as they arise.
• Fluent in Python and GoLang and have experience with C++ and Java.
• Founder of PyLadies, mentor and ally for several women of color and immigrant women in tech initiatives, conference diversity scholarship organizer, persistent advocate for the “underrepresented” in tech and challenger of privilege in our industry.
• Background in investigative journalism, love public speaking, meeting new people and working with teams on cool s**t.

[About You]

Here's a few things I'm hoping you can tell me:

• What is your team like? Is it diverse (gender, race, immigration status, age)? If not, why not?
• What relevant problems do you solve? Why is your work / product exciting?
• Do you let folks learn on the job? Is this supported with mentoring / pairing / reviews, etc?
• Are you friendly to remote workers or based in Berlin? If not, where are you and do you offer relocation?
• Are you flexible on start date or do you have a shorter engagement (like a small project or consulting) in mind?
• Did you read the above description about me and determine I'm a good fit based on our mutual interests or are you just here to add another email to your recruitment database? 😘

[Dream Role]

To be fully transparent, I'm not precisely sure what I want to tackle next. There are multiple possible good fits; here are a few examples of positions where I could add significant value and passion:

• Technical product owner focused on defining customer needs, developing the product roadmap and assuring feasibility
• Researcher at an AI institute or policy group -- focused on ethical, privacy and security concerns
• Technical partner / consultant at a VC firm focused on emerging technologies at the intersection of AI and security
• Machine Learning or Data Science Director at a non-profit or activist organization focused on supporting community-based initiatives and fighting injustice with (and in) data
• Machine Learning expert at a security consultancy or company who wants to either use data science to help solve security problems or explore ways machine learning can be exploited
• Security-focused data engineer or data engineering manager at a company managing large amounts of sensitive data
• Senior management or C-Suite at a startup focused on privacy, security and/or ethical AI

I'm currently open to a variety of positions / roles and time allocations (i.e. freelance, consultant, part-time or full-time, etc). I'd love to hear your responses to the questions above -- feel free to drop me a line. I'm katharine at the top-level domain you are currently on. Spelling matters (i.e. kath-A-rine). Thanks for dropping by. 🤗