Fractional Parser Development Lead
10--15 hrs/week · Fully Remote (Overlap with Berlin and Nepal timezones required) · 3--4.5 months · $100--150/hr
Punk Leadership Consulting provides the fractional CTO function for an early-stage EdTech client and is bringing in a parser specialist to work directly alongside the CTO on a critical piece of the platform's future architecture. This isn't a build-the-thing role --- it's strategic scoping plus a hands-on POC, ahead of a post-MVP funding round.
Who we're looking for
A computational linguist or senior NLP engineer who has built parsers in production. Symbolic, rule-based, hybrid --- whatever the approach, they've shipped these systems in the wild and lived with them long enough to know where they break.
The right candidate translates linguistic theory into shipping systems. They translate technical complexity into investor-grade decisions. Equally comfortable in a parser internals review and a budget conversation.
What you'll bring
- 5+ years building production NLP systems
- Deep syntactic parsing experience --- dependency, constituency, or hybrid
- Rule-based or hybrid (rule + ML) NLP background
- Solid grounding in linguistic theory: syntax, semantics, morphology
- Track record scoping and estimating complex technical builds
- Strong written communication --- this role produces documents that go to investors
Nice-to-haves
- Formal grammar theory (CFG, dependency grammar, etc.)
- EdTech or language learning domain knowledge
- LLM fine-tuning and hybrid symbolic-neural approaches
- Grammar-constrained decoding (Outlines, Guidance) and logit biasing
What you'll actually do
Three phases over ~4.5 months. Solo work, reporting directly to the fractional CTO.
- Assess the existing grammar framework, propose a production architecture, and define the structured output contract that downstream platform components will consume.
- Build a POC for A1--A2 sentence structures. Benchmark it. Use what you learn to validate or revise the architecture.
- Scope the full build --- roadmap to A1--C2 coverage, team composition, budget scenarios, risk register, and investor-ready materials.
The client
Early-stage EdTech startup building an AI-powered English language learning platform. Pre-MVP. The parser work is part of a longer-term technical bet, and the deliverables feed directly into a post-MVP funding round.
Apply
Apply through this post. Initial conversation is with the fractional CTO running the engagement.
