OPEN TO CONTRACT & FRACTIONAL ROLES

SENIOR AI ENGINEER · DATA SCIENTIST · AI ARCHITECT

I connect
the dots.

You move forward.

Your independent contractor. Your fractional senior mind.
Production AI, NLP, knowledge graphs, and machine learning.
Based in Milan. Open to opportunities worldwide, remotely.

Book a discovery call Download my CV

LinkedIn GitHub Read my blog

INTERACTIVE INTELLIGENCE FIG. 001

knowledgereasoningconnection

↔ Move to influence · drag to rotate 960 nodes

Relationships turn information into understanding.

WORLDWIDE OPPORTUNITIES · REMOTE-FIRSTContractor · Fractional · Consulting INDEPENDENT BY DESIGN

Looking for a senior contractor or fractional specialist?I’m open to remote roles, consulting, and collaborations with teams around the world.

Ideas are good.
Experience makes them real.Selected organizations across my work

01 / THE INTERSECTION IS THE ADVANTAGE

Not one discipline.
A different dimension.

The most interesting problems don’t fit in a box.
Neither does my expertise. I work where AI, data,
and connected thinking come together.

CONNECTING THE DOTS / 01

From disconnected data to connected understanding.

Connect fragmented information into a living model of your business. Knowledge graphs, GraphRAG, and graph algorithms that turn isolated data into explainable answers.

Grounded in physics. Driven by curiosity. Engineered for the real world.

02 / SELECTED WORK

Beyond the prototype.
Into the real world.

The problem, the architecture, and the outcome.
Explore how each system works and where the research could take it next.

CASE STUDY / 012025

REPORTED PROJECT OUTCOME10x faster knowledge retrieval

Reduced manual search time from hours to seconds

Industrial automation · Packaging

Knowledge, connected.

A graph-grounded retrieval system for industrial process and maintenance knowledge. I connected document ingestion, embeddings, Neo4j subgraph retrieval, and LangGraph orchestration so technical answers could be traced back to their sources.

Graph-grounded retrieval
Neo4j subgraphs and document context supply the evidence for technical answers.
Orchestrated generation
LangGraph connects the retrieval and generation stages into an explicit workflow.
Source traceability
Document ingestion, embeddings, and indexing preserve a route back to the underlying source.

LangGraphNeo4jOpenAI

Full case study

CASE STUDY / 022024

REPORTED PROJECT OUTCOME95% prediction accuracy

Prevented costly equipment failures

Manufacturing · Predictive maintenance

See it before it stops.

A production ML pipeline that turns high-frequency manufacturing sensor streams into early failure alerts. I connected AWS ingestion, feature extraction, containerized inference, and a monitored retraining loop for predictive maintenance.

Streaming feature pipelines
High-frequency sensor inputs flow through AWS ingestion, storage, and feature extraction.
Operational inference
Containerized model serving connects predictions to an early-warning alerting path.
Drift-aware MLOps
Monitoring, drift detection, and continuous retraining support the production model lifecycle.

MLOpsDockerAWS

Full case study

Selected project outcomes from my portfolio. Client details are intentionally limited.

A CURIOUS MIND, BY DESIGN

FIRST PRINCIPLES.
NEW POSSIBILITIES.φ / ψ / ∞

03 / THE PERSON BEHIND THE SYSTEMS

A physicist’s mind.
An engineer’s hands.

I’ve always been drawn to what sits beneath the surface. The pattern in the noise. The relationship between seemingly unrelated things.

Physics taught me to ask better questions. Data science taught me to test them. AI engineering lets me turn the answers into something people can actually use.

Today, I partner with ambitious teams as an independent contractor and fractional senior specialist, bringing both the bigger picture and the hands-on work to get there.

5+Years in data & AI

110/110MSc in Physics · Milan

Microsoft & Neo4jCertified expertise

The full story, in my CV

04 / BUILT AROUND YOUR AMBITION

The right expertise.
The way you need it.

No one-size-fits-all engagements.
Just the right way to move your idea forward.

Architecture audit

A fresh perspective.

A focused review of your AI system, data, and technical direction. Find the gaps. Set the priorities. Leave with a practical roadmap.

FOCUSED SCOPE · CLEAR RECOMMENDATIONS

Project build

An idea, made real.

Bring me into your team as an independent AI engineer or data scientist, or commission a scoped build. Senior, hands-on delivery with clear milestones and a proper handover.

END-TO-END · BUILT TO SHIP

Fractional partnership

A mind on your team.

Senior expertise, without a full-time hire. An embedded partner for technical leadership, complex delivery, and making your team stronger.

ONGOING · FLEXIBLE ENGAGEMENT

HOW WE GET THERE

01A conversation

02A clear plan

03Thoughtful execution

04Something that works

05 / MY BLOG / AI, DATA & GRAPH SCIENCE

I build. I learn.
I write about it.

Read all 3 articles

My articles explore the ideas behind the code: new research, practical architectures, and what it takes to make AI useful outside a demo.

timestralOct 2026

Timestral by Mistral AI: How 209M-Parameter Time-Series Foundation Models Just Killed Bespoke Forecasting Pipelines

On October 15, Mistral AI stepped outside language models and dropped Timestral, a family of open-weight Time-Series Foundation Models (5M to 209M parameters) built on Decoupled Horizon Forecasting. Timestral-209M ranks #1 across GIFT-Eval, TIME, and fev-bench while running on standard CPUs in 140ms. Here is the architectural deep dive, why it pairs with System-1 decision models like JEV, and how to deploy zero-shot probabilistic forecasting in production.

Read the article

jevSept 2026

JEV by TypeSafe AI: Why the Future of Agentic Routing Belongs to System-1 Structured Decision Models

TypeSafe AI just launched JEV, a non-generative 'System One' model that is 200x faster and 450x cheaper than traditional LLMs. It recently helped an AI agent beat Pokémon Red. Here is the architectural deep dive on why structured decision models are the missing piece for production-grade autonomous agents and machine-to-machine pipelines.

Read the article

openai-o1Sept 2026

OpenAI o1 and the 30-Second Reasoning Cliff: How to Architect Production Systems Around Test-Time Compute, Hidden Tokens, and Cognitive Routing

OpenAI o1 dropped on September 12, trading intuitive forward passes for hidden chain-of-thought search. But in production, test-time compute introduces a 15–45s latency cliff, 4,000-token hidden billing overheads, and severe inverse-scaling failure modes. Here is the architectural deep dive, the benchmark truth, and the production-grade Cognitive Routing Gateway I deploy to harness System-2 reasoning without blowing enterprise budgets.

Read the article

A FEW THINGS YOU MIGHT WONDER

Good questions.
Straight answers.

What kind of projects do you take on?

Production AI and data work: GraphRAG and retrieval systems, autonomous AI agents (LangGraph), MLOps pipelines, LLM integration and fine-tuning, computer vision, and data engineering. I focus on systems that ship to production with monitoring and evaluation - not throwaway prototypes.

Are you open to remote contractor roles worldwide?

Yes. I’m based in Milan and open to independent contractor roles, fractional senior engagements, and consulting opportunities worldwide. I work remotely with international teams, including US-based enterprise projects. We agree on time-zone overlap, scope, and practical arrangements together; I’m happy to explore new possibilities.

How do engagements usually start?

We begin with a short discovery call to understand your goals, constraints, and timeline. From there I scope the work as a fixed-scope audit, a project-based build, or an ongoing fractional engagement, and share a clear plan with milestones before anything starts.

Can you improve or take over an existing AI system?

Absolutely. A lot of my work is hardening systems that already exist - improving RAG retrieval quality, adding evaluation and guardrails, reducing latency and cost, and putting proper CI/CD and monitoring in place so the system is reliable in production.

GREAT THINGS START WITH A CONNECTION

What’s on
your mind?

A complex problem. A bold idea.
Or simply a conversation worth having.

Book a discovery callpaolo.chignoli.97@gmail.com

CONTRACT · FRACTIONAL · COLLABORATIONMILAN, ITALY + WORLDWIDE

I connect
the dots.

Not one discipline.
A different dimension.

From disconnected data to connected understanding.

Beyond the prototype.
Into the real world.

Knowledge, connected.

See it before it stops.

A physicist’s mind.
An engineer’s hands.

The right expertise.
The way you need it.

A fresh perspective.

An idea, made real.

A mind on your team.

I build. I learn.
I write about it.

Timestral by Mistral AI: How 209M-Parameter Time-Series Foundation Models Just Killed Bespoke Forecasting Pipelines

JEV by TypeSafe AI: Why the Future of Agentic Routing Belongs to System-1 Structured Decision Models

OpenAI o1 and the 30-Second Reasoning Cliff: How to Architect Production Systems Around Test-Time Compute, Hidden Tokens, and Cognitive Routing

Good questions.
Straight answers.

What’s on
your mind?

What are you
thinking about?

Paolo’s personal AI

A little transparency
before we talk.

I connectthe dots.

Not one discipline.A different dimension.

From disconnected data to connected understanding.

Beyond the prototype.Into the real world.

Knowledge, connected.

See it before it stops.

A physicist’s mind.An engineer’s hands.

The right expertise.The way you need it.

A fresh perspective.

An idea, made real.

A mind on your team.

I build. I learn.I write about it.

Timestral by Mistral AI: How 209M-Parameter Time-Series Foundation Models Just Killed Bespoke Forecasting Pipelines

JEV by TypeSafe AI: Why the Future of Agentic Routing Belongs to System-1 Structured Decision Models

OpenAI o1 and the 30-Second Reasoning Cliff: How to Architect Production Systems Around Test-Time Compute, Hidden Tokens, and Cognitive Routing

Good questions.Straight answers.

What’s onyour mind?

I connect
the dots.

Not one discipline.
A different dimension.

Beyond the prototype.
Into the real world.

A physicist’s mind.
An engineer’s hands.

The right expertise.
The way you need it.

I build. I learn.
I write about it.

Good questions.
Straight answers.

What’s on
your mind?