About PILOT.
A boutique cybersecurity practice operated by former federal cyber specialists, serving a small number of private clients.
PILOT is a small partnership of former US government cyber operators who chose private practice over the alternatives most operators are offered after service.
We operate one shared standard of care across a deliberately limited number of engagements. We do not pursue volume. We do not staff a sales team. We do not optimize for growth. The firm is the size it needs to be to deliver the work to the standard our clients expect — and intentionally no larger.
Our clients reach us through referral from people they already trust. Most of our work goes unremarked upon by design. The absence of public case studies is not a marketing decision. It is the standard our clients require.
PILOT was founded by Ray, a US Air Force cyber warfare operator with TS/SCI clearance, separating from active duty in July 2026 to build the practice full-time.
His operational career has been spent in classified computer network operations — the kind of work that happens at agencies most people have never heard of, against threats most people will never see. The specifics of that work do not appear on this page, and they will not appear in any conversation with a prospect.
What can be said is that the work is who he is. He built his first computer at nine. He spent high school teaching himself C++ and Python in the library and reading the hacker literature he could get his hands on. He pentested his school’s systems and gained admin access. He taught cybersecurity to other students before he could legally vote. The Air Force career was not a pivot. It was where the work he had already been doing for a decade found its institutional form.
PILOT exists because that depth, applied with discretion to a household rather than a target, is something a small number of private clients genuinely need and cannot otherwise buy.
A note from Ray.
I spent my career on the side of this work that protects governments and corporations. The families targeted by the same threats — and increasingly, they are — have no access to the same capability. Consumer apps cannot do this work. Generalist IT providers cannot do this work. The firms that do this work for enterprises do not scale down to a household.
I started PILOT to close that gap, for a small number of clients, with a small number of operators who do this work the way it should be done.
If you are reading this, it is most likely because someone you trust suggested you might want to know about us. That is the only way we introduce ourselves. We will respond personally when you reach out.
— Ray
Every PILOT operator has held a US government Top Secret clearance and has worked in classified cyber operations. Backgrounds are verified privately during the referral and onboarding process.
We do not publish operator names, photographs, biographies, or service records. The absence of a public roster is not an oversight. It is the standard our clients expect from us, and the standard we hold each other to.
The firm grows by adding partners, not contractors. Operators who join PILOT have skin in the work, not a transactional relationship with it. This is what allows the firm to stay small and the standard to stay consistent.
How to begin.
If you would like to talk, write to us at ops@automatedbypilot.ai.
Conversations are confidential. We respond personally, usually within one business day. We will tell you honestly whether PILOT is the right firm for you, and if we are not, we will suggest someone who is.