You Need to know what month four will look like before signing the contract for month one.
Every project is similar in its essence: discovery, planning, step-by-step feature scaling, and handling the resulting consequences.
The four commitments
We start by reading, not designing.
There is no design without reading and understanding the database, integrations, and their constraints. The requirements price quote is just an estimate.
Everything with consequences is documented.
Architecture decisions, trade-offs, undefined goals, and who takes the risk—all of it is documented because no one remembers it after six months.
Working software every two weeks.
Every release is published and tested. If there's a problem, you'll see it in month four, not month six.
Delivery is a result, not an event.
Runbooks, documentation, and training are budgeted and priced upfront. You are not dependent on us in month five.How the Collaboration Process Works
Technical Analysis · 1-2 Weeks
We review the database, data model, integration processes, and infrastructure with systems engineers. We interview system administrators and the incident response team, not just the technology buyer.
What you get: A written technical assessment, a risk log (prioritized), and a scope of work with a budget estimate. All of this is for you, whether it's a project or not.
Architecture and Planning · 2-3 Weeks
The target architecture, migration sequence, and integration boundaries are defined. A cost model is developed at three scale levels, and a delivery plan is created with key milestones and completed tasks for each level.
What you get: A document that your steering committee will review and that your finance team will use as a planning basis.
Infrastructure · 4-8 Weeks
Identity, ownership, data model, deployment process, environment, and traceability are defined.
What you get: A ready-to-use system, currently without any features, but free of surprises in its core architecture, because everything has been built and tested. Nothing the customer needs is shipped until the infrastructure is complete, as this is the fastest way to upgrade it later.
Delivery · Weekly updates
Each update is ready for deployment and has the necessary hardening. Acceptance criteria are discussed and presented at the end of each cycle. Weekly written feature updates and software demos are provided to ensure everyone is up-to-date.
What you get: A program in a controlled environment, every two weeks.
Hardening · 2 to 4 weeks
Stress testing at expected peak performance, crash and chaos testing, security review, third-party penetration testing management, and remediation.
What you get: Evidence for your security review, no promises.
Delivery or Managed Operations · Ongoing
A sound delivery that includes operating manuals, architecture documentation, team training, or the option to retain responsibility within defined response objectives.
What you get: A system with a responsible person.
Three ways to contract
| Model | Best for | How it works | Change and commitment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fixed-scope delivery | A known end state and a reasonably understood integration footprint | Discover first, then a fixed price for a fixed scope, and billing for key phases | All changes are subject to a written request process and are priced on a case-by-case basis based on best practices. Incremental scope scaling is a well-defined process. |
| Dedicated Engineering Team | Long term, evolving requirements, shifting priorities | The team (one lead developer, two to four engineers working on your to-do list, and some allocation of software engineering and QA resources) gets your monthly bill plus your to-do list. | Minimum three months, then 30 days' notice. Typically $15,000 to $30,000 per month per pod. |
| Managed Engineering Support Services | Critical production systems requiring nothing but maintenance and support. Everything that can possibly go wrong in a production system will go wrong eventually. | Maintenance and support, including upgrade advisory, security patches, dependency updates, and monthly allocations for improvement initiatives. | — |
Who's on an engagement
What you won't get: a senior architect on the pitch who disappears at kickoff. The architect on your discovery call stays on the engagement.
| Role | On every engagement | What they own |
|---|---|---|
| Engagement lead | Yes | Commercials, escalation, your single point of contact |
| Solutions architect | Yes | Architecture decisions, technical risk, the written plan |
| Lead engineer | Yes | Implementation quality, code review, technical mentoring |
| Engineers | 2–6 typical | Delivery |
| Product designer | When there's an interface | Flows, interface, design system |
| QA engineer | Fractional or full | Test strategy, automation, release readiness |
| DevOps / SRE | Fractional or full | Pipeline, infrastructure, observability, on-call |
How We Communicate
We believe in transparency, collaboration, and communication. Your team needs to see what we do, know when things change, understand where things need help, and plan around those factors.
Every two weeks
A working program will be presented to you and should be reviewed to ensure alignment with your acceptance criteria.
Monthly
A business update on spend and scope.
Always
Your team works in our repositories, ticketing systems, and communication channels. Nothing is hidden.
Escalation
An escalation point with stated response time will be established at the onset of the engagement.Quality and security are embedded into our work, not tacked on at the end.
Every deploy must have:
Version control with peer review
Automated testing, with targets for test coverage
A scan of dependencies for known security weaknesses
Every service must have:
Infrastructure as code (no manually configured servers in the production environment)
Confidential information in the production environment must be pulled from secure repositories
Test environment that approximates the production environment
Rollback capability for every release
Logging, metrics, and monitoring from day one
Frequently Asked Questions
See the process on your own system
Two weeks, a written assessment, and an honest read on what it would take.
