Get a release into customers’ hands, resolve a technical blocker, or decide what to build next. We agree on the result and price before work starts. You own the code, and your team gets what it needs to keep going.
Who this is for
A good fit when
- You need to get a product or feature into use, with one senior engineer responsible from scope to release.
- Your engineers can build, but need a second opinion before committing time to an expensive decision.
- A slow or unreliable product is holding users back, and you need to know what to fix first.
A bad fit when
- The work is a ticket queue billed by the hour.
- What you need is capacity for years rather than a defined outcome.
- The real problem is scope or organisational, and an engineer is the wrong shape of answer.
Choose the support your outcome needs
Sprint
$4,800per 2 weeks
Move past one specific blocker: a failing workflow, an unanswered technical question, or the work holding up a launch.
- One agreed outcome
- Daily progress you can follow
- Direct Slack access
- Code you own outright
Embedded
$9,200per month
Keep your roadmap moving with a senior engineer responsible for taking an initiative from planning through release.
- Roughly 3 days a week
- Shared planning and code reviews
- Technical decisions owned end to end
- Rolling monthly, cancel anytime
Advisory
$1,600per month
Decide what to build, what to buy, and where to invest before your team commits time to an expensive choice.
- Weekly decision-making call
- Async code and architecture review
- Written trade-offs
- Technical hiring input
Which one you need
Choose a Sprint for one focused outcome, such as diagnosing a failure or clearing a launch blocker. Choose Embedded when an initiative needs ongoing engineering through multiple releases. Advisory helps when your team can build but needs support deciding what to do and why.
From agreed outcome to handover
Know what needs to change
We spend thirty minutes on the result you need and what is blocking it. You leave knowing whether I can help and what the next step is.
Agree on success and cost
Before work starts, you get the outcome, the approach, the price, and the limits in writing. You know what you are paying for and how we will judge the result.
See progress as it happens
Try the work in demos, read the code, and follow a written update every day. You can check that we are solving the right problem while there is still time to adjust.
Keep moving after handover
Your team gets the code, documentation, tests, and a walkthrough so they can run and extend the product themselves.
What we can improve
What I turn down
Staff augmentation by the hour
Being a pair of hands on someone else’s ticket queue, with no ownership of the outcome. If the work can be specified as tickets, you do not need my judgement, and you should not pay for it.
Open-ended maintenance retainers
Keep-the-lights-on work with no defined outcome. The goal of every engagement is that you stop needing me; a retainer with no end contradicts it.
Rescues where the problem is not technical
Sometimes a team wants an engineer to fix what is actually a scope problem, or a decision nobody will make. I will say so on the call rather than take the money and confirm the diagnosis six weeks later.
Brand, illustration, native mobile, ML
Outside the discipline. I do interface design and will take a product from rough sketch to shipped, but for these you want a specialist and I will say so early.
The honest comparison
Compare the cost structure, continuity, and expertise you get from an independent engineer, an agency, or a permanent hire. Use the trade-offs to choose the support your project needs.
| Independent engineer | Agency | Permanent hire | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who writes the code | The person you spoke to on the call. | Often not the person who pitched. The senior name wins the work; the work is done by whoever is free. | The person you interviewed. |
| Ramp-up | Days. | Weeks — a discovery phase, then onboarding several people at once. | Months, after a notice period that is usually one to three. |
| Cost structure | One rate. Fixed scope or a fixed monthly fee, agreed before work starts. | The engineer, plus account management, sales, and the bench between projects. | Salary, benefits, equipment, recruitment fee, and the cost of the months before they are productive. |
| Continuity | Bounded by handover discipline and ownership rather than headcount. One person can still be ill. | Contractual. Bench depth covers absence — the main structural advantage. | Yours, until they resign. |
| Breadth | One deep discipline. Anything outside it needs another specialist. | Many disciplines under one contract and one invoice. | Whatever that one person happens to know. |
| Where the context ends up | With your team, by design — documentation and a walkthrough are part of the work. | With the agency. It leaves when the contract does. | With your team, permanently. |
| Ending it | Two weeks notice. You keep everything built up to that point. | A contract term, often with a minimum commitment. | A redundancy process. |
| Procurement | A sole trader. May not clear enterprise vendor onboarding. | Built for it — insurance, MSAs, certifications. | Not applicable. |
Who writes the code
The person you spoke to on the call.
Often not the person who pitched. The senior name wins the work; the work is done by whoever is free.
The person you interviewed.
Ramp-up
Days.
Weeks — a discovery phase, then onboarding several people at once.
Months, after a notice period that is usually one to three.
Cost structure
One rate. Fixed scope or a fixed monthly fee, agreed before work starts.
The engineer, plus account management, sales, and the bench between projects.
Salary, benefits, equipment, recruitment fee, and the cost of the months before they are productive.
Continuity
Bounded by handover discipline and ownership rather than headcount. One person can still be ill.
Contractual. Bench depth covers absence — the main structural advantage.
Yours, until they resign.
Breadth
One deep discipline. Anything outside it needs another specialist.
Many disciplines under one contract and one invoice.
Whatever that one person happens to know.
Where the context ends up
With your team, by design — documentation and a walkthrough are part of the work.
With the agency. It leaves when the contract does.
With your team, permanently.
Ending it
Two weeks notice. You keep everything built up to that point.
A contract term, often with a minimum commitment.
A redundancy process.
Procurement
A sole trader. May not clear enterprise vendor onboarding.
Built for it — insurance, MSAs, certifications.
Not applicable.
When to hire an agency instead
Four cases where an agency is the better answer. If one of these is yours, I would rather say so on the first call than take the work and have both of us discover it in month two.
You need breadth under one contract
Brand identity, illustration, motion design, native mobile or data science alongside the build, with a single vendor accountable for all of it. Assembling that from independents means you are the one doing the assembling.
You cannot compromise on continuity
The work is business-critical and one person being ill, on holiday, or gone is not a risk you can carry. An agency has bench depth and contractual continuity that a single engineer structurally cannot offer.
The scope genuinely needs a team
Three or more engineers working in parallel against a fixed external deadline. That is an arithmetic problem, not a judgement one, and no amount of seniority solves it.
Procurement requires a vendor, not a person
Liability insurance at a set level, SOC 2, a master services agreement, supplier onboarding built for companies. If your procurement process requires these, an agency is the cleaner route and it is not worth fighting.
The risks, and what bounds them
One person can be ill, on holiday, or unavailable.
Everything is handover-ready throughout rather than produced at the end — documentation, tests and branches you can read, maintained as the work goes. Another engineer can pick it up mid-engagement without an archaeology phase.
The relationship could end badly.
You own the code, the repository and the infrastructure accounts from day one. Nothing is handed over at the end because nothing was ever held.
I could be wrong about something expensive.
A written scope before any money moves, then daily written updates and branches you can read. Being wrong surfaces in days rather than at the end of a quarter.
Capacity is finite. I cannot add people.
True, and worth taking seriously. If the scope needs three engineers in parallel, that is an agency job — see above.
What you own
Code and IP
Yours outright, from the first commit. Not on final payment, not on completion.
Repositories
In your organisation, not mine. I work in yours.
Infrastructure
Your accounts, your billing, your credentials. Nothing runs on mine.
Documentation and tests
Part of the work, never a priced extra.
On handover
A walkthrough with whoever inherits it, live and recorded.
Questions
Put a plan behind your next release.
We’ll spend thirty minutes on the result you need, what is blocking it, and which kind of support fits. You leave knowing the next step.
Currently taking new work — next start october.
Book a call