Map the system. Ship the spine. Hand it over.
A predictable engagement shape that gets something real into production in six weeks, proves whether it worked, and leaves your team able to carry it.
Map the system
Before we write anything, we find out how the work actually flows — which is almost never how the process document says it does. Interviews with the people doing the job, traces through the systems, and a look at the spreadsheet that isn't in the org chart.
- Stakeholder interviews across every role the process touches
- System and data inventory, including the shadow tools
- Volume, cycle time, and error-rate baseline
- A written current-state map you keep either way
Scope and commit
We come back with a target-state design, a fixed price for the first phase, and an explicit list of what we are not building. That last list is the one that keeps projects on schedule.
- Target-state architecture and workflow design
- Fixed-price proposal for phase one
- Written out-of-scope list, revisited rather than quietly grown
- Success metrics agreed before work starts
Ship the spine
One narrow slice, all the way to production, on real data. You see a demo every Friday and can change direction while changing direction is still cheap. Your engineers are in code review from the first week.
- Weekly Friday demos on real data
- Your team in review from week one
- Staging environment you can use, not just watch
- Measured against the baseline from phase one
Prove it with numbers
Before-and-after against the baseline we took in week one. If the numbers didn't move, we say so and we look at why rather than declaring success and invoicing.
- Cycle time and throughput vs. baseline
- Exception and escalation rates
- Cost per transaction, including model spend
- An honest read on what didn't work
Hand it over
Runbooks with actual commands, architecture decision records, and a training session. Then the test: one of your engineers who wasn't on the build deploys a change to production using only the docs, with us in the room and silent.
- Runbooks, ADRs, and on-call documentation
- Training session with the inheriting team
- The silent-handoff test, and fixes for whatever it finds
- A named owner on your side for every system
How we make decisions when nobody's watching
These cost us money sometimes. We keep them because the alternative costs more.
Senior engineers only
The people who scope your system are the people who build it. No handoff to a junior team after the sale, because there isn't one.
We'll tell you not to hire us
If the honest answer is that you should buy a product, fix your data first, or wait a quarter, that's the answer you get. It costs us engagements and saves the ones we take.
Range across industries
Manufacturing, logistics, professional services, regulated operations, field services, B2B SaaS. The same failure patterns recur — having seen one break elsewhere is what makes the next one quick to diagnose.
Boring technology on purpose
TypeScript, React, Postgres, and the cloud you already use. Your next hire should recognize the codebase, not need a tour.
Everything written down
Decisions captured when they're made, not reconstructed at the end. You inherit reasoning, not just code.
The handoff is the deliverable
We optimize for the moment we leave. Clients who can leave tend not to — almost all our work is repeat and referral.
An uncomfortable hour that has never once failed to find something.
At the end of every engagement we ask one of your engineers — someone who wasn’t on the build — to deploy a small change to production using only the documentation. We sit in the room and stay silent.
Whatever they get stuck on is the real gap between what we wrote down and what we assumed. We fix it that week, before the invoice.
Working together
How quickly can you start?
Usually two to four weeks out. We deliberately limit how many engagements run at once so each gets senior attention, so occasionally it's longer — we'll tell you the real date rather than a hopeful one.
Do you work with our existing engineers?
Preferably. Your team in code review from week one is how the handoff actually works. On embedded engagements we're on your board and in your standups.
What if we want to stop mid-engagement?
Fixed-scope projects end at the phase boundary. Monthly engagements have a 30-day exit. In every case you keep everything built to that point, in your repositories.
Who owns the intellectual property?
You do, on everything built for you. We retain rights only to pre-existing internal tooling and general know-how, and we'll spell out exactly what that covers in the agreement.
Will you sign an NDA?
Yes, before you share details. Send yours or use ours — either is fine and neither delays the first call.
Do you work on-site?
We're remote-first, but discovery weeks often go better in person and we'll travel for them. For field-services work we'll ride along, because you can't design a technician interface from a Zoom call.
Start with a conversation, not a proposal.
Thirty minutes with an engineer. We'll tell you what shape of engagement fits, roughly what it costs, and what we'd want to learn first.