Consulting
Individual engineers.
Your process, your call.
Sometimes you do not need a team, you need one senior Kubernetes engineer for seven months. We place named specialists into your reporting line and then get out of the way, with a two-week trial on every placement that you are not invoiced for.
Overview
Named specialists into your existing team, under your management, on your board.
Staff augmentation is the simplest thing we sell and the easiest to do badly. It fails when the supplier optimises for filling seats: overstated CVs, a bench engineer placed because they were available rather than right, and no consequence when the fit turns out to be poor. Our answer is a two-week trial on every placement, unbilled if you end it, which puts the screening risk on us.
Placed engineers report to your managers, work in your sprints and are assessed against your standards. We do not insert a delivery layer above them, and we do not claim credit for output your leads directed. What we retain is pastoral: a monthly one-to-one with each engineer, and someone for you to call when a situation needs escalating outside your own line management.
We are deliberately narrow about seniority. A senior engineer here has built and then operated systems in production, including the incidents. That distinction matters when a placement is expected to carry a pager or make architectural decisions without supervision, and it is the claim most commonly inflated across this industry.
- 9 working days
- Median time from calibrated role brief to first shortlist delivered
- 2 of 74
- Placements ended during the unbilled trial fortnight in the past year
- 7.5 months
- Average placement length across currently active engagements
Capabilities
What this covers
Six areas we staff properly. If your problem sits outside them, the honest note at the foot of this page says so.
Role calibration before search
A working session to convert a job title into concrete tasks, the systems involved and the decisions the person must make alone, because most mismatched placements trace back to a vague brief.
Technical screening on real code
A paired session on a realistic problem in the relevant stack, run by an engineer who works in it, rather than algorithm puzzles that select for interview practice instead of production judgement.
Unbilled trial fortnight
Every placement starts with two weeks you do not pay for if you end it there. No notice, no explanation required, no invoice. It is the only screening guarantee that costs the supplier anything.
Scarce and specialist skills
Kubernetes operators, Kafka and streaming engineers, Snowflake and dbt specialists, mainframe integration and COBOL interface work, plus regulated-domain engineers with prior audit exposure.
Contracting and compliance
Right-to-work checks, background screening to your standard, IP assignment, and employment status handled correctly in each jurisdiction, with the paperwork ready before the start date rather than after.
Extension, rotation and exit
Notice periods symmetrical at thirty days, extensions agreed a month before expiry, and a structured handover with written documentation completed before the final week, not during it.
Deliverables
What you get
- Calibrated role brief agreed in writing before any CV reaches your inbox
- Shortlist of three to five screened candidates within ten working days
- Written technical screening notes for every candidate presented, including concerns
- Two-week trial period on each placement, not invoiced if you end it there
- Monthly one-to-one notes and a documented escalation path outside your line management
- Structured exit handover with documentation completed before the final week
Stack
What we build it with
- Java
- Spring Boot
- .NET
- Python
- Go
- TypeScript
- React
- Kubernetes
- Terraform
- AWS
- Kafka
- Snowflake
Process
How the engagement runs
Two-week increments against a written definition of done. You can stop at any increment boundary and keep everything built so far.
Calibrate the role
Ninety minutes with the hiring manager to turn a title into tasks, systems and the decisions the person will make unsupervised. Vague briefs produce poor placements.
Screen on real work
A paired technical session on a realistic problem, assessed by an engineer in that stack, with written notes on both strengths and reservations shared with you.
Your interview, your standard
You run your own process on the shortlist. We do not push candidates, and declining the entire shortlist restarts the search at no cost to you.
Trial fortnight
Two weeks working normally in your team. If you end it, there is no invoice and no notice period, and we return with a revised brief within a week.
Steady state and review
Monthly check-ins with the engineer and a quarterly conversation with you about performance, extension and whether the shape of the role has changed.
When this is the wrong engagement
If the work needs an owner rather than an extra pair of hands, and nobody internally has the capacity to direct the engineer day to day, augmentation will disappoint you and a dedicated team with its own lead is the right shape.
FAQ
Questions we get asked
- How is this different from your dedicated teams?
Augmentation places individuals into your existing team under your management, with no lead of ours involved. A dedicated team arrives with its own tech lead, QA and delivery accountability. If nobody internally has capacity to direct the work day to day, you want the team, not the individuals.
- How do you verify seniority claims?
Through a paired session on real code in the relevant stack, run by one of our engineers who works in it, plus reference checks focused on operational responsibility. We ask specifically about production incidents, since building a system and running one are different skills.
- Can we hire a placed engineer permanently?
Yes. After six months there is no conversion fee at all. Before that, a fee applies on a sliding scale that reduces monthly. We would rather people move to a good permanent role than block it, and blocking conversions is a reliable way to lose the account.
- What notice period applies?
Thirty days in both directions after the trial fortnight, with no minimum contract length. If the engagement ends, we hold a structured handover in the final two weeks so documentation, credentials and in-flight work transfer properly rather than through a rushed exit call.
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