Ways to work with us
Seven shapes, each with a different owner of the outcome and a different pricing unit. The honest answer is often the cheaper one, so it is worth asking before you commit.
DevOps and platform engineering
Pipelines, clusters, infrastructure as code and the telemetry that turns an outage into a five-minute diagnosis.
Per engineer monthly, or fixed-scope for a defined piece of work
Better suited to
Do not buy this if what you actually need is someone to keep existing servers patched, backed up and monitored — that is system administration and it costs less. And if you have no deployable application yet, DevOps work is premature; the pipeline can wait until there is something to ship through it.
System administration and server management
Someone whose job is that the servers are patched, backed up, monitored and boring.
Per administrator monthly, or per managed estate with an agreed response time
Better suited to
Do not buy this to redesign the estate. If the answer to your problem is a migration, a pipeline or an architecture change, that is DevOps and platform engineering, and an administrator will keep a bad design alive rather than fix it. Buy this when the design is fine and the operating discipline is not.
IT staff augmentation
Named engineers inside your team, reporting to your leads, working your hours.
Per engineer, monthly, with 30 days' notice
Better suited to
Do not buy staff augmentation if you cannot give the engineer a technical lead, a code review process and a ticket queue. Augmentation amplifies an existing engineering function; it cannot replace one. If you have no in-house engineering leadership, buy a project or a pod with our own lead instead.
Dedicated development team
A squad with its own lead, bought as monthly capacity rather than as a row of hourly timesheets.
One monthly capacity fee for the pod
Better suited to
A pod is poor value below about three people — at one or two engineers you are paying for a lead you do not need, and plain staff augmentation is cheaper. It is also wrong if you want to direct each person's day individually; that is augmentation, and asking for it inside a pod wastes the lead.
Offshore software development
Build capacity in India, run to the security and reporting standard your auditors expect.
Per engineer monthly, or a pod fee, or fixed scope
Better suited to
If the project has no technical owner on your side and no written definition of done, offshore delivery will fail however good the engineers are. Fix that first — or buy a fixed-scope project where we own the definition and carry the risk.
IT outsourcing
Hand over a function — maintenance, QA, cloud operations, support — with the service level written down.
Monthly service fee against an agreed scope and service level
Better suited to
Do not outsource a system that is actively changing shape. Outsourcing works on steady-state work with definable service levels; a product mid-pivot needs a pod or augmented engineers who can absorb changing direction.
Contract staffing
Fixed-term engineers for work with a known end date, with the employment risk on our side.
Per contractor, monthly, for a defined term
Better suited to
If the need is genuinely open-ended, a fixed term just adds a renewal negotiation. Take monthly staff augmentation instead and keep the 30-day notice.
Fixed-scope projects
A defined deliverable at a defined price, with acceptance criteria written before anyone writes code.
Fixed price against milestones, or a capped outcome fee
Better suited to
Fixed scope needs a stable target. If the requirements are genuinely being discovered as you go, a pod is honest and a fixed price is a fiction that one of us will pay for.
Build, operate, transfer
We build and run your India team, then hand it to you — people, process and entity — on a date agreed at the start.
Monthly operating fee plus an agreed transfer fee
Better suited to
Below about eight people the overhead does not pay back, and under three years the transfer never happens. If offshore is a trial rather than a direction, start with a pod and revisit.
Not sure which one? The four questions on engagement models will get you to the right shape in about a minute.
Rates
Rate bands by experience and market
| Experience | United States | United Kingdom | Australia | United Arab Emirates | Canada |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| build2–4 years | $20–28/hour$3,200–4,480/month | £150–210/day£3,000–4,200/month | A$28–38/hourA$4,480–6,080/month | AED 95–135/hourAED 15,200–21,600/month | C$30–40/hourC$4,800–6,400/month |
| senior5–8 years | $28–38/hour$4,480–6,080/month | £210–300/day£4,200–6,000/month | A$38–52/hourA$6,080–8,320/month | AED 135–185/hourAED 21,600–29,600/month | C$40–54/hourC$6,400–8,640/month |
| lead9+ years, or tech lead | $38–52/hour$6,080–8,320/month | £300–450/day£6,000–9,000/month | A$52–70/hourA$8,320–11,200/month | AED 185–250/hourAED 29,600–40,000/month | C$54–72/hourC$8,640–11,520/month |
All-inclusive and indicative, shown so you can compare us against a local hire. Monthly figures assume 160 hours a month and the same for the day-rate markets, so the two always reconcile. Engagements are contracted as a monthly capacity fee or a fixed-scope deliverable, with our own delivery lead accountable for the outcome — see engagement models. There is no setup fee, no recruitment fee and no management surcharge.
Send us one role brief
One page is enough: the stack, the seniority, the first month of work and the hours you need covered. Three shortlisted CVs come back within 48 hours, with the rate band and notice period attached.