How the work runs.
Four phases, whatever the engagement shape. No methodology branding, no ceremony for its own sake.
Discovery
A call, then the code. We read the system before we form opinions about it.
Assessment
A written view of what's wrong, what's fine, and what to do in what order. Yours to keep either way.
Delivery
Incremental, in production, visible in your tools. You see progress in the repo, not in a slide.
Handover
Documentation, upskilling, and a codebase your team can run without us. Planned from day one.
We don't sell strategy decks. We write code.
We don't staff engagements with juniors and bill them as seniors.
We're not the cheapest. If cost is the deciding factor, we're the wrong call.
We won't tell you to rewrite it from scratch unless that is the right answer, which it usually is not.
The practical answers
How an engagement actually runs, day to day.
- Working hours
- UK-based, UK hours. On-site where the work needs it, remote-first where it doesn't.
- Security
- We've worked inside the compliance perimeters of Visa, Sky Betting & Gaming and a DSPT/CQC-regulated clinical service. Your security review will not surprise us.
- Handover
- Documentation and upskilling are in the plan from the start. The measure of a good engagement is that you don't need another one.
Questions we get asked
Mostly about how an engagement runs rather than what we do.
How do you price an engagement?
Per engagement, against a defined shape and a defined outcome, agreed before anything starts. We do not publish day rates, because a rate without a scope tells you nothing useful and invites a comparison between two things that are not alike.
The assessment is the usual way in. It is a fixed, bounded piece of work, and it is what makes a sensible number possible for whatever follows.
How soon can you start?
We take a small number of engagements at a time, so delivery work is usually booked several weeks ahead. You get a real date on the first call rather than after you have committed to anything.
An assessment starts sooner than delivery does, because it needs one principal rather than a cleared block of time.
What is the smallest way to start?
An assessment. One to two weeks, one principal, and a written view of what is wrong, what is fine, and what to do in what order.
It is yours to keep whether or not we do the work that follows. If the answer is that you do not need us, that is a legitimate outcome and we will say so.
Who actually does the work?
A principal leads every engagement and stays in the codebase until handover. The person on your first call is the person in your repository.
Where an engagement needs more hands than that, we bring in developers we have worked with before, and a principal supervises and reviews everything they ship. Nobody is ever billed at a level above the work they are doing.
Can you work behind our brand?
Yes. Most of our work arrives through agencies and consultancies, and we work white-label on your repositories, your board and your reporting cadence. If your client asks who we are, we are your team.
We never approach your clients, during or after. That is the whole basis on which the channel works.
What happens when the engagement ends?
Handover is planned from the first week rather than assembled at the end. Your engineers get time in the new system while we are still in it, and the documentation is written as the work happens.
The measure we hold ourselves to is whether your next hire can work in the codebase without calling us.
Have you worked inside regulated environments?
Visa's compliance perimeter, on a foreign-exchange system handling more than $250 million a day. Sky Casino, re-platformed while it was taking bets. A FTSE 100 investment platform administering more than £150bn. A UK clinical service built under DSPT, GDPR and CQC guidelines.
Your security review will not surprise us.
Do you work on site?
UK-based and on UK hours. On site where the work genuinely needs it, remote-first where it does not.
“A valuable asset to our team in the time he worked with us, he proved himself to be dependable, a hard-worker, and brought an impressive level of expertise to the team. I was always impressed by Grant’s ability to quickly understand complex requirements, and deliver elegant solutions quickly and at a very high quality.”