How to work with me
Three shapes. Most people start with the first, because it's the cheapest way to find out whether we should do the second.
Architecture review
I read your codebase, schema, and roadmap, then tell you what will break and roughly when. You get a written assessment with prioritized fixes — yours to keep whether or not you hire me to do them.
Fixed-scope build
A defined thing, shipped. A new product, a rebuilt data layer, a payments or compliance workstream. Scope and price agreed up front — if I estimate badly, that's my problem, not your invoice.
Fractional architect
You have engineers but nobody senior enough to own the data and infrastructure decisions. I take that seat part-time — design review, schema ownership, being the person who says no.
You don't have to pay for it all at once
Plenty of businesses that need the work don't have it sitting in one quarter's budget. On engagements over $5,000, the cost can be split: a 30% deposit on signature, then the balance over three or six equal monthly payments, agreed in the contract before anything starts. The scope doesn't shrink and the price doesn't change — only the schedule does.
30% on signature, before anything starts.
The balance in three equal payments.
The balance in six. The longest term offered.
Whether this is a fit
Good fit
- You have something real in market, or close to it
- There's money, regulated data, or multiple customers' data in the system — so getting it wrong is expensive
- You want one senior person who owns the outcome
- You'd rather hear “that's the wrong approach” early than late
Not a fit
- Greenfield ideas with no funding and no first customer
- Staff augmentation — a seat to fill on someone else's plan
- Anything needing forty hours a week of my calendar
- Work where the deadline is fixed and the scope isn't
Not sure which one you need?
That's what the call is for. Fifteen minutes, no deck.