Bringing in a new engineering partner carries real risk, so we made the first step a small one. Begin with a pilot, judge the merit of what it produces, and move up only when the work has earned your trust. Three tracks, differing by one thing — how much of the outcome we carry.
200+ engineers37+ clientsISO 27001 & ISO 9001Charlotte · Chennai · Madurai · Singapore
0% Risk with Pilot to Production Roadmap
Track 01 is the pilot. It carries a fixed fee, and that fee returns to you in full the moment you move to Track 02 or Track 03 — so the direction costs you nothing once the work begins. If you decide not to continue with us, you still keep the roadmap: the architecture, the playbooks, the sequencing and the cost model that carry you from pilot through to production. There is no scenario where you pay for direction and walk away with nothing.
Credit applied at full value against the first invoice of a Track 02 or Track 03 engagement signed within 90 days of pilot delivery. The clause sits in the engagement letter, not the marketing.
Three tracks
The same senior people. Different amounts of your risk on our side of the table.
The architect who runs your Blueprint workshop is the architect who leads your delivery pod. What changes between tracks isn't seniority. It's who answers when the go-live slips.
Track 01Fee credited back
Blueprint
You leave knowing what to build, in what order, and what it will cost.
A working session with our principal architect and the domain lead who has already shipped your problem somewhere else. You get the cheat sheets — the patterns that held, the failure modes we hit, and the sequence to run them in. Your team executes it.
What you walk away with
Reference architecture built against your stack and your constraints
Playbooks for the problems that recur in your domain
The failure modes — what breaks, when, and what it costs to fix late
A 30/60/90 sequence with effort, skills and cost attached
A build-versus-buy call on whatever you're stuck on
A number you can take to your board
You're buyingDirection
Your team's loadTwo or three seniors, one day
Your exposureOne week, refundable
You'll know byDay 10
Track 02Quarterly minimum
Assurance
Your team ships, and someone senior is accountable for whether it's right.
You have engineers. What you don't have is the person who has done this before and can say no at the right moment. A named architect on our side owns the architecture calls, holds the quality and security gates, and escalates to our CTO when something needs to move.
What you walk away with
A named architect and governance lead on your programme
Architecture decisions recorded, not remembered
Quality and security gates your team ships through
Compliance guardrails set before the code, not after the audit
Monthly steering with your sponsor and our CTO
Engineers embedded on request when a gap is holding you up
You're buyingAccountability
Your team's loadThey build, we gate
Your exposure30-day notice
You'll know byWeek 3
Track 03We carry it
Outcome
It runs in production, and we are the ones answering for it.
A full pod takes the work end to end — architect, engineers, QA, SRE. We don't hand you a platform and a configuration canvas and wish you luck. We put the working system into production and operate it, with the outcome written into the contract rather than the pitch.
What you walk away with
A working system in production, not a proof of concept
Milestones tied to outcomes rather than timesheets
Operations, monitoring and support after go-live
ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 process applied to your engagement
One accountable party when something breaks at 2am
A documented handover, ready whenever you want it in-house
You're buyingThe outcome
Your team's loadA product owner and SME access
Your exposureMilestone-gated
You'll know byFirst production increment
The question you're actually asking
01 · Blueprint
02 · Assurance
03 · Outcome
What am I actually buying?
Direction
Accountability
The outcome
What does my team have to do?
Show up for a day, then build
Build, inside our gates
Own the product decisions
Who answers if it goes wrong?
You do
Shared — the decisions are ours
We do
What do I hold at the end?
Architecture, playbooks, cost model
Decision records, gates, a team that has levelled up
A running system and a handover pack
What does it cost me to stop?
Nothing to unwind
30-day notice
Milestone-gated, transition plan included
When do I know it's working?
Day 10
Week 3
First production increment
What am I paying?
Fixed fee, credited back
Monthly retainer, quarterly minimum
Milestone and outcome-linked
Before you ask
The questions that usually come next.
Is the credit real, or is it padded back into the follow-on rate?
You get the rates for Track 02 and Track 03 before you commit to the Blueprint, so there is nothing to inflate afterwards. The credit comes off your first invoice at full value, and the clause sits in the engagement letter.
What if we take the Blueprint and build it ourselves?
That's a legitimate outcome and it happens. You keep the architecture, the playbooks and the cost model. Some of those teams return two quarters later for assurance. Some don't, and that's a fine result for both of us.
Can we change tracks halfway through?
Upwards, yes — Assurance to Outcome is common when your capacity changes. Downwards takes a transition window so nothing drops. Both go through a change order rather than a new contract.
Who actually turns up?
Named people, listed in the statement of work, with the CTO accountable across all three tracks. The architect in your Blueprint workshop is the architect on your delivery pod if you scale up.
How do you handle our security and compliance obligations?
ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 processes apply to every engagement regardless of track. Healthcare work runs under HIPAA controls and we execute a BAA as standard. Zero-trust architecture and data residency are settled at the start, not retrofitted before an audit.
What does this cost?
Blueprint is a fixed fee. Assurance is a monthly retainer scaled to programme size, with a quarterly minimum. Outcome is quoted against the milestones. You get numbers on the first call, not after three discovery workshops.
Talk to our CTO
Start with a thirty-minute conversation.
No 50-page proposals. We'll tell you which level fits your situation, what a realistic engagement looks like, and what it would cost — in one direct meeting.
Thomas leads 10decoders' AI engineering practice and sits in on the scoping call himself — so the person mapping your engagement is the one who has shipped it before. His teams build and deploy agents for mid-market healthcare and fintech companies, with enterprise grade build experience for clients like IBM, Dedalus and Harris Healthcare. He'll be straight with you about what's worth doing and what isn't.
200+
Engineers
37+
Global Clients
ISO
27001 / 9001
Partner Program
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