Listen for the moment
someone needs a team.

Retainer

Small and mid-sized businesses and public organizations that need serious engineering but can’t justify building a department.

Signals to listen for

• +A website, app or internal system that is overdue, broken or outgrown
• +An agency or freelancer who built something and disappeared
• +Spreadsheets and manual work that should be software
• +Long procurement cycles and no one in-house to scope or price technology
• +Interest in AI or automation with no one to build it

Not a fit

• –Equity-only startups unwilling to pay for engineering
• –Buyers who will only accept fixed per-project pricing

The question to ask

“Who looks after your technology today, and is it keeping up with the business?”

Financial markets

Systematic trading teams, funds and serious independent traders whose research has outrun their engineering.

Signals to listen for

• +Strategies that work in research but aren’t running live
• +Data pipelines, venue connections or backtests nobody fully trusts
• +A research team doing engineering work it shouldn’t have to

Not a fit

• –Requests for signals, returns or investment advice
• –One-off scripts with no ongoing system behind them

The question to ask

“What’s standing between your research and running it live?”

Business ownership

Agencies and services firms winning more work than their team can build, or work outside their skills.

Signals to listen for

• +Turning down projects because the team is at capacity
• +Clients asking for mobile, AI, financial or infrastructure work the agency doesn’t do
• +An owner who wants to grow without hiring ahead of revenue

Not a fit

• –Agencies looking for the cheapest possible hourly labour

The question to ask

“What happens when you win a project your team can’t staff?”