Technical Consulting

Technical consulting is a focused, time-limited engagement where you get expert guidance without committing to full-scale development. Instead of a team writing code for months, you get an experienced architect or CTO-level specialist who analyzes your situation, identifies problems, and delivers actionable recommendations — typically within 1-3 weeks. Consulting is ideal when you need a second opinion on architectural decisions, an audit of an existing system before a major refactor, or help choosing a technology stack for a new project. The deliverable is a detailed report with prioritized recommendations, not code. Think of it as the diagnostic phase that ensures you invest in development wisely. Consulting often saves clients significant money by identifying issues early — we have seen cases where a 2-week architecture audit prevented a 6-month rewrite by catching fundamental design flaws before they compounded.

Three scenarios consistently deliver the highest ROI from consulting. First, startups preparing for an investment round benefit from technical due diligence preparation — we audit code quality, architecture, test coverage, and security to ensure your technology passes investor scrutiny. Second, companies with legacy systems that need modernization benefit from a strategic migration assessment: we map the current architecture, identify dependencies, and create a phased migration plan that keeps the business running while transforming the technology stack. Third, organizations without a CTO or senior architect benefit from CTO-as-a-service for critical decisions: technology selection for a new product, vendor evaluation, or architectural review before scaling. We also regularly conduct performance audits for systems experiencing growing pains — identifying bottlenecks in database queries, caching strategies, and infrastructure configuration that are limiting growth.

A typical consulting engagement follows four phases. Phase 1 (Day 1-2): Discovery — we conduct interviews with stakeholders and developers, review documentation, and define the scope of the audit or assessment. Phase 2 (Days 3-7): Analysis — our specialists examine the codebase, architecture, infrastructure, and processes. For code audits, we use automated tools (SonarQube, security scanners) combined with manual expert review. For architecture assessments, we map system components, data flows, integration points, and identify single points of failure. Phase 3 (Days 8-10): Report preparation — we compile findings into a structured report with severity ratings, root cause analysis, and prioritized recommendations with effort estimates. Phase 4 (Day 10-12): Presentation and Q&A — we present findings to your team, answer questions, and help prioritize the implementation roadmap. The entire process takes 2-3 weeks for a standard engagement. For CTO-as-a-service, we establish ongoing weekly sessions.

Consulting engagements come with specific deliverable commitments. For architecture audits, we guarantee a comprehensive report covering: system architecture assessment, performance bottleneck identification, security vulnerability analysis, code quality metrics, and a prioritized improvement roadmap with effort estimates. The report is delivered within the agreed timeline (typically 2-3 weeks), and we include one round of revisions based on your feedback. For CTO-as-a-service, we commit to agreed weekly availability (typically 8-16 hours/week), response time within 4 business hours for urgent questions, and monthly progress reports. All consulting engagements include a satisfaction guarantee: if the deliverable does not meet the agreed scope, we continue work at no additional cost until it does. Consulting insights are protected by NDA, and all reports remain your intellectual property.

We offer three consulting pricing models depending on the engagement type. For one-time audits and assessments (architecture audit, code review, due diligence), we provide a fixed price based on the scope: a standard codebase audit for a mid-size application costs $5-12K and takes 2-3 weeks. Technology selection consultation for a new project is $3-6K for a 1-week engagement. Comprehensive due diligence for investors (code + architecture + team + process assessment) ranges from $8-15K. For CTO-as-a-service (ongoing consulting), we work on a monthly retainer of $4-8K for 8-16 hours per week of senior architect availability. For focused workshops (1-2 day sessions on specific topics like microservices migration strategy or performance optimization), pricing is $2-4K per day. All consulting starts with a free 30-minute discovery call where we assess your needs and provide a specific proposal with fixed pricing, timeline, and deliverables.