Engagements

Pick one to start. Most teams blend a couple as the work matures — a discovery sprint flows naturally into a build, which flows into ongoing advisory.

01 · Discovery — AI Readiness Assessment

A focused 2–4 week diagnostic that turns “we should be doing AI” into a clear, prioritized plan.

When this fits

• You have ideas but no shared map of where to start.
• Leadership wants a defensible roadmap and budget.
• You want an outside read on data and infrastructure readiness.
• You need to align engineering, product, and exec stakeholders.

What’s included

• Stakeholder interviews across engineering, product, and leadership.
• Use-case discovery and ROI scoring workshop.
• Data, infrastructure, and ML platform readiness audit.
• Skills and team-shape gap analysis.
• Build-vs.-buy guidance per opportunity.

Deliverables. Opportunity map · 6–12 month roadmap · readiness scorecard · executive readout.

02 · Advisory — Fractional AI Lead

Recurring strategic partnership for teams that need senior AI judgment without a full-time hire.

When this fits

• You don’t yet have an AI/ML leader in-house.
• Your team is making consequential architecture decisions weekly.
• You want a sounding board on hiring, vendors, and scope.
• You need someone accountable to a roadmap, not a ticket.

What’s included

• Weekly leadership sync plus async access.
• Architecture and design reviews on real PRs and RFCs.
• Vendor, model, and tooling selection guidance.
• Hiring help: JD writing, interview loops, scorecards.
• Roadmap stewardship and quarterly planning.

Deliverables. Weekly sync · architecture reviews · hiring artifacts · quarterly roadmap.

03 · Enablement — Over-the-Shoulder

Embedded with your team so your engineers come out of the engagement owning the stack.

When this fits

• You have strong engineers who are new to the AI stack.
• You want a build, but not at the cost of long-term ownership.
• You’d rather upskill than outsource.
• You’re standing up your first AI team and need a senior pair.

What’s included

• Embedded 2–3 days a week with your team.
• Pairing on production code, plus PR and design reviews.
• Targeted workshops — prompting, eval, RAG, agentic patterns.
• Internal docs, runbooks, and reusable templates.
• Office hours and async support outside on-site days.

Deliverables. Pairing and reviews · workshops · internal playbooks · capability uplift.

04 · Delivery — Hands-On Build Sprint

Fixed-scope build of a production-grade AI system, co-developed with your engineers.

When this fits

• You have a clearly scoped problem ready to ship.
• Your team is at capacity but the business can’t wait.
• You want a reference implementation to learn from.
• You need eval, observability, and cost discipline from day one.

What’s included

• Scoping workshop with success criteria and an eval plan.
• Co-build the system with your engineers — no black box.
• Eval harness, observability, and cost guardrails included.
• Production hand-off: docs, runbook, and on-call enablement.
• Optional follow-on for a second sprint or ongoing advisory.

Deliverables. Working system · eval harness · runbook and docs · clean hand-off.

A common path

Most engagements blend a couple of models. Here’s a shape that fits a lot of teams just getting started.

Not every team needs every phase. The point of the model is to start small, prove value, and add scope only when the prior phase has earned it.