A team of six with no lead
Everyone senior enough to have an opinion and nobody accountable for the decision. A lead, even part-time, ends the standing debates.
Software Engineering Management
There is a point where a development team stops being a group of capable people and needs someone accountable for how they work. That usually arrives before a company is ready to hire a full-time engineering leader, and hiring the wrong one is expensive to undo.
The work is standards and cadence more than architecture. How code gets reviewed, what quality bar applies, how estimates are given and by whom, and what a team does when a release is late. Written down once, these stop being renegotiated every sprint.
It also covers the parts nobody enjoys: assessing what an inherited codebase is actually worth, telling a founder that a rewrite is not the answer, and interviewing engineers with a process that tests the work rather than trivia.
// what you get
What's included.
- Fractional engineering leadership, at a day or two a week rather than a hire
- Technical due diligence on a codebase, a team, or an acquisition
- Hiring: role definition, interview process, and technical assessment that resembles the job
- Delivery cadence, estimation practice, and reporting a non-technical board can read
- Code review standards, quality bars, and technical debt tracked as a decision rather than a mood
- Mentoring for developers stepping into their first lead role
// where it fits
The situations this is usually bought for.
A codebase inherited with a company
Due diligence that says what it would cost to keep, what it would cost to replace, and which parts are genuinely fine.
A first engineering hire about to be made
Getting the role and the interview right matters more at hire number one than at hire number ten.
// usually bought with
// say hello
Tell us what you are trying to fix.
Discovery calls are free and usually last 30 minutes. We listen first, and we will tell you honestly if software engineering management is the wrong thing to spend money on.
More in Platform and delivery