The problem
You need Staff/Principal-level platform judgment on the AI roadmap, without the commitment of a full-time hire and without a junior contractor learning on your production account.
The approach
Retained platform leadership, 1–3 days per week: technical direction, architecture review, hiring signal, and hands-on work where it moves the needle. Named accountability, not a rotating bench.
Engagement
Retained 1–3 days/week, monthly, with a minimum term.
What's delivered
- Technical direction and architecture review on the AI/platform roadmap
- Production-safety and cost governance held to the bar published on this site
- Mentorship and hiring calibration for your platform team
- Hands-on delivery on the highest-leverage problems
The outcome
Hands-on platform leadership on the roadmap without the cost or latency of a full-time hire.
In practice
What this looks like.
Fractional operating model — what a retained 1–3 day/week engagement covers
SampleThe standing scope of a retained Staff/Principal engagement, as distinct from a one-off project: what a fractional week actually buys.
- Technical direction Standing weekly input on the AI/platform roadmap: sequencing, build-vs-buy, and which bets to kill before they accrue cost. The same named person carries it every week.
- Architecture review Scheduled review of designs and significant changes before they're committed (retrieval, deployment topology, failure modes), with written rationale the team keeps.
- Production-safety & cost governance Every path to production held to a senior bar: a mandatory safety gate before apply, plus spend kept attributable per feature and reviewed each cycle.
- Hiring calibration Calibration on platform and AI hires (rubric, interview signal, leveling), so the bench you build clears the same bar, not the open seat alone.
- Hands-on delivery on highest-leverage work Direct delivery on the problems where senior hands move the roadmap: the blocking, high-risk work rather than the backlog.
- Mentorship & decision transfer Working sessions with the team so judgment and standards transfer, and the direction outlasts the engagement rather than walking out the door with it.
- Accountability & access Named ownership with a defined escalation path; reachable between sessions for the go/no-go calls that gate a production change.
Situation. A funded fintech scale-up is putting AI into its underwriting and fraud path, but the platform team is mid-level and shipping to a production account with no safety gate and rising inference spend. The roadmap needs Staff/Principal judgment; the headcount and runway don't yet justify a full-time hire.
Path
- 01 Read the roadmap and the risk: map the AI initiatives against a production-readiness bar, then rank by leverage and by what could quietly go wrong in production.
- 02 Stand up the non-negotiables first (a safety gate before any apply, and per-feature spend attribution), held to a senior standard the team can run unaided.
- 03 Take architecture review on the highest-risk design (retrieval and deployment topology) and leave written rationale behind, so the team keeps the reasoning along with the verdict.
- 04 Go hands-on the one blocking problem the team can't clear alone, so the roadmap moves instead of waiting on a hire.
- 05 Calibrate the next platform hire (rubric and interview signal) so the seat is filled to the same bar the engagement set.
- 06 Hand back a documented operating model so direction and standards persist after the days/week step down.
Shape of outcome. The roadmap moves under named senior accountability: production changes pass a safety gate before apply, spend becomes attributable per feature, and the team inherits the standard and the hiring bar, without carrying a full-time Staff hire before the runway supports one.
Representative: illustrates the method, not a specific client.
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