How We Work
How an engagement runs, from the first read to the handoff
Every engagement runs on the same four stages, whether it is a move, an MVP, custom software, AI or a rescue. You can stop after any stage and keep everything we produced.
The work is measured by what ships and gets used, not by hours in meetings or pages in a deck. Meetings are short, answers are direct, prices are in writing, and every decision is written down with its reason. If a cheaper route to your goal exists, we say so before you pay for it.
The Stages
Four stages, each with an end you can see
- Read and inventory, days 1 to 5. We read the code, the data and the infrastructure, or work the idea through with you. You get a written inventory and a ranked list of risks.
- Fixed quote, week 2. Scope, price, schedule and the named people on the job, in writing, with an acceptance list that defines "done".
- Build and demo, every week. Working software in your repository every week, with 10-minute stand-ups and a written status in between.
- Handoff. Code, tests, documentation and a runbook in your accounts. Support continues only if you want it.
Before stage one
- An NDA, yours or ours, before any scoping conversation
- Read access to code only after the NDA
- The scope, the people and their levels agreed in writing
- The vendors that will see your data named in the proposal
The First Step
A short, fixed first step for each kind of work
Each service starts with a step of a few days at a fixed price, so you see how we work and what the full job costs before you commit. Where the table says credited, the fee counts toward the next stage if it starts within 60 days.
| Work | First step | What comes after |
|---|---|---|
| Moves | Inventory, 5 business days | Fixed quote; a typical site goes live 4 to 8 weeks after it |
| Upgrades | 2-day check, $1,500, credited | Fixed quote and a date, in writing |
| MVPs | Scope sprint, 3 days, $4,500, credited | Fixed price for a fixed scope; 8 to 12 weeks, kickoff to launch |
| Custom software | A written design note before any code | Fixed price for a fixed scope, or hourly for open-ended work |
| AI transitions | AI map, one week, $5,900, credited | A pilot on one task, with two to four weeks of numbers on real data |
| Rescues | Audit, five days, $4,500, credited | Fixed-price fix; a stop-gap within 2 business days for a bug that costs money or data |
| Engineers | People proposed within 5 business days | A working session with your lead before anyone starts |
The Rules
Six rules we work by
They apply to every engagement, and you can hold us to them. Most of them are written into the agreement.
Stand-ups take 10 minutes
Blockers and decisions only. Status is written before the call, so nobody reads numbers aloud. If there is nothing to decide, the stand-up is cancelled.
You talk to the people doing the work
No account managers in between. Questions get a direct answer within one business day, and "we don't know yet" is an answer, with the date we will know.
Billing is transparent
Every quote is in writing before work starts, fixed or hourly, with the level of each person named. Invoices list hours by person, level and task. AI spend is billed at cost, up to a cap you agree, on its own line.
AI does the typing; people own the result
AI agents write code, tests and first drafts on our own internal tooling. A senior engineer specifies the work, reviews every change and decides what ships. Nothing reaches your product unreviewed.
No lies, including to ourselves
Estimates carry ranges. Research carries sources and dates. When we get something wrong, we correct it where you can see it: the Peoplarium research lists every correction.
Win-win, or no deal
We take work where both sides come out ahead. If a cheaper route to your goal exists, or the product should not be built at all, we tell you before you pay for it.
Communication
A fixed rhythm, mostly in writing
Stand-ups take 10 minutes and cover blockers and decisions only. The status is written before the call, in a form you can forward to your board. A working demo lands every week, from your repository, not from a slide.
Between those, we work in a shared channel with you. Questions get a direct answer from an engineer within one business day. Decisions go into a decision log with their reason, so nobody has to remember why something was cut.
Every week
- 10-minute stand-ups, blockers and decisions only
- A written status before each call
- A demo of working software
- A shared channel with the engineers
- A decision log: what we did, what we left, and why
Working hours are Monday to Friday, 8 am to 5 pm Pacific. Engineers placed in your team keep at least four hours a day of overlap with you, US Eastern included.
Quotes And Change Control
Nothing is billed that you did not approve
The quote comes after the first step, in writing: scope, price, schedule and the named people with their levels. Before work starts we agree a written acceptance list of what "done" means. Payment milestones follow that list, not the calendar.
When scope changes, the change gets its own written quote before anyone builds it. If the job turns out bigger than quoted, we stop and tell you in writing. You get the reason, the options and a price for each, and you choose.
On every invoice
- Hours by person, level and task
- AI model and tool costs at cost, on their own line, up to the agreed cap
- Prices in US dollars; Canadian dollars on request
- GBP, EUR or AUD quotes on request
AI Under Human Control
What AI changes, and what it does not
Agents shrink the typing, not the thinking or the waits. On Peoplarium, our own product, a fleet of AI coding agents cut the estimated founder time for the MVP from about 1,120 hours to about 420. The hours that remain are the ones where judgment is the work: specifications, reviews, testing on real phones, and decisions.
What agents do not change: legal review takes weeks, moderation has to be tuned on real traffic, and a private beta needs real people. We plan around those waits instead of promising them away.
The AI working rules
- A written spec and acceptance tests before an agent starts
- A senior engineer reviews every diff, line by line for security-sensitive parts; no agent merges its own work
- AI features ship with a test set they must pass
- AI vendors on terms that exclude training on your data, named in the proposal
- When data cannot leave, open-weight models run in your cloud or on your site
- Access is per person and per agent, and every access is logged
- AI-written text marked as such until a person has edited it
- AI spend capped and billed at cost, on its own invoice line
Handoff And Ownership
Yours from the first commit
The code lives in your repositories and your cloud accounts from day one. Intellectual property transfers to you in full on final payment. When the work ends, our access ends with it.
Handoff means your team can run and change the system without us. You get the code with tests, the documentation, deployment and monitoring, a runbook and the decision log. Ongoing support is quoted per month, only if you want it.
After launch
- A 30-day warranty on every fix: if it breaks as built, we fix it at no charge
- Same-day notice, in writing, if we find a security issue in your system
- Changes by your team, or by us by the hour
- No 24/7 on-call today; working hours are Monday to Friday, 8 am to 5 pm Pacific
Proof
Check our work, not our adjectives
Every case study shows the method: research first, then cut what is illegal or unsafe, then design, then price it. Numbers link to where they came from.
Peoplarium
28 research tasks, 3 plan versions, the architecture, a business model you can change, and 29 decisions with their reasons.
Agentic CRM
Agents research and qualify leads through five gates; people make every sales call. Row-level security per seat. In daily use.
AI assistant
Inbox triage, reply drafts, meeting briefs and follow-ups for a leadership team. In daily use.
In a Client's Words
What a client said
Digi117 clearly understood our objectives and stayed on course with that in mind. They have flawless software application development and customer service.
Is Digi117 the Right Fit?
The right partner for your stage
We are senior engineers built for hard projects with a clear owner. Large programs we run together with Intersog, under one written agreement.
Come to Digi117 For
- Moves off platforms with an end-of-support date
- MVPs and custom software with a fixed scope
- AI inside a product or process that already exists
- Rescues of apps that break under real users
- Senior engineers inside your team
Go Enterprise For
- Large outsourced engineering teams
- AI at scale across a global organization
- Enterprise IT outsourcing programs
That’s our sister company.
Tell us what you are building.
We will tell you the first step, what we would cut, and what it will cost. A senior engineer reads every message. No commitment.
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