Output, not hours
Every pull request is tested and reviewed before it reaches your branch. An unreviewed pull request is negative output, no matter who wrote it.
Engineering staff augmentation that holds up in production.
Most augmentation gives you a person and makes their output your problem. You interview them, you onboard them, you review their pull requests, and when the code is wrong you find out in your own production.
We sell the output, not the seat. Work lands in your branch tested and production-ready, against a scope you signed.
IT staff augmentation services are usually priced and sold as headcount: a rate, a seat, a start date. All three are easy to compare, which is why the category competes on them.
None of them tells you how much of what you paid for will actually ship.
The AI toolchain is disclosed in writing: which tools touch your code, and what they retain.
Procurement has started asking: some US state contracting terms already require that disclosure down to subcontractors, and a federal rule has been proposed.
You get the answer before you have to ask for it, and you own the output outright — the same as any other work you commission.
Book a call →Thirty minutes, no charge.
How it works
What you are actually buying from a staff augmentation company.
Scope, not seats
Priced against a written scope and billed at milestones as work lands, with no minimum engagement length.
Yours, unambiguously
Written IP assignment before repo access, never after. Signed by everyone who touches the code. You own the output, including anything produced with AI assistance.
What buyers ask before they book.
What does engineering staff augmentation cover?
Software engineering inside your repository and your process — the same lines we build under custom software development and AI workflow automation.
What should a staff augmentation agreement contain?
Four clauses decide the engagement: written scope before work starts, IP assignment signed before repository access, who reviews the code and to what standard, and how money is released. The review clause is the one least often negotiated and the one that fails.
What is the difference between staff augmentation and outsourcing?
Direction. In staff augmentation you set the priorities and the engineers work inside your process, your repo, your definition of done. In outsourcing you agree a deliverable and the vendor decides how to produce it.
The practical test is who decides what gets worked on next week. There is a longer breakdown, including managed services and consulting, in our guide to staff augmentation.
How much do staff augmentation services cost?
Work is priced against a written scope and billed as milestones land, so what you compare is the cost of the thing being built rather than the cost of a seat holding it.
Hourly rates you find published are a poor comparison in any case: they exclude the review, the rework and your own management time, and vendor rate cards for the same nominal role contradict each other.
The hire-vs-engage model has the full arithmetic, including the seven costs people leave out.
Is this team extension or a separate team?
Team extension: engineers work inside your process rather than beside it. That is the point of the model and it is also its main cost: it assumes you have someone internal with real capacity to direct the work.
If nobody does, you do not want capacity at all, you want someone accountable for a deliverable, which is a different purchase.
Who owns the code and the IP?
You do, unambiguously. Written IP assignment is signed before repository access is granted, never after, by everyone who touches the code, including anything produced with AI assistance. Ask for that clause at shortlist stage rather than at contract stage.
It costs a vendor nothing to agree to, and how quickly they can produce it tells you whether their own subcontracting chain is documented well enough to deliver it.
What if someone is not working out?
Raise it early and it gets fixed or ended. Milestone billing keeps your money behind delivered work, and either side can end on 30 days notice.
Do your engineers use AI coding tools?
Yes. The toolchain is disclosed in writing: which tools touch your code, what they see and what is retained.
How quickly can you start?
The start date is set in the signed scope, and work begins as soon as the deposit clears.
Start with the backlog that is not moving.
Founder, Provingmark
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