Engagement

I'm not a fan of the typical consulting arrangement where consultants engage at arms' length, quickly survey your company, prepare a list of recommendations, and then leave. Instead, I like to participate in the team, get to know where the real pain points are, come up with solutions, and stick around until products are shipped and the team is operating successfully. In a lot of ways, I am like a full-time engineering hire. As such, I don't take on projects for new clients that involve less than 4 weeks of my time. I also like to be around for daily-to-weekly standups to make sure you are hearing from me and I am hearing from you frequently. I like to make sure clients know what I am working on and a rough sense of what is remaining and how long that is likely to take. I can work on and deliver projects with full autonomy, but I prefer ones that are more collaborative.

I like having a firm plan for the first project: something with clear deliverables that I can estimate the scope upfront. Subsequent projects can be more loosely defined once both parties know how we work together.

I work and bill on an hourly basis. I keep detailed logs of what was worked on and ensure that I'm billing for relevant tasks. My goal is to make sure that you are getting the most for your money when I am on the clock. With the exception of an initial new client session, I do bill for meetings and any administrative tasks that I am obligated by my clients to complete. I submit these hours to clients for review and expect them to be paid in full on the regular employee pay dates. I issue monthly invoices for clients because sometimes they can get R&D tax breaks for my work.

I tend to take on no more than two clients at a time: it's difficult to make meaningful progress otherwise. My preference is toward working with one client at a time, but I can often fit a second client's work in while waiting for feedback/communication with the first.

I'm happy to sign non-disclosure agreements with clients provided that they are sufficiently scoped to the work at hand and that company's core business. I can't sign one for our initial meeting, so be prepared to discuss the potential projects without disclosing sensitive intellectual property.