How we work
Slower to start. Much harder to derail.
The fastest way to waste a year is to start building before anyone has written down what “working” means. We spend the first stage on that, in writing, at a fixed price — across all 55 services, not only the advisory ones.
Who leads what
We build the team. You lead the work.
We recruit, employ, support and retain the engineers. They work directly as part of your team — you set priorities, run the standups and integrate them into your processes like anyone else on the payroll. Nobody from StackHog sits between you and your engineers.
Behind that, we keep the engagement healthy: statutory compliance, payroll and retention are ours, and we replace at our cost if performance is not there in the first month.
Ours
- Sourcing and technical screening
- Employment, payroll, PF and ESI
- Retention, and replacement at our cost
- Architecture oversight on the build
Yours
- Interviewing and choosing who starts
- Priorities, backlog and definition of done
- Day-to-day direction and code review
- The decision to scale up, or stop
What you get before you commit
The scope document arrives before the invoice.
Every engagement opens with the same artifact: what we found, what it costs, what we will not do, and what we think you should not build. It is written so it is still useful if you take it to another supplier.
Sample — architecture review
Where most engagements start
Four small, fixed-scope ways to test us.
Deliberately drawn from four different practices. None of them requires you to commit to anything larger, and each produces something useful whether or not you continue.
01
Architecture review
A second opinion mid-build, when something feels wrong but nobody can name it. Where it breaks first, and what fixing it costs now versus later.
- Duration
- 1–2 weeks
- Scope
- Fixed in writing
02
Startup MVP build
Six to ten weeks to something real users can use, with the scope cut honestly rather than quoted optimistically.
- Duration
- 6–10 weeks
- Scope
- Fixed in writing
03
Cloud cost optimisation
Priced as a share of what we save you. The easiest first yes in this catalogue, because you risk nothing.
- Duration
- 2–4 weeks
- Scope
- Fixed in writing
04
Permanent placement
Engineers screened by an engineer, with written evidence per candidate and a 90-day replacement guarantee.
- Duration
- 3–8 weeks
- Scope
- Fixed in writing
How to work with us
Four models, and who carries the risk in each.
Fixed scope, fixed price
Assessments, reviews, audits and well-defined builds
We agree the scope and the number in writing before anything starts. A change of scope is a new quote, never a surprise invoice.
- Billing
- Quoted per engagement · 40% on start, balance on delivery
- Risk
- Ours. If it takes longer than we estimated, that is our problem.
Dedicated team
Ongoing product development with a moving backlog
Named engineers you interview, working to your backlog, your standups and your definition of done. Architecture oversight is included.
- Billing
- Monthly per engineer · quoted on the roles you need
- Risk
- Shared. Monthly, cancellable with notice — no annual lock-in.
Staff augmentation
Filling a specific gap in a team you already run
We are the employer of record and handle statutory compliance; you direct the work day to day. International engagements are structured as offshore delivery, which is an export of services.
- Billing
- Monthly, as an agreed markup on cost · quoted per role
- Risk
- Yours to direct, ours to replace if performance is not there in month one.
Managed service or retainer
Anything that has to keep running after it is built
A monthly contract with named response targets, an escalation path and a monthly report on cost, availability and what changed.
- Billing
- Monthly retainer · quoted against the SLA
- Risk
- Ours, against the SLA written into the contract.
What “quality” means here
Six practices, not an adjective.
Every services firm says it cares about quality. These are the specific things we do — and they are the ones worth asking any supplier to name.
Peer review on every change
No direct pushes to a main branch, including by the principal.
Tests as a gate, not a report
A build that drops below the agreed coverage does not merge.
Architecture decision records
Every significant decision written down with its alternatives and its reasoning, so the next team knows why.
Security scanning in the pipeline
Dependency, secret and container scanning on every build, with findings triaged rather than ignored.
Accessibility to WCAG 2.2 AA
Checked with a screen reader and a keyboard, not only with an automated scan.
Handover as a deliverable
Runbooks, environment setup and a recorded walkthrough. The engagement is not finished until your team can operate it.
The honest version
When offshore goes wrong, it is usually one of five things.
None of these is unfair. They are what we would ask about too, so here is the answer to each one before you have to ask it.
The worry
The engineer leaves after nine months
Our answer
We are the employer of record, and we replace at our cost
Retention is our problem, not yours. If performance is not there in the first month we replace the person and absorb the cost of doing it.
The worry
A twelve-hour time zone gap
Our answer
India overlaps your morning, and we keep to it
IST overlaps UK mornings comfortably and US mornings at the edges. The overlap window is agreed before the engagement starts and it is in the contract, not in an email.
The worry
You will send whoever is on the bench
Our answer
You interview every named engineer before they start
No profile reaches you without a technical conversation with one of our engineers first, and written evidence per competency. You still make the final call.
The worry
A recruiter who cannot read a CV they are selling
Our answer
The screen is run by someone who has done the job
We run an architecture practice. That is also why we will sometimes tell you the role you have written is really two roles, or six weeks of consulting.
The worry
Offshore staffing is a regulatory grey area
Our answer
It is an export of services, and we can show you why
We employ the engineer in India and supply their services to you. That is not emigration, so the Emigration Act 1983 registration and its ₹20 lakh bank guarantee do not apply. Exports are zero-rated under a filed LUT.