Monthly engineering retainer

An engineering department on call without hiring another employee

A monthly bank of hours, an agreed response time and production credit, instead of hiring a full-time engineer you may not need every month.

What you get A monthly bank of hours With an SLA and production credit

The engineering need is real, but it does not justify a full-time role

The monthly retainer was built for exactly that gap:

You need an engineer a few days a month, not five days a week.
Hiring an experienced engineer takes months and costs far more than the salary.
Every one-off enquiry to an outside supplier starts again from explaining the product.
There are routine engineering questions that stall because there is nobody to ask.

A monthly bank of hours Engineering hours you draw on as your needs demand that month.
An agreed response time A written SLA, so that urgent for you means urgent for us.
A team that knows the product No explaining it again each time. The knowledge stays with us and builds up.
Production credit Part of the retainer comes back to you as credit against actual production.

1 Define the scope How many hours a month, which areas, and what response time you need.
2 We come on board We get to know your product, your team and your processes.
3 Ongoing work You come to us as the need arises, and get a report on how the hours were used.

The need is one-off Product development on demand, with no monthly commitment. Details →
There is one focused project An engineering sprint gives a concentrated push. Details →
You only need a single review An engineering review answers that. Details →

Medical, defence, robotics, automation and manufacturing plants.

What happens to hours I did not use?

That is set in the agreement and explained up front. We will tell you exactly how it works before you sign, with no small print.

Can the scope go up or down?

Yes. The scope is reviewed against your needs and can be adjusted.

Do you work alongside our in-house team?

Yes. In most cases we complement an existing team rather than replace it.

What is production credit?

Part of the monthly fee turns into credit you can use against actual production with us, so the retainer pays off twice over if you also manufacture.