Frequently-Asked Questions

How much do you charge?

Our standard rate is $183 per hour for senior developers. For some engagements, we may be able to find less senior developers at a lower rate.

There's an up-charge of $10 per hour if we're required to use Windows. (We're not big fans of Windows, and we've got our Mac and Linux laptops configured just the way we want.)

There's an up-charge of $25 per hour if we're required to work in the San Francisco Bay or New York City areas. (We love the big city, but it's expensive to live there.)

Why are you so expensive?

Our senior developers are experts in technologies that produce value quickly. We're also experts in Agile development practices that pack as much value as possible. We also train your developers during our engagement, so that they'll improve their efficiency. This puts us in high demand. But we're confident that we're competitive in value for your dollar.

Why are you so inexpensive?

Many of our competitors charge $200 to $300 per hour. Most of our developers live in the Midwest, where the cost of living is low, so we can charge less.

How does "Agile" work?

The Agile techniques we use are geared to deliver value to customers as fast as possible. This doesn't mean skimping on quality; it means delivering quality to ensure progress is not eventually slowed down by bugs, bad code, poor design, or bad architectural decisions. We work with customers to identify the value of desired features, and always work on the most valuable remaining feature.

Do you do "Agile coaching"?

We prefer the role of "player/coach". We don't like to come in and just tell you what you should do. We prefer to be embedded with the team, so we can determine the best way forward together.

That said, we're pretty active in the Agile community, so if you're looking for someone to fill an Agile coach role, we can likely find someone.

Why Ruby on Rails?

When Ruby on Rails came out, we noticed pretty quickly that it was special. Rails is a great choice for getting an application started quickly. (We've built small applications in less than 48 hours.) Ruby is a great language - it's elegant, simple, yet powerful. It lets us get things done quickly without lots of ceremony (needlessly verbose code).

What is Rails rescue?

While Ruby on Rails is a great framework, it doesn't make development foolproof. Rails is geared towards small to medium sized projects, so larger projects become harder to organize. We've had experience dealing with these growing pains, and can help you break up your application into manageable pieces. This may involve applying OOP principles, service objects, form objects, modules, background tasks, Rails engines, service-oriented architecture (SOA), or microservices.

How do I know if my Rails project needs rescuing?

Is your bug rate increasing? Does it take longer and longer to add new features? Do you lack tests to provide you with confidence that changes won't break existing features? Do your developers wish they could take a break from fixing bugs and adding features so they can fix the way the application works internally? If you answered "yes" to any of those, you could use some help.