Method
Hope is not a strategy.
How we run engagements, why we say no to most of the work we're offered, and what "shipped" actually means at Lateral. Boredom, in production, is the goal.
The process
Six steps, no theater.
The same spine whether you hire one engineer or hand us the whole build.
- · 01
Discovery
A real engineer scopes it with you: one hire, a squad, or the entire build. If we can’t describe the finish line in a page, we don’t start.
- · 02
Match
Within 7 days you interview vetted seniors matched to your stack and time zone. The person you meet is the person who ships.
- · 03
Onboard
Contracts, payroll, equipment, access: all handled by us. Week one ends with a commit in your repo, not a kickoff deck.
- · 04
Embed
Your tools, your rituals, your standup. We don’t run a parallel process, and we don’t hide behind an account manager.
- · 05
Optimize
A dedicated success lead works 1:1 with every embedded engineer; delivery health is reviewed monthly with you, in numbers, in writing.
- · 06
Scale
Add seats, compose a team, or hand us an outcome. Same bar, same pricing logic, 30 days notice either way.
How we vet
50,000 reviewed. Fewer than 1% accepted.
Most networks vet on keywords. We vet on craft: engineers reviewing engineers, every stage.
- 01
Resume screen
~50,000 engineers a year enter the funnel. Most stop here. We read for shipped systems, not keywords.
- 02
Code review
An engineer in the same discipline reviews real work: repos, PRs, production stories. No leetcode.
- 03
Live pair session
A real task in their actual stack, AI tooling allowed and expected. We watch how they think, not just what compiles.
- 04
Reference calls
Two people they shipped with, called by us. We ask what they’d hire them for again, and what they wouldn’t.
- 05
Two-week trial
The first two weeks of every engagement are a working trial. Not a fit? You don’t pay, and we re-match.
Measure twice, cut once
Five principles we won't trade.
Read what matters first
Understand the relevant code, data, and constraints before proposing a change. Scale the investigation to the decision and the cost of getting it wrong.
Ride along
Observe how people actually do the work. A conversation, a support ticket, or time alongside a user can expose what the spec leaves out.
Press release first
Describe the customer, the change, and the evidence that would make the launch worth announcing. Surface the assumptions before committing to the build.
Evals before the model
For AI work the harness ships first. The model is whatever passes it.
Boring is a feature
The simplest architecture that survives one production incident. Success is measured in 3am pages that never happen.
Quality, guaranteed
The parts we put in the contract.
SLAs, in writing
Response times, delivery cadence, and escalation paths are contractual, not vibes. If a date moves, you hear it from us first, with options.
Dedicated success lead
Every embedded engineer is paired with a dedicated success lead whose only job is helping them thrive on your team. Management overhead, absorbed.
Replacement guarantee
If a placement isn’t working, we re-match at no fee, and we manage the transition so your roadmap doesn’t feel it.
IP protection
You own everything we write from the first commit: code, runbooks, infra accounts. No lock-in, contractually.
Things we don't do
Boundaries.
- No bench. If we don't have the right people, we say so.
- No "discovery phases" for the sake of billable hours. If we can't tell you what to build in two weeks, we shouldn't be the ones building it.
- No handoffs. The designer is in the PR review.
- No junior bait-and-switch. The expert you interview is the expert who ships.
- No vendor lock-in. You own everything we write: IP, runbook, infra accounts.
- No "we'll figure it out in QA." Production is QA.
See it applied to your problem.
A 30-minute call with an engineer. We tell you honestly whether we're the right partner.