Slow to capability
Hire directly
You carry sourcing, ramp and attrition risk for months before the first line of production code. Right when you already have the leadership bandwidth to absorb it.
Engagement model
Build. Operate.
Transfer.
A dedicated engineering team, stood up and run by us, then handed over to you. You end up owning the software and the team that runs it.
- Rent
- Extend
- Own
Engagement model
Team moves with the software
Dedicated senior team
- FEFrontend
- BEBackend
- PLPlatform
- QAQuality
Rent Extend Own
- 01
Build
Stand the team up
- 02
Operate
Run until mature
- 03
Transfer
People + code → you
- Team shape
- Small, senior
- Operate phase
- Until mature
- Transfer
- Agreed up front
- What transfers
- People + code
Why this exists
Owning the software is half the answer
The Own lane needs an owned team. Build-Operate-Transfer is how you get one without spending a year hiring before anything ships.
Slow to capability
Hire directly
You carry sourcing, ramp and attrition risk for months before the first line of production code. Right when you already have the leadership bandwidth to absorb it.
Capability does not stay
Outsource
Fast to start, and the capability leaves with the contract. Knowledge sits in a supplier's delivery team, not in your organisation.
Capability does not stay
Outsource
Fast to start, and the capability leaves with the contract. Knowledge sits in a supplier's delivery team, not in your organisation.
Both, deliberately
Build-Operate-Transfer
We stand the team up, run delivery while it matures, then hand it over. You get the speed of a supplier and the permanence of an internal team.
Both, deliberately
Build-Operate-Transfer
We stand the team up, run delivery while it matures, then hand it over. You get the speed of a supplier and the permanence of an internal team.
The three phases
What actually happens, in order
Each phase ends in something you can inspect, not a status report.
01
Build
Opening phase
Role design against the workflows you intend to own, hiring to an agreed bar with your leadership in the final loop, environments and security set up in your accounts, and a first production slice shipped by the new team rather than by a separate delivery unit.
The result
A working team with software in production — not a signed statement of work.
02
Operate
Main phase
We run delivery: cadence, code review, architecture ownership, performance management, and backfills when someone leaves. Your product leadership sets priorities; our engineering lead is accountable for how the work gets done.
The result
Predictable delivery while the team matures under our accountability, not yours.
03
Transfer
From day one, completed on a date
Leadership handover to your named engineering lead, employment transfer on the terms set at the start, documentation and runbooks already written, tooling and IP already in your accounts. The transfer is an administrative date, not a migration project.
The result
An internal team on your payroll, with no re-platforming event to survive.
Inventory
What transfers, precisely
If it is not on this list, it does not count as a transfer.
- Employment contracts for every engineer, on terms agreed up front
- The engineering lead, and the delivery cadence they run
- Repositories, cloud accounts and CI/CD — yours from the first commit
- Architecture decision records and system documentation
- Runbooks, alerting and the on-call rota
- Vendor, licence and third-party API relationships
- Hiring scorecards, interview loops and onboarding material
Boundaries
What stays ours — and what never was
Ownership only means something if the contract is explicit about both sides of the line.
Stays ours
- Our internal tooling and delivery methods (unless assigned)
- Recruiting pipelines and employer brand we use to staff teams
- Commercial frameworks and playbooks that are not your product
Never was ours
- Your code, data, schemas and intellectual property
- Your cloud accounts, secrets and compliance regime
- Your customers, workflows and operating decisions
- The team’s day-to-day accountability once transfer completes
At every step, everything we create for your workflow is your property.
Commercials
Three lines, no surprises
The structure is fixed before the first hire. Figures are quoted per engagement, against the roles you actually need.
Build fee
Per role, payable when that engineer starts. Covers role design, sourcing, assessment and onboarding.
Operate fee
Monthly per engineer, all-in: salary, employer costs, tooling, management and our delivery accountability. No separate management uplift.
Transfer
Terms agreed before the first hire, with no success premium at the end. An earlier transfer is priced the same way as the planned one.
Honest limits
When BOT is the wrong answer
Three situations where we will tell you not to do this.
A one-off project with a defined end. Take an outcome-scoped build instead.
No plan for internal engineering leadership. Without someone to transfer to, transfer is fiction.
A workflow that should be rented or extended, not owned. Classify it before staffing it.
Questions
What clients ask first
- Who employs the team during the operate phase?
- We do. The engineers are on our contracts, working to your priorities under our delivery accountability. At transfer, employment moves to your entity on terms agreed at the start.
- How does hiring work?
- We design the roles with you, agree the hiring bar and scorecards, and run sourcing and assessment. Your engineering or product leadership sits in the final loop for every hire.
- What if we want to stop before transfer?
- The transfer terms are set up front, including an early transfer. Code, data, repositories and cloud accounts are yours from the first commit, so stopping never leaves you without the asset.
- How does this interact with a fixed-scope build?
- Often the build comes first: we deliver one workflow as an outcome-scoped engagement, then stand up a BOT team around the system that now exists and matters.
- Where does the team sit, and what overlap do we get?
- We staff for meaningful working-hours overlap with your core team rather than follow-the-sun handoffs. Location is agreed per engagement against cost, hiring depth and data-residency constraints.
Next step
Model a BOT team around one workflow.
Bring the workflow you suspect should be owned. We will map whether BOT is the right path — or tell you to leave it alone.