Pricing
Transparent engineering rates
Published bands for all fourteen roles, and a plain statement of what the platform fee covers.
Rates run from around sixty dollars per hour for mid-level generalist engineers to one hundred and eighty for principal AI agent engineers. Scarce specialisms such as Digital Product Passport engineering sit at the top of the range. The platform fee is included in the quoted rate.
Rate bands by role
These are typical contract rates across the regions we source from. A specific engagement may sit outside a band if you require an unusual time zone, a rare skill combination or a specific country.
| Role | Mid-level | Senior | Staff / Principal |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Agent Engineers | $80-110/hr | $110-150/hr | $150-180/hr |
| Forward Deployed Engineers | $95-125/hr | $125-155/hr | $155-175/hr |
| RAG Engineers | $85-115/hr | $115-145/hr | $145-160/hr |
| LLMOps Engineers | $90-120/hr | $120-150/hr | $150-170/hr |
| Machine Learning Engineers | $85-115/hr | $115-145/hr | $145-165/hr |
| Full-Stack Engineers | $60-90/hr | $90-120/hr | $120-140/hr |
| Backend Engineers | $65-95/hr | $95-125/hr | $125-150/hr |
| Frontend Engineers | $60-90/hr | $90-120/hr | $120-140/hr |
| Data Engineers | $70-100/hr | $100-130/hr | $130-150/hr |
| Platform and DevOps Engineers | $70-100/hr | $100-135/hr | $135-160/hr |
| Mobile Engineers | $60-90/hr | $90-120/hr | $120-140/hr |
| Digital Product Passport Engineers | $95-125/hr | $125-155/hr | $155-175/hr |
| Circular Economy Systems Engineers | $90-120/hr | $120-150/hr | $150-165/hr |
| Traceability Engineers | $95-125/hr | $125-155/hr | $155-170/hr |
What the fee covers
- Sourcing and the full five-stage vetting process for every candidate presented
- Deterministic matching against your brief, with the score breakdown shown to you
- Contracting, invoicing and cross-border payment handling
- Re-matching at no additional platform fee if the match proves wrong
How rates move
- Time zone. Requiring six or more hours of overlap with a narrow window reduces supply and raises rates, often more than seniority does.
- Country requirements. Needing a specific country, usually for compliance reasons, removes most of the global pool.
- Rare combinations. Agent engineering plus a regulated domain, or DPP plus a specific ERP, is scarcer than either skill alone.
- On-call. Production responsibility outside business hours is priced separately and should be agreed explicitly rather than assumed.
Frequently asked questions
Is the platform fee included in the rate?
Yes. The rate you are quoted is the rate you pay — there is no separate platform fee added at invoicing, and no markup applied after you agree a rate. The fee is our margin within that number and is disclosed before you commit.
Why are AI-native roles more expensive?
Scarcity, not novelty pricing. Very few engineers have genuinely run agent systems or implemented Digital Product Passports in production, and the ones who have are in demand. The premium reflects a real supply constraint rather than a surcharge on the same people.
Do rates vary by region?
Yes, substantially. Rates for equivalent seniority can differ by more than three times between markets. Our bands reflect a blend across sourcing regions; if you require a specific country or time zone, that narrows supply and moves the rate accordingly.
Are there minimum engagement terms?
We recommend a one to two week paid trial before a longer commitment, and most engagements then run three months or more. There is no contractual minimum beyond the trial, because locking a client into a bad match helps nobody.
What happens if I need to end an engagement early?
Standard notice is two weeks on either side after the trial period. If the engagement ends because the match was wrong, we re-match with no additional platform fee — that is a failure of our process, not a chargeable event.
Do you charge for sending a brief?
No. Briefs, shortlists and the vetting evidence behind each candidate are free. You pay only when an engagement starts, and engineers are never charged to be listed on the platform.