404inc ▸ Process

Engagement, configured. How a project actually moves through us.

We work in four phases. Each one ends with something the next one can't start without — a written deliverable, a deployed artifact, or a transferred responsibility. No phase blurs into the next, no engagement starts without an exit ramp on the table.

Four phases. Four deliverables.

Every engagement runs this shape. The lengths vary. The artifacts don't.

01
Fit call
45 min · within 1 business day

A free conversation. You describe the problem; we describe whether and how we'd take it on. If we're not the right fit, we'll say so on the call and tell you who is.

You leave with A direct yes or no A scope sketch if it's a yes Two referrals if it's a no
02
Discovery
1 week · paid

A deep, written architecture review. We pair with your team for a week, read your code, talk to your engineers, and produce a system sketch you can act on regardless of whether you keep working with us.

You leave with system_sketch.pdf build_plan.md stack_decision.adr
03
Build
2–18 months · scoped

We embed with your team and ship. Production from week one — no theater builds, no staging-only fictions. Weekly demos. Monthly retros. Quarterly architecture reviews against the original sketch.

You get Code in your repo, day one Telemetry from commit zero A team that can leave clean
04
Handover
2–4 weeks

We don't disappear; we transition. Runbooks, ADRs, on-call rotation handover, and a ninety-day reachable-by-Slack window. The goal: your team owns it, and we still answer the phone.

You leave with runbooks/ folder Complete ADR archive 90 days of warm support

A typical engagement, declared as code.

Yours will look different. The shape will not.

# 404inc.engagement.toml
[fit_call]
duration = "45min"
response = "< 1 business day"
cost = 0

[discovery]
duration = "1 week"
deliverable = ["system_sketch.pdf", "build_plan.md", "stack_decision.adr"]
cost = 8500

[build]
duration = "2-18 months"
team_size = 3 # scales with scope
demo_cadence = "weekly"
production = "week 1" # we ship from day one

[handover]
runbooks = true
on_call_transition = "2-4 weeks"
adr_archive = true
remain_reachable = true # forever

What it costs.

Phase pricing, published. Build engagements are scoped on outcomes, not hours, and quoted after discovery — so the number you see there is set against a system sketch you can take elsewhere if you'd rather.

Phase
Time
Investment
Fit callFrame the problem, decide if we're the right team.
45 min
Free
DiscoveryArchitecture review with written deliverables.
1 week
$8,500
BuildEmbedded engagement, scoped per project.
2–18 months
$320k+
HandoverIncluded in every build.
2–4 weeks
Included

How we actually work.

Day-to-day cadence. The boring parts that make the rest possible.

01 — Embedded, not over-the-fence
In your repo, on your standup.
From day one we work from your repo, attend your standup, and ship to your production. There's no separate 404inc Jira board, no parallel Slack, no "we'll deliver in three weeks" pattern. The work is visible the entire time.
02 — Demo weekly, retro monthly
A working artifact every Friday.
Every week ends with something demoable. Not a status update, not a slide — actual running code or a deployed change. A monthly retro looks at what we said we'd do, what we did, and what's drifting.
03 — ADRs, written down
Decisions you can re-read in 2029.
Every meaningful architectural call gets an Architecture Decision Record — context, options, decision, consequences. By the end of a build you have a folder of them. When the next engineer asks "why is it like this," they can read.
04 — Pager rotation, shared
Our pager, alongside yours.
During build we share the pager. We're on call for what we ship. After handover the pager moves fully to your team — but the people who built it stay reachable for 90 days, and reachable-on-best-effort forever.
05 — One project at a time, per engineer
No matrixed attention.
Engineers at 404inc work on one engagement at a time. No "splitting two days across three clients." Your project gets a full brain, not a slice of one. This is why we run small: we'd rather take fewer engagements at full intensity than more at half.
06 — Exit, planned
A clean handover from week one.
We design the engagement to end. Every piece of work has a documented owner on your side from day one, and the handover plan is written into the build plan — not improvised at the end.

Things people ask.

The questions that come up on most fit calls. Here's the honest version.

Can we skip discovery and go straight to build?
No. Discovery isn't padding — it's the difference between a build engagement that delivers what it should and one that delivers what we both assumed at the start. The week is small relative to a build engagement, and the sketch is yours regardless.
What if we want to stop after discovery?
That happens, and it's fine. You leave with the architecture sketch, the build plan, and the ADRs. You can take them in-house or to another team. We've had several discoveries where the right answer was "you don't need us — here's the eight weeks of work for your existing team."
Do you sign NDAs?
Yes, mutual NDAs are routine for the fit call and discovery. We have a standard one we'll send; we'll sign yours if it's reasonable. We don't sign anything that prevents us from saying we worked with you, or that puts liability for downstream operational decisions on us.
Will you take equity instead of fees?
Generally no. We've done it twice in twenty-four years and regretted both. We're consultants, not co-founders, and conflating those roles compromises the ability to give you straight advice. If your situation genuinely calls for it, we'll discuss it on the fit call — but the default is no.
How many engagements do you run at once?
Four to six per year, total. That's why discovery weeks book a quarter or two out. If you need to start in the next thirty days, the most likely answer is that we can't — and we'll tell you that on the fit call rather than letting you wait.
Do you work remote?
Yes — most engagements are remote-first. We'll travel to your office for the kickoff and once a quarter during build, more if the engagement asks for it. Time zones matter: we work overlapping hours with the team, not asynchronously.

Ready for a fit call?

The conversation starts with one email. Send the shape of the problem and we'll respond inside a business day with whether we can help — and if we can't, who can.

Architect with us → See the work first