For automation that survives a crash and a rate limit
Hire Automation Engineers
A script that works perfectly in a demo can still duplicate records after a crash or fail silently for three nights running. These engineers are tested on catching that exact fragility before it reaches production. They are then placed to keep unattended automation reliable as your systems keep changing.
- Profiles typically within two business days
- Replacement Assurance: If an engineer is not the right fit, a replacement from our own team starts within ten business days of your request, at no extra cost
- You interview before placement if you want to
- At least four hours a day inside your core working hours. Two hours plus a daily written handover for the US West Coast
- 14-Day Risk-Free Trial: For your first engineer on a time-and-materials engagement. Up to 14 calendar days or 80 logged working hours, whichever comes first. End within the trial and pay nothing for trial hours. Continue beyond it and those hours are billed at the agreed rate. Unpaid trial work remains ours if you stop
How we evaluate an automation engineer
The tasks, the signals and the onboarding, walked through by the people who run them.
90 secSample frame · video pending01Published, not promised
The assessment behind every engineer we send.
The automation bar is published, not assumed: five competencies, the exact task behind each, and the shortcut that ends a candidacy. Most interviews ask about scripting syntax. This one asks whether a job can be safely rerun after failing halfway through.
What we listen forWhether they question the ask, not just estimate the build time.
A team asks for a script to automate a report that takes someone twenty minutes once a month. Walk us through your response.
- What strong sounds like
- Calculates the actual time saved against the build and maintenance cost, and recommends against automating something this infrequent and low-value.
- What gives us pause
- Starts building the automation immediately without weighing the twenty-minute monthly cost against the ongoing maintenance burden.
Python · Bash · Node.js
REST APIs · Webhooks · Message Queues
Airflow · Cron · Systemd Timers
Retry Logic · Idempotency Keys · Alerting/Monitoring
02Who you actually meet
The bench, priced by seniority.
Three seniority tiers, priced honestly, and the engineers who fill each one today. Real names and photos take their place as soon as we can share them, and the standard stays exactly the same.
Engineer
Features scoped tightly enough to ship inside your review bar, every time.
The right first hire when your seniors already set the standard.
$2,000–2,600per month
Senior
The hard module nobody else wants to own, taken end to end.
Ownership of a surface, without adding a manager to your headcount.
$2,900–3,600per month
Lead
The workstream's decisions, made daily, so nothing waits on a meeting.
One accountable voice for a pod or initiative that can't afford to drift.
$3,900–4,900per month
Automation engineer
3 yrs · US East overlap
Added alerting to an unattended sync job after a silent failure went unnoticed for two days
- Python
- API Integration
- Scheduling
Senior automation engineer
6 yrs · UK + EU hours
Retired a brittle automation that cost more in upkeep than the manual process it replaced
- Idempotent Design
- Error Handling
- Workflow Orchestration
Lead automation architect
9 yrs · EU + US split
Owns the automation-ROI review board that decides which manual processes are actually worth automating
- Architecture
- Systems Integration
- Monitoring
Indicative ranges, representative profiles. Exact figures and named engineers arrive with your shortlist.
Weighing this against a freelancer, a direct hire or a marketplace? See the honest comparison
03From stated problem to first change
Four steps, each closing on evidence.
This sequence tests judgement about what should run unattended, not familiarity with a scripting language. Stopping at any point along the way owes us nothing.
Define the automation problem
We map where your manual processes are actually worth automating and where they are not. The brief names that judgement call, not a list of scripting languages to know.
A brief your leads signMatch against your systems
Candidates are screened against your actual systems, integration points and failure history. Three engineers who understand your stack beat thirty who list a language on a CV.
Three fits, not thirty CVsAssess on the real tasks
Your team can watch the idempotency and alerting exercises directly. What shows up is judgement about unattended failure, not a scripting speed test.
Evaluation you can watchOnboard inside your process
Access, standards and a first bounded automation shipped for real. Continuity cover keeps a departure from turning into a silent job failure nobody catches.
A running job in week one
04Evidence and proof
Engineers who automated the right process, not just any process.
Automation proof is a job that survives a crash and a rate limit, not a script that only worked in a demo. Every record here waits for written client approval before production.
Explore case studies
The sync job that stopped duplicating records after a crash.
Vela Ledger's nightly reconciliation sync would partially update records before failing, and rerunning it duplicated a third of the previous night's work. An embedded automation engineer redesigned the script to be idempotent so any rerun produces the same correct result.
- Duplicate records after rerun
- None, going forward
- Manual reconciliation required
- Eliminated
He built an alert that reaches someone the moment a job fails, instead of a log nobody reads until morning.
Sample · pending client approval
She told us plainly that a script we wanted built would cost more to maintain than the time it saved.
Sample · pending client approval
05Three shapes, one standard
Add an engineer, an automation pod, or a practice.
Most teams start with one engineer hardening automation already in production. Some need a pod that owns integration reliability end to end. Where automating a whole operating workflow matters more than one seat, we point you to the practice instead.
- Team extension
One named engineer
A single automation specialist inside your direction and your review process. The smallest commitment, and the natural first step.
- Delivery pods
An automation pod
A pod with its own lead that owns integration reliability, alerting and script maintenance end to end. You set priorities while the pod carries delivery.
- Product Engineering
The practice, not the person
When automating a whole operating workflow outweighs one seat, product engineering takes on that broader delivery scope instead.
06Straight answers
Asked before an automation engineering hire is signed.
01What does an automation engineer actually do day to day?
Judges which manual processes are worth automating, designs scripts that rerun safely after a crash, and builds alerting that reaches someone the moment a job fails. Weighing the maintenance cost is as much the job as writing the script.
02How is this different from hiring an RPA developer?
RPA automates a human's clicks through an existing user interface. This role automates the underlying process itself, usually through APIs and scripts, with no interface involved at all.
03Can we run our own interviews as well?
Yes, the published tasks are built to be reused directly. Several clients now run the idempotency exercise themselves in later hiring rounds.
04How fast can an automation engineer start?
A shortlist arrives within days from a bench evaluated continuously. Actual start speed after that depends on how quickly your side can grant system and API access.
05Who manages the engineer day to day?
Your leads set which processes get automated and review the results. We carry the employment relationship instead, including payroll and arranging a replacement if plans change.
06What if the engineer is not the right fit?
Early feedback triggers a free replacement, no negotiation needed on our side. Whatever caused the mismatch gets folded into the brief for whoever comes next.
07Do your automation engineers use AI coding tools?
Yes, to draft first-pass scripts and integration boilerplate quickly. The engineer still owns every retry rule, alert threshold and idempotency decision that ships to production.
08How does pricing work for a hired automation engineer?
Think of the bands as a planning range; your shortlist carries the true number once we know the scope. Monthly billing, no placement fee, notice-period exit only.