Comparison
If you need this capability for the next three years, hire someone.
A permanent senior engineer beats any agency on cost and context over a long enough horizon. The question is only whether your horizon is long enough, and whether you can wait out the hiring.
Short version
The answer, before the argument
For continuous need beyond about twelve months, an in-house senior is cheaper and better than us, and we will tell you so on the call.
We are the right answer when the need is bounded, the start date matters more than the total, or you cannot yet write the job description because you do not know what is wrong.
At a glance
Side by side
| Dimension | An in-house hire | Engisols |
|---|---|---|
| Time to productive | Three to six months | Two weeks |
| Annual cost, loaded | $120K–$220K | Per engagement |
| Context after a year | Deep | Documented, not lived |
| Risk if it is the wrong hire | High, and slow to fix | Ends with the engagement |
| Breadth of stack | One or two areas | Three seniors, different areas |
| Best for | Continuous long-term need | Bounded or urgent work |
In detail
Why each of those is true
Time to productive
Search, notice period and ramp is three to six months before the first meaningful commit, and that is with a good process and no failed offers. If the deadline is inside that window, hiring does not solve this problem no matter how good the eventual hire is.
Cost over time
A senior engineer at full loaded cost is cheaper per month than any agency. Cross a year of continuous need and the arithmetic is not close. Under six months, the recruitment cost and ramp dominate and the comparison inverts.
The wrong-hire risk
A senior hire who is not working out takes months to recognise and months to resolve, during which the work is not happening. That risk is real and rarely priced into the comparison.
Knowing what to hire for
Writing a good job description requires knowing what is wrong. Teams with a stalled build frequently do not, and hire the specialism that matches the last symptom rather than the cause.
The honest part
When an in-house hire is the better answer
Written without hedging. If one of these describes you, take it — the referral is worth more to us than a bad fit.
Choose an in-house hire
- The need is continuous and you can see it lasting beyond a year.
- The domain knowledge is the job, and it compounds by being in the building.
- You can wait three to six months without the delay costing you the opportunity.
- You have someone senior who can technically evaluate candidates.
Choose Engisols
- The work is bounded — a build, a rescue, a migration with an end state.
- The date is not negotiable and hiring cannot meet it.
- You do not yet know what is wrong, so you cannot write the job spec.
- You need three specialisms for six weeks, not one for three years.
- You want the first hire to inherit something documented rather than something stalled.
FAQ
Questions people actually ask
Can you help us hire, and then hand over?
Yes, and it is one of the better ways to use us. We build, we document, and the permanent hire arrives to a codebase with a readable history instead of a rescue. We will also sit in on technical interviews.
Is it not cheaper to hire a junior and supervise them?
Only if someone senior has the time to supervise, and in the teams that ask us this, that person is usually the founder and does not. Unsupervised junior work on a production system is how rescues start.
What if we hire someone halfway through your engagement?
Good. We will onboard them, and the handover is scheduled work rather than a favour. It is genuinely the outcome we prefer.
Why would you talk us out of hiring you?
Because an engagement taken on the wrong premise ends badly for both sides, and the referral from an honest no is worth more than the invoice.