Suryanand · Founding Engineer

If this sounds like you, keep reading

You're One Senior Hire Away From Shipping. But That Hire Is Killing You.

The average founding-engineer search takes 5.4 months. Most pre-PMF startups don't have 5.4 months. And every other option (agencies, freelancer marketplaces, offshore teams) was built to bill you, not build with you.

[ founder at whiteboard · placeholder ]

The hidden cost of handing your product to outsiders.

Every week your codebase belongs to a vendor instead of a partner, four things compound silently, and none of them show up on your P&L until it's too late.

Your roadmap rots. Investors saw a deck. They expect product, not Jira tickets.
Dev shops bill hours, not outcomes. Their incentive is to stretch, not ship.
Your no-code MVP becomes technical debt the moment a senior engineer touches it.
Whoever you eventually hire spends month one undoing what an outside team built.

Here's exactly what you get

In 4 Weeks, You'll Have a Production-Grade Product, And a Team That's Genuinely Part of It.

No fluff sprints. No "discovery phases". Real PRs in your repo, day one. The difference: we embed in your goals, your roadmap, your investors, your customer calls. We're not your dev shop. We're operators inside your startup.

Architect. Code. Embed.

Most contractors only execute. Most agencies only manage. We do both, and I personally own the outcome from architecture to launch. When the scope is lean, it's mostly me. When the work needs more hands, I bring in a small bench of operators I've shipped with before. Either way, you talk to me, you ship with me, and the work is mine to answer for.

System design done in week one. Auth, payments, data model, infra, CI.
I write the foundation myself. The first commits, the architecture, the early product decisions. That's me, in your repo.
The team scales with the work, not the other way around. No padded "resources", no junior bench-warmers.
I am the single accountable owner. One throat to choke, one Slack handle, no account managers.
You own the repo from day one. Full IP assignment, no equity ask, no lock-in.
Cancel any month. If month one isn't worth 3× the fee, walk.

[ architecture diagram · placeholder ]

Here's the 4-week breakdown

What Actually Happens From Day One To Day Thirty.

No "kickoff workshops". You'll see merged PRs by Friday of week one. Here's the exact day-by-day.

Day 01

Architecture sprint kicks off. Repo is live by EOD.

I'm in your codebase (or starting a fresh one) within 24 hours. We pair on the data model, auth, infra choice, payments, and your first ADR. You go to bed with a working repo and a deployed staging URL.

Output → Live repo · staging URL · 90-day roadmap doc

Days 02–07

Core systems shipped. Friday demo on the calendar.

Auth, payments scaffolding, multi-tenant data model, CI/CD pipeline, observability. Your investors get a Loom by Friday. You start sleeping again.

Output → Auth · payments · CI · first Friday demo

Days 08–21

The product gets built. 60–70% of v1 codebase, by me.

Daily PRs, weekly deploys, recorded demo every Friday. You're in standup. You'll know exactly what's shipping next week, and what we're cutting.

Output → v1 feature set · weekly deploys · cut list

Days 22–30

Beta-ready product. Engineer #2 sourcing kicks off.

We ship a beta to your first 10–25 users. I write the job description for your founding-engineer hire and start the search. By month 4, they're onboarded and shipping.

Output → Beta launch · hiring rubric · candidate pipeline

Plus, when you book this month

4 Bonuses I Throw In. Because You'll Need Them Anyway.

These aren't upsells. They're the things every founder asks me for in week two, so I just include them.

BONUS · 01VALUE $4,500

The Founding-Engineer Hiring Playbook

The exact JD, interview rubric, take-home, and reference-check questions I use to source your replacement. 41 pages, battle-tested across 9 hires.

~~$4,500~~Included free

BONUS · 02VALUE $3,000

Architecture-Decision-Records Kit

Every ADR I write for your repo, plus the templates so your future team writes them too. Stops the "why did we do it this way?" Slack thread on day 90.

~~$3,000~~Included free

BONUS · 03VALUE $6,000

Investor Demo Day Prep · 1:1

Two 60-min sessions before your next investor demo. We pair on what to show, what to hide, and how to answer the "but can this scale?" question.

~~$6,000~~Included free

BONUS · 04VALUE $2,500

30-Day Post-Roll-Off Runbook Support

For 30 days after I'm gone, your team gets unlimited Slack questions. Most don't need it. The ones who do are very glad I wrote the runbooks.

~~$2,500~~Included free

Yes, claim my founding engineer + bonuses $16,000 in bonuses · included free

Bonuses expire when the slot fills · 1 left

The honest comparison

Embedded Team vs. Full-Time Hire vs. An Agency.

The exact thing your CFO will ask. Here's the side-by-side. We're the embedded team: I lead, the right operators ship alongside me.

	Suryanand-led Team	Full-Time Hire	Agency
Time to first PR	✓Day 1	Month 5–6 (after search)	Week 4–6
Monthly cost	✓From $7,999	~$18k+ loaded (salary + equity + benefits)	$25k–60k typical
Who actually writes the code	✓Suryanand leads, plus named operators when scope expands	The one engineer	Whichever junior is free
Single point of accountability	✓Suryanand owns every release	The hire (if they stay)	✗Account manager, then nobody
Embeds in your goals & roadmap	✓Investor calls, customer calls, weekly reviews	Yes	✗Bills hours, ignores strategy
Hires your in-house replacement	✓Built into the contract	✗Not their job	✗Opposite incentive
Equity required	✓None	1–2% typical	✓None
Cancel any month	✓Yes, 30 days notice	Severance, lawyers, mess	3–12 month contracts
Risk if it doesn't work	✓Month 1 refund	Months of runway gone	Locked-in invoice

A few recent outcomes

Three Startups. Three Specific Results.

No vague "we partnered with X". Real numbers, real timelines.

Stealth · Fintech

4weeks to v1

Replaced 6 months of agency work in one architecture sprint.

Inherited a half-shipped Next.js + Firebase codebase. Migrated to Postgres, wired Stripe properly, shipped v1 to first paying customers in 27 days.

Closed seed extension off the demo

Araxis AI

$8MSeries A

Built the eval harness that turned a demo into a Series A.

Stood up LangGraph + pgvector RAG, built eval pipeline measuring real customer tasks. The eval numbers were the slide that closed the round.

12 weeks · 1 founder + me

Relic Care

2engineers hired

Rolled off in 7 months. Team still shipping a year later.

Wrote the JD, ran the loop, onboarded both. CTO took over the codebase month 8. Both engineers still there and still shipping.

Optional advisor seat · 1hr / week

Real talk

This Is Not For You If…

I'd rather you close this tab than book the wrong call. If any of these describe you, we're not a fit.

Don't book a call if…

You want someone to take equity instead of cash. We don't take equity. Period.
You haven't talked to a customer yet. Go validate first. We'll be here when you have signal.
You're shopping on price. We're not the cheapest. There are cheaper options, and they're cheaper for a reason.
You want a yes-team. If you ask my opinion on your roadmap, I'll give it. Honestly. So will the operators behind me.
You want a dev shop. If you want a vendor to send tickets to and ignore until launch, we're not it. We embed.
You want to outsource your product. We become part of it. We sit in your goals, your launches, your investor updates.

What founders actually say

From Six Founders Who Stopped Bleeding Runway.

Short. Real. Published with permission.

★★★★★

"He shipped in 4 weeks what our last contractor took 6 months not to ship. We closed our seed extension off his demo."

A. Khanna

Co-founder · stealth fintech

★★★★★

"First engineer who wrote code AND told me which features not to build. The 'not to build' list was worth the fee alone."

M. Rao

CEO · Araxis AI

★★★★★

"Closed our Series A with a demo he built in the architecture sprint. That's the testimonial."

J. Thompson

Founder · Contosso Health

★★★★★

"By month 6, I'd hired two engineers off the loop he ran. Both still here a year later. Best ROI on any founding-stage spend."

S. Dasgupta

CTO · Relic Care

★★★★★

"Cost less than the agency quote. Did about 4× the work. Less impressed by my dumb ideas though, which I needed."

E. Mendez

Founder · stealth devtools

★★★★★

"Best money I've spent at this stage. Tied with the ergonomic chair. I am not joking."

L. Park

Solo founder · pre-seed

Let's get the pushback out of the way

The 4 Things Every Smart Founder Asks Before Booking.

If you didn't have one of these reactions, you probably aren't being careful enough with your money. So here's the straight version.

Q."$7,999 a month is too expensive."

Compared to what? A bad senior-eng hire costs you $180k in salary, 4 months of runway, and the wrong architecture. You're getting me plus the right operators behind me, for less than a junior FTE, and you can cancel any month. If month one isn't worth 3× the fee, fire us. It's in the contract.

Q."Why not just hire a full-time founding engineer?"

You should, eventually. The average founding-engineer search is 5.4 months. Most pre-PMF startups don't have 5.4 months. We take week one, ship until you find them, then run the interview loop and onboard them. The handoff is the product we're actually selling.

Q."Why not an agency? They're cheaper."

Because we're not an agency. Agencies sell hours and disappear after launch. We embed in your goals, your roadmap, your investor calls. The codebase is yours from day one and built by people who care whether your startup is still here in 18 months, because that's how we get to do the next round of work.

Q."So is it you, or is it a team?"

Both, depending on the scope. I lead every engagement and write the early code myself. When the work expands (frontend, ops, integrations, design), I bring in operators I've shipped with before. You always know who is doing what, you always Slack me directly, and I am the single accountable owner. The team scales to the work, never the other way around.

Today's Pricing

Pick Your Tier. Cancel Any Month.

Solo founder or funded team. Start at the right size. We embed at the right depth. No setup fee. No equity ask. No dev-shop nonsense.

Solo · Founding Engineer

For one founder shipping one product. I'm in your repo as the founding engineer, writing the early code, owning the architecture, and bringing in a small bench of operators only when the scope demands it.

$7,999 / month market rate $24,000 SAVE 66%

Suryanand leads the work, writes the foundation himself
Up to 30 focused hours / week in your repo
Architecture sprint included (week 1–2)
Direct Slack / WhatsApp to me · 12-hr response
Friday demo on the calendar, no excuses
Operators added on-demand when scope expands · no padded retainers
Hire-your-replacement included from month 4
Cancel any month · repo + IP are yours
4 bonuses included (worth $16,000)

Yes, I want my founding engineer! 30-min discovery call · Same-week start

30day
refund

If month one isn't worth 3× the fee, you don't pay for it. No questions, no clawback, you keep every line of code we shipped. I personally back this. It's my name on the work.

Net-15 invoicing · Stripe / wire / crypto · No equity ask, ever

How the team actually works

I lead. The team scales only when it should.

There's a difference between a dev shop and an embedded operator team. We're the second. Here's the honest version of who does what.

01.Suryanand is the constant

I'm in your repo from day one. I write the foundation code, own the architecture, and stay accountable for every decision that ships. You don't get handed off to anyone. My name, my reputation, my Slack.

02.The team appears when the work needs it

Frontend polish, data infra, design, ops: when scope expands, I bring in operators I've shipped with before. Never strangers, never juniors padding a retainer. Each person is named, briefed, and owns a specific surface.

03.We embed, we don't bill

We sit in your goals, your investor updates, your customer calls when it matters. Your roadmap is our roadmap. If the right move is for us to ship less and you to hire faster, that's the conversation we have.

04.This is not a dev shop

No account managers. No "let me check with the team and get back to you." The person on the sales call is the person writing the code and answering for the work, every time.

Before You Book

Frequently Asked Questions.

If yours isn't here, email me at work@suryanand.com or systems@valnoraelric.com. I read every one.

How fast can you start?+

If we sign by Friday, I'm in your repo Monday. I keep one onboarding slot open at all times. If both current clients are running smoothly, that slot is yours within the week.

Will you sign an NDA / IP assignment?+

Yes, by default. Standard mutual NDA before the discovery call if you want, full IP assignment on day one of the contract. You own everything I write, full stop.

Do you take equity instead of cash?+

No. Equity is a worse deal for both of us. You overpay if it works, I work for free if it doesn't, and we both spend energy negotiating instead of shipping. Cash, monthly, predictable.

I already have one engineer. Will you work with them?+

Yes, that's actually one of the easiest engagements. We respect existing decisions, we don't rewrite for the sake of it, and we defer to your engineer on the parts they own. I'll also tell you (privately) if they're the right long-term hire.

Is it always you doing the work, or a team?+

I'm the constant. I lead every engagement, write the foundation code, own the architecture, and stay accountable to you for everything that ships. When the scope needs more, like additional engineers, design, or ops, I bring in operators I've shipped with before and you always know exactly who's doing what. We're not a dev shop with a sales team in front and juniors behind. We embed.

What if I just need help for a month?+

Then we're not the right team. There's no setup fee but the engagement is designed for a 3–9 month arc. For one-month surgical jobs I keep a list of trusted operators I'll refer you to.

Can I see code samples?+

On the discovery call, yes. Most client work is under NDA, but I'll walk you through 2–3 real repos on a screenshare so you can see the actual quality, conventions, and test discipline.

What timezones do you work in?+

My core hours overlap US ET, UK, and IST every weekday. I take meetings 9am–11am PT and 4–7pm PT. I sleep in between, like a person.

Last Step

Stop Reading. Book The Call.

30 minutes. No pitch. You explain the product, I tell you whether we're the right team. I lead, with the right operators behind me. If we're not the fit, I'll tell you who is.

Yes, book my discovery call! 1 of 2 slots open · Same-week start · No pitch

Last 3 clients booked in < 48h. Once this slot fills, the page goes offline.

Or skip the call and email me: work@suryanand.com · systems@valnoraelric.com