HIRE A SENIOR AI ENGINEER
Agents, retrieval and AI workflows, tested against evals before release and traced in production. Contributing in 15 days, from $3,375 a month.
NDAs are standard · client code is never used to train models
15 days
From kickoff to merged contributions
$3,375
Retainers from, per month, for 150 hours
Every merge
Reviewed by a senior engineer
Day 1
Your repo, your cloud, your IP
WHAT THEY DO
01
Booking, updating a CRM, filing a ticket: agents that call your tools and hand off to a person when they're unsure.
02
Retrieval (RAG) over your docs and data, so answers come from your sources and can be traced back to them.
03
A test set built from real requests, with a pass threshold every release has to meet.
04
Langfuse tracing in production, so a wrong answer can be found, replayed and fixed.
05
Per-request cost tracking, caching and model routing, so the cheapest model that passes the evals does the work.
06
Fallbacks for rate limits and provider outages, so a bad day at one vendor doesn't take your feature down.
SKILLS & STACK
No model lock-in. You hold the API keys and the accounts, and model calls are billed to you at cost.
HOW AI MAKES THIS ROLE FASTER
AI writes a significant share of the work. A senior engineer reviews every line before merge.
| AI drafts | Your AI engineer decides | The gate it passes |
|---|---|---|
| Prompt variants and tool definitions | Which version goes forward, based on eval scores | Eval pass threshold before release |
| Eval cases generated from real traffic | Which cases matter and what "correct" means for your product | Reviewed eval set committed to your repo |
| Integration code for tools and APIs | Error handling, retries and the hand-off to a person | Senior review on every merge |
| Trace summaries after an incident | Root cause and the fix | Regression case added to the evals |
Speed without review is how AI-written code gets into trouble. Across 470 open-source pull requests, CodeRabbit found AI-co-authored code carried ~1.7× more major issues and ~2.7× more security defects. That's why every merge here goes past a senior engineer, and why client code is never used to train models.
WAYS TO WORK TOGETHER
Recommended
from $3,375/month · 150 hours
150 hours a month of your AI engineer on a backlog we agree with you, with senior review on every merge. The price depends on the role and is confirmed on a 30-minute call.
See the retainer →$45/hour · 20-hour minimum
Buy 20 to 120 hours for scoped work, valid for 12 months. Bigger blocks cost less per hour. Need more than 120? The retainer fits better.
See hour blocks →lead + 1 engineer from $8,000/month
A tech lead plus your AI engineer inside your repo, your Slack and your sprint rituals. Bigger teams are quoted to fit.
See embedded teams →Got a specific AI job? The AI Feature Sprint starts from $6,000. AI feature already misbehaving? The AI Reliability Audit is $3,500 for one week.
HIRING VS. SOCIILABS
| Hiring your own | Working with SociiLabs | |
|---|---|---|
| Time to first contribution | A search, interviews, notice period, then onboarding | Contributing in 15 days |
| If it doesn't work out | 46% of new hires fail within 18 months (Leadership IQ) | We replace the engineer, handover time isn't billed, and you keep the code and history |
| Who reviews the code | Whoever you already have | A senior engineer, on every merge |
| How AI is used | Depends on the person | AI in the loop on every task, behind a review gate |
| Commitment | Salary, benefits, equity | Monthly retainer or a block of hours |
| Eval and tracing setup | You build it, or go without | Comes with the engineer: evals, Langfuse, fallbacks |
PROOF
71% booking conversion
AI agent
A conversational booking agent on ZapBook's live product, with GoHighLevel CRM sync. Under 90 seconds from first message to confirmed booking. Three months from kickoff to private beta.
Read the ZapBot case study →under 4 hours per report
Compliance SaaS
An AI builder for US water utilities' Consumer Confidence Reports, with 13+ templates, anomaly flagging and RAG answers to compliance questions. Report time went from days to under 4 hours. In beta.
Read the WaterUp case study →FAQ
Retainers from $3,375 a month for 150 hours. The price depends on the role and is confirmed on a 30-minute call. Prepaid hours start at $45 an hour, from 20 to 120 hours. Model API costs are billed to your own accounts at cost.
