Retainer
A developer on your team, without the hire
Predictable weekly capacity from someone who already knows the codebase. Feature work, maintenance, code review and the small things that never make it into a sprint - billed monthly, cancellable, and with no notice period to negotiate.
from $4,000 / monthMonthly · ~20-40 hrs/week
What you get
- Embedded part-time with predictable weekly capacity
- Feature work, maintenance, and code review, async-first
- Steady pace across EU / US / CIS time zones
Who it's for
- Products that shipped and now need someone to keep shipping
- Teams whose hiring is frozen but whose backlog is not
- Founders who need engineering judgement in the room, not just hands
- Anyone paying an agency for maintenance and getting a ticket queue
Who it isn't for
- Work that needs someone in an office or on a fixed timetable
- A first engagement on an unfamiliar codebase - start with a scoped piece, then move to a retainer once we both know it works
How it runs
A month at a time
Twenty to forty hours a week, agreed up front. No minimum term, no notice period - if a month is not useful, the next one does not happen.
Your board, your process
I work from whatever you already use. No parallel process to maintain and no weekly status meeting that exists to justify the invoice.
Written, not verbal
Decisions and their reasons go into the repository as they are made. It is how the work survives a month I am not on it.
Reviewed monthly
What shipped, what is next, and an honest word about whether a retainer is still the right shape - sometimes the answer is that you should hire.
Questions
What if I need fewer hours some months?
Then we agree a smaller month. The point of the arrangement is predictability for both of us, not billing you for capacity you did not need.
Do unused hours roll over?
No, and I would be suspicious of anyone who says yes - rolled-over hours are a way of billing for time that was never available.
Can you be the only developer?
On a small product, yes, and I will tell you when it has outgrown that. Being the single point of failure on something that matters is not a position I will quietly stay in.
Which time zones?
Async-first, with overlap arranged across EU, US and CIS. English for work, Russian natively.
Proof
Everything above is checkable. References from the people I shipped with, the engagements behind them, the public repositories, and the full stack.
Other ways to work together
Start with a month
Tell me what the product is and what a normal week would look like. If a retainer is the wrong shape for it, a scoped piece is usually the right one.