Consulting

You’re scaling your tech company, we help you neutralize the risks before they hit.

PRIMITIVE operators have built Scaleway, founded POC Innovation, led 42 Cyber. We’ve seen these exact failures take down venture-backed companies. We don’t advise—we operate.

Risk / response map

Six risks that kill scaling companies. Six operator responses.

Shipping pace collapses

Team doubled but output didn't. PRs sit for days. Onboarding takes months. Competitors ship 3x faster with half the headcount.

Engineering velocity rescue

Delivery pipeline audit, agentic tooling, team topology restructure. Measured throughput improvement in 6 weeks.

Latent security breach

No threat model since seed round. APIs wide open. Dependencies unaudited. One breach away from losing every enterprise contract.

Full-stack threat model

Architecture review, API audit, dependency analysis, pen-test. Severity-ranked report in 2 weeks.

Architecture won't survive 10x

System designed for 10K users hitting 100K. 4-second queries. Deploys break things. No one understands the full system anymore.

Architecture for scale

Bottleneck mapping, failure modeling at 10x load, target architecture with phased migration plan.

No technical product vision

Engineering builds what's asked but the product doesn't win. R&D ideas die in Slack. No one knows where technical leverage creates 10x product outcomes.

Product-engineering alignment

Strategy sessions, R&D bet ranking, internal build roadmap, and a kill list for things that don't matter.

Infra costs eat your margin

Cloud bill growing faster than revenue. No cost attribution by team or feature. CFO is asking questions you can't answer.

Infra cost surgery

Cost attribution, waste elimination, resource right-sizing, governance framework. 30-50% reduction.

Hiring quality freefall

Pipeline can't tell builders from credential holders. Assessment is LeetCode. Bad hires compound — each one slows everyone around them.

Technical assessment overhaul

CTF-based challenges calibrated to your stack. Measures actual capability, not trivia.

Who we work with

We operate at every level of the stack.

Same team, different aperture. We adapt the mission scope and deliverables to the decision-maker.

EXECUTIVE

C-Suite & Board

  • Technical due diligence on AI/cyber bets before board approval
  • Independent assessment of security posture and exposure
  • R&D strategy memo: what to build internally vs. buy vs. ignore
  • Talent pipeline audit — are you hiring builders or credential holders?

Deliverable

Board-ready technical memo with go/no-go recommendations

ENGINEERING LEADERSHIP

VP Eng & Tech Leads

  • Architecture review: where the system breaks at 10x scale
  • Agentic workflow deployment — 3x throughput with AI-assisted delivery
  • Eval culture bootstrap: CI-integrated testing for models and prompts
  • Build vs. buy analysis on infra components with cost modeling

Deliverable

Architecture doc, implementation plan, and staffing model

ENGINEERING

Senior Engineers & SREs

  • Hands-on threat modeling and pen-testing of LLM endpoints
  • Inference optimization: model routing, quantization, cost attribution
  • Red-team pipeline setup: automated adversarial testing in CI
  • CTF-based skills assessment calibrated to your actual stack

Deliverable

Working code, runbooks, threat reports, and eval harnesses

Pick a mission

What we actually deploy.

Engineering Velocity Rescue

1–3 weeks

Problem

Shipping pace collapsed. PRs sit for days. Onboarding takes months. Your team doubled but output didn't.

What we do

Audit your delivery pipeline end-to-end. Deploy agentic tooling where it matters (review, tests, docs). Restructure team topology and ownership boundaries. Measure before/after.

You get

Restructured delivery pipeline, tooling config, team topology doc, velocity metrics

Security Posture Sprint

2–3 weeks

Problem

No threat model since seed round. APIs wide open. Dependencies unaudited. One breach away from losing customer trust.

What we do

Full architecture review, API surface audit, dependency analysis, pen-test on critical paths. Produce a severity-ranked threat model with concrete fix priorities your team can execute on.

You get

Threat model, pen-test report, prioritized remediation roadmap with effort estimates

Architecture for 10x Scale

3–5 weeks

Problem

Your system was designed for 10K users. You're hitting 100K. Database queries are 4s. Deploys break things. No one understands the full system anymore.

What we do

Map the current architecture, identify every bottleneck, model the failure points at 10x load. Deliver a target architecture with migration steps your team can start executing next sprint.

You get

System map, bottleneck analysis, target architecture, phased migration plan

Product-Engineering Alignment

2–3 weeks

Problem

Engineering builds what's asked but the product doesn't win. No technical product vision. R&D ideas stay in Slack threads. Competitors ship faster with fewer people.

What we do

Run product-engineering alignment sessions. Identify where technical leverage can 10x product outcomes. Map R&D bets worth making internally vs. outsourcing vs. killing.

You get

Product-tech strategy doc, R&D bet ranking, internal build roadmap, kill list

Infra Cost Surgery

2–4 weeks

Problem

Cloud bill growing faster than revenue. No cost attribution. Teams spin up resources with no accountability. CFO is asking questions.

What we do

Full infrastructure cost audit. Attribution by team and feature. Identify waste, right-size resources, implement cost governance. Build forecasting model tied to growth metrics.

You get

Cost attribution dashboard, waste report, governance framework, 30-50% savings

Hiring & Assessment Overhaul

3–4 weeks

Problem

Your hiring pipeline is a black box. LeetCode doesn't predict job performance. Offer acceptance is low because candidates can't tell if your team is serious. Bad hires cost 6 months each.

What we do

Design a technical hiring pipeline end-to-end. Build custom CTF-style challenges calibrated to your actual stack. Create take-home projects that mirror real work. Structure interviews around system design and debugging, not trivia. Define scoring rubrics so every interviewer evaluates the same things.

You get

Custom challenge set, interview rubrics, scoring framework, hiring playbook, candidate experience redesign

Onboarding Acceleration

2–3 weeks

Problem

New engineers take 3-6 months to ship meaningful work. No structured ramp. Tribal knowledge lives in Slack threads. Senior engineers burn time on ad-hoc mentoring instead of building.

What we do

Audit your onboarding end-to-end. Build a structured 30/60/90-day program with concrete milestones. Create codebase walkthroughs, architecture decision records, and a first-PR-in-week-one challenge. Set up buddy pairing with clear expectations.

You get

30/60/90 onboarding program, codebase guides, architecture docs, first-week challenge, buddy framework

Technical Due Diligence

1–2 weeks

Problem

Board needs independent assessment before a major hire, acquisition, or strategic pivot. Internal team is too close to be objective.

What we do

Senior operator reviews architecture, codebase quality, team capabilities, tech debt load, and competitive positioning. Produces a board-ready memo with specific risks and recommendations.

You get

Board-ready memo with risk matrix, capability gaps, and actionable recommendations

Every week you wait, the risk compounds.

Scope call, technical brief, go/no-go in one week.

Start a missionMeet the team