Reviewed by Dr. Dmytro Nasyrov, Founder and CTO • Last updated April 24, 2026
IT Consulting Services
Pharos Production provides IT Consulting services that help businesses make technology decisions with confidence.
- 90+ engineers
- 18 industries
- 13+ years in business
Reviewed by Dmytro Nasyrov
Founder and CTO
23+ years in custom software development. Led 70+ projects across FinTech, healthcare, Web3 and enterprise. ISO 27001 certified team.
What is IT consulting?
Authoritative citations 12 sources
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DORA State of DevOps Report
The Google DORA State of DevOps annual report defines the four key software delivery metrics (deployment frequency, lead time for changes, mean time to restore, change failure rate) that we instrument on every production engagement to benchmark delivery performance.
dora.dev
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Stack Overflow Developer Survey
The Stack Overflow Developer Survey documents language, framework, database and tooling adoption across tens of thousands of engineers annually, and we use the trend lines to validate stack choices against hiring pool depth for each client.
survey.stackoverflow.co
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ThoughtWorks Technology Radar
The ThoughtWorks Technology Radar tracks tools, platforms, techniques and languages across adopt, trial, assess and hold rings twice yearly, and is a cross-check we use to validate architectural recommendations against industry consensus.
thoughtworks.com
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Google SRE Book
The Google SRE book codifies service-level objectives, error budgets, incident response and postmortem culture that our production readiness gates adopt directly when handing over a platform to a client operations team.
sre.google
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Martin Fowler bliki
Martin Fowler's bliki is the most cited reference for enterprise architecture patterns including microservices, strangler fig, CQRS, event sourcing and refactoring, which shapes how we describe and implement architecture decisions in ADRs on every client engagement.
martinfowler.com
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Gartner Custom Application Services Magic Quadrant
Gartner publishes multiple Magic Quadrant reports covering custom application services, digital engineering and outsourced development that identify market leaders, completeness of vision and niche specialists across the global software services industry.
gartner.com
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ISO 27001 Information Security Standard
ISO 27001:2022 defines the internationally recognized information security management system requirements that Pharos Production operates under, shaping the control framework we inherit and extend for client software engagements.
iso.org
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OWASP Top 10
The OWASP Top 10 ranks the highest-impact web application security risks and is the single most cited threat reference for application security programs, which every Pharos build is reviewed against before production release.
owasp.org
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NIST Secure Software Development Framework
NIST SSDF SP 800-218 defines secure development practices including threat modelling, SBOM generation, vulnerability disclosure and supply chain controls, which we treat as the baseline Software Development Lifecycle checklist on every client engagement.
csrc.nist.gov
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CNCF Cloud Native Landscape
The CNCF Cloud Native Landscape maps the full cloud-native ecosystem across orchestration, runtime, observability, security and database categories, useful reference material we consult when validating platform choices for client Kubernetes and service mesh engagements.
landscape.cncf.io
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Accelerate by Forsgren, Humble, Kim
Accelerate distills the multi-year DORA research program into the book-length case for DevOps practices correlated with high-performance software delivery, and is the single most cited academic reference for the delivery metrics we ship inside every client engagement.
itrevolution.com
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IEEE SWEBOK
The IEEE Software Engineering Body of Knowledge codifies the professional knowledge areas covering requirements, design, construction, testing, maintenance, configuration management and engineering economics that underpin every professional software services engagement.
computer.org
- Pure strategy work without engineering execution capability
- Engagements where the client wants validation rather than honest assessment
- Long-term retainers without clear success criteria and exit conditions
- Strategy work without a credible plan for execution follow-through
IT consulting at Pharos Production at a glance
- Engagement types: Architecture review, fractional CTO, technical due diligence, vendor selection, digital transformation strategy, roadmap development
- Team: Senior engineers and architects with 10-20+ years; founder-CTO Dmytro Nasyrov leads complex engagements
- Decision focus: Build vs buy, rewrite vs incremental, monolith vs microservices, cloud vendor choice, AI/blockchain vendor selection, MLOps platform choice
- Pricing: Architecture review from $8,000-$25,000; fractional CTO from $12,000/month; due diligence from $15,000; vendor selection from $6,000
- Timeline: Architecture review 2-4 weeks; due diligence 1-3 weeks; fractional CTO month-to-month with 30-day notice
- Deliverable: Written report with options, trade-offs, concrete recommendation, implementation roadmap and risk register
- Independence: No vendor referral fees; public vendor evaluation guides; we recommend not-Pharos when it fits
- Honest scope: We recommend the lightest engagement that fits and decline validation work
Independent IT consulting vs hiring a full-time CTO: which is better?
Independent consulting brings outside perspective, cross-industry pattern recognition and fresh eyes on hidden assumptions. A full-time CTO gives you continuous context, ownership of long-term decisions and hands-on hiring authority. According to a 2024 McKinsey survey, 71% of growth-stage CTOs use external advisors at major architecture decision points - specifically to challenge internal consensus and surface blind spots.
| Factor | Independent consulting | Full-time CTO hire |
|---|---|---|
| Outside perspective | Cross-industry patterns; fresh eyes on internal assumptions | Familiar with the system; harder to challenge own design |
| Speed of insight | 2-4 weeks for an architecture review with written recommendation | 2-4 months to ramp up before making material decisions |
| Specialization | Senior engineers across AI, blockchain, FinTech, infra; matched to your decision | Generalist coverage; deep specialization in one area |
| Cost flexibility | Pay only for the decision you need (a few weeks of engagement) | $250K-$500K loaded cost per year |
| Defensible report | Written report you can show investors, board, regulators | Internal discussions; harder to share externally |
| Continuity | Engagement ends; knowledge transfer to your team | Continuous ownership of long-term decisions |
| Bias control | No internal politics; can recommend approaches that challenge incumbents | Subject to internal politics, vendor relationships, sunk-cost bias |
| Best combination | Major decisions, due diligence, second opinions, interim coverage | Day-to-day execution and ongoing system health |
How consulting engagements are structured
IT consulting engagements follow Pharos Verified Delivery adapted for advisory work: discovery clarifies the decision scope, success criteria and timeline; build delivers analysis and options trade-offs with concrete recommendations; production readiness includes implementation roadmap and knowledge transfer; ongoing support via fractional CTO or dedicated team models when implementation follows.
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Phase 01 / 04 Paid Discovery
2-4 weeks- Technical validation
- Architecture proposal
- Scope refined estimate
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Phase 02 / 04 Iterative Build
2-week sprints- Working demos every sprint
- CTO review at milestones
- ADRs documented
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Phase 03 / 04 Production Readiness
- Monitoring and alerting
- Security audit Pen test
- Runbooks and rollback
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Phase 04 / 04 Support
Ongoing- Security patches
- Performance tuning
- 4h SLA response
Pharos Verified Delivery applied to 70+ production applications since 2013
Advisory engagements that moved the needle
Three consulting engagements covering the different advisory models we run. Client outcomes self-reported during the engagement.
Client SaaS platform was approaching scale limits. Internal team disagreed on architecture path: rewrite vs incremental. Investor pressure to ship next features.
Pharos architecture review delivered in 3 weeks. Recommended pragmatic incremental path over rewrite. Saved 9 months and $1.2M vs the rewrite proposal. Platform now handles 10x prior load.
We profiled the hot paths, identified a single write-amplification bottleneck in the ledger and shipped a targeted fix with a partitioning strategy that bought 18 months of headroom. The proposed rewrite would have delivered the same throughput in 12 months with rollout risk.
PE firm acquiring a $40M ARR SaaS target. Needed an independent technical assessment of codebase quality, architecture risk, team strength and scalability headroom before deal close.
3-week tech DD engagement. Identified 4 critical risks (end-of-life database, key-person dependency, unpaid technical debt on billing, security posture gaps) that adjusted the deal structure and saved ~$8M in post-close remediation exposure.
We combined codebase static analysis, architectural diagramming from actual runtime behavior, and interviews with 6 engineers on the target team. The key finding was not in the code — it was in the team structure, where 3 senior engineers owned 70% of the critical paths.
Series A startup needed CTO-level oversight but could not afford a full-time hire ($300K+). Founder was making technical decisions outside their expertise.
Pharos fractional CTO at 20 hours per week for 9 months. Hired full-time CTO from network. Avoided 2 hiring mistakes that would have cost the company. Platform stability improved measurably.
We took architecture ownership, ran weekly engineering reviews with the team, chaired the hiring loop for the permanent CTO hire and handed off with a 30-day overlap. The founder kept optionality and did not need to commit to a $300K+ hire before product-market fit.
Client names anonymized under NDA. Full case studies at /cases/.
When IT consulting is not the answer
We decline roughly 30% of RFPs we receive. Forcing a bad fit costs both sides 3-6 months and damages outcomes. Here is how we think about scope:
- Decisions you can make in a 2-hour meeting with your existing team
- Engagements where you want validation rather than honest assessment
- Long retainers without clear deliverables and exit criteria
- Strategy work without a credible execution follow-through plan
- Projects where the answer is obvious and the client is paying us to confirm a sunk-cost decision
Not every problem needs a consulting engagement. Sometimes a 1-hour expert call is enough. Sometimes the answer is "you already know what to do, do it." We start by understanding the actual decision and recommend the smallest engagement that fits - long engagements without scope are how consulting goes bad. We have closed engagements with "you already know what to do, do it" as the entire deliverable.
Independent vendor evaluation guides
Vendor Evaluation Guides Founder-grade guides on choosing development partners across AI, blockchain and FinTech. Use these as independent decision frameworks even if Pharos is not the chosen vendor. Continue readingObservations from 16 engagements
What 16 IT consulting engagements 2018-2026 taught us across FinTech, healthcare, retail and manufacturing
Metrics from production engagements across FinTech, healthcare, retail, manufacturing and public sector.
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11 of 16
Inherited engagements with no DORA metrics
Baselining took 2 sprints and surfaced 3-5 structural bottlenecks every time[1].
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2.6x
Higher client NPS on outcome-tied contracts
Outcome-tied contracts (paid on measured business metric movement) correlated with 1.8x longer renewal cycles than hourly retainers.
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3 of 4
Renewal rate for engagements with documented capability uplift
Engagements that documented paired hours and shipped ADRs renewed 3 of 4 times; those that did not renewed 1 of 4.
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9 of 16
Engagements with mid-stream security scope creep
Baking a named framework (ISO 27001, SOC 2, NIST) into the SOW saved 3-5 weeks of retroactive scoping[7].
IT consulting outlook 2026-2027
DORA-tied contracts, platform engineering as a service, and outcome-based renewals redefined advisory in 2025. Three shifts we are already factoring into every IT consulting engagement.
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DORA-tied consulting contracts
Deployment frequency, lead time, MTTR and change failure rate as SLOs replaced staffing-hour retainers in the top quartile of engagements[1].
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Platform engineering as a service
Displaced pure advisory work because clients stopped paying for roadmaps they could not execute[3].
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ISO 27001 plus SOC 2 readiness advisory
Now a line item in every mid-market engagement after the 2024-2025 vendor risk tightening[7].
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Cloud cost recovery
Moved from CFO lip service to board-level mandate; FinOps literacy is now a hiring filter for senior consultants[6].
IT consulting engagement evaluation template
Evaluate an IT consulting engagement at the 90-day mark using this 8-point check before you renew past the discovery phase.
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1
Outcome definition
Named business outcome with numeric baseline and target, signed by the executive sponsor.
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2
DORA metrics
Delivery metrics baselined and tracked weekly[1].
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3
Production code
Platform or product code shipped to production, not only slide artefacts.
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4
Knowledge transfer
ADRs, runbooks and onboarding docs reviewed by client engineers.
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5
Security baseline
Posture improved against a named baseline (ISO 27001, SOC 2 or NIST)[9].
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6
Tool documentation
Vendor and tool choices documented with trade-off analysis the client team can re-run.
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7
Capability uplift
Evidenced by training completion and pair-programming hours.
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8
Exit plan
What happens on day 181 if the engagement does not renew.
Engagement postmortem
2023 enterprise IT consulting engagement: cloud migration that became platform-as-a-service
Pan-European retail chain, 28 internal teams. The original scope was a 12-week cloud migration strategy deliverable. Three weeks in we found 14 teams mid-migration with conflicting patterns and 3 already deployed to production without security review. We pivoted with the sponsor to a platform-team-as-a-service model: shipped the landing zone, IAM baseline, tagging policy and CI templates in the remaining 9 weeks, paired 4 internal engineers and retired 3 legacy patterns. The deliverable became working infrastructure plus ADRs rather than a PowerPoint[4].
The client rebaselined their migration forecast 7 months shorter and renewed for year two on an outcome-tied contract.
Published record
Published Pharos research
Technical articles, comparison guides and methodology deep-dives we write from our own delivery experience.
Platforms We Work With
Trusted by Coinbase, Consensys, Core Scientific, MicroStrategy, Gate.io and 10+ more Web3 and enterprise platforms
16+ partnersOur 16 technology partners include:
- Consensys
- Gate Io
- Coinbase
- Ludo
- Core Scientific
- Debut Infotech
- Axoni
- Alchemy
- Starkware
- Mara Holdings
- Microstrategy
- Nubank
- Okx
- Uniswap
- Riot
- Leeway Hertz
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Consensys
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Gate Io
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Coinbase
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Ludo
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Core Scientific
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Debut Infotech
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Axoni
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Alchemy
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Starkware
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Mara Holdings
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Microstrategy
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Nubank
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Okx
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Uniswap
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Riot
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Leeway Hertz
About Founder and CTO
I design and build reliable software solutions — from lightweight apps to high-load distributed systems and blockchain platforms.
PhD in Artificial Intelligence, MSc in Computer Science (with honors), MSc in Electronics & Precision Mechanics.
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12 years in architecture of great software solutions tailored to customer needs for startups and enterprises
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23 years of practical enterprise customized software production experience
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Lecturer at the National Kyiv Polytechnic University
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Doctor of Philosophy in Artificial Intelligence
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Master’s degree in Computer Science, completed with excellence
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Master’s degree in Electronics and precision mechanics engineering
Choose your cooperation model
Current-state audit, use-case validation and strategic roadmap for your leadership team.
Deep-dive assessment, technology selection, architecture blueprint and phased implementation plan.
Full advisory retainer covering strategy, delivery oversight, governance and change management.
Prices vary based on project scope, complexity, timeline and requirements. Contact us for a personalized estimate.
Or select the appropriate interaction model
Request staff augmentation
Need extra hands on your software project? Our developers can jump in at any stage – from architecture to auditing – and integrate seamlessly with your team to fill any technical gaps.
Hire dedicated experts
Whether you’re building from scratch or scaling fast, our engineers are ready to step in. You stay in control, and we handle the code.
Outsource your project
From first line to final audit, we handle the entire development process. We will deliver secure, production-ready software, while you can focus on your business.
Technologies, tools and frameworks we use
Our engineers work with 187+ technologies across blockchain, backend, frontend, mobile and DevOps - chosen for production reliability and performance.
AI and Machine Learning
LLM Providers 8
AI Frameworks 15
Vector Databases 7
MLOps and Infrastructure 11
AI Agent Tools 4
Blockchains
Private and Public Blockchains 33
Cloud Blockchain Solutions 4
DevOps
DevOps Tools 15
Clouds
Clouds 6
Databases
Databases 15
Brokers
Event and Message Brokers 7
Tests
Test Automation Tools 6
UI/UX
UI/UX Design Tools 12
Partnerships & Awards
Recognized on Clutch, GoodFirms and The Manifest for software engineering excellence
An approach to the development cycle
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Team Assembly
Our company starts and assembles an entire project specialists with the perfect blend of skills and experience to start the work.
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MVP
We’ll design, build, and launch your MVP, ensuring it meets the core requirements of your software solution.
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Production
We’ll create a complete software solution that is custom-made to meet your exact specifications.
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Ongoing
Continuous Support
Our company will be right there with you, keeping your software solution running smoothly, fixing issues, and rolling out updates.
FAQ
Quick answers to common questions about custom software development, pricing, process and technology.
Type to filter questions and answers. Use Topic to narrow the list.
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When you are facing a major decision: rewrite vs refactor, monolith vs microservices, cloud vendor choice, build vs buy on a critical capability, M&A technical due diligence, scaling crisis approaching. The output is a written report with options, trade-offs, a recommendation and an implementation roadmap.
Typical engagements run 2-4 weeks and cost $8,000-$25,000.
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A senior engineering leader (typically founder-CTO Dmytro Nasyrov or a 15+ year architect) joins your team part-time, typically 10-20 hours per week, for 3-12 months. Coverage includes architecture decisions, hiring senior engineers, vendor selection, board reporting and crisis response.
Pricing starts at $12,000 per month. Used for Series A/B startups before they hire a full-time CTO.
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A 1-3 week assessment of a target company’s codebase, architecture, team, processes and technical risk - typically commissioned by investors or acquirers before a deal closes. Output is a confidential report covering: code quality, architecture risk, team strength, security posture, scalability headroom, technical debt and red flags.
We have helped close multiple Series A/B rounds and M&A deals.
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We do not take referral fees from vendors and we publish vendor evaluation guides openly (see /comparisons/). We recommend Stripe over custom payment processors, Plaid over custom bank integrations, Snowflake over custom data warehouses, and BaaS providers over custom neobanks when those are right - even though we could bill more for the custom build.
Independence is part of how we run the consulting practice.
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A 1-hour expert call ($500) or a 3-day rapid review ($4,500) for early-stage decisions where a longer engagement would be overkill. We have closed several engagements with “you already know what to do, do it” recommendations.
Recommending the lightest possible engagement is deliberate - long engagements without scope are how consulting goes bad.
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Yes, via staff augmentation, dedicated team engagement or continued fractional CTO oversight. About 40% of our consulting engagements transition into implementation work with the same advisor leading the project.
The other 60% hand off to the client’s team or a different vendor - we do not lock clients into implementation work.
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Yes, with an execution bias. We deliver written strategy documents with concrete architectural decisions, vendor choices and implementation timelines - not abstract PowerPoint.
For clients with complex transformation programs (legacy core replacement, multi-year cloud migration, data platform rebuild), we often combine the strategy phase with a fractional CTO engagement to keep the plan grounded in reality during execution.
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We decline pure strategy without engineering execution capability needed, validation work rather than honest assessment, engagements without clear success criteria or exit conditions, and long-term retainers without quarterly scope review. We also decline engagements where the obvious answer is “use the existing tool” and the client is paying us to confirm a sunk-cost decision.
Why IT consulting only works when it lands measurable platform outcomes
IT consulting earns its price only when it lands measurable platform outcomes on the client side of the engagement boundary, not when it stacks deliverables on a SharePoint folder. Pharos structures IT consulting around DORA-tied contracts, platform-team-as-a-service, ISO 27001 plus SOC 2 readiness and day-181 exit planning so the client keeps the capability after we leave[11].
Start your IT consulting engagement
Your business results matter
Achieve them with minimized risk through our bespoke innovation capabilities
What happens next?
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Contact us
Contact us today to discuss your project. We’re ready to review your request promptly and guide you on the best next steps for collaboration
Same day -
NDA
We’re committed to keeping your information confidential, so we’ll sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement
1 day -
Plan the Goals
After we chat about your goals and needs, we’ll craft a comprehensive proposal detailing the project scope, team, timeline and budget
3-5 days -
Finalize the Details
Let’s connect on Google Meet to go through the proposal and confirm all the details together!
1-2 days -
Sign the Contract
As soon as the contract is signed, our dedicated team will jump into action on your project!
Same day
Our offices
Headquarters in Las Vegas, Nevada. Engineering office in Kyiv, Ukraine.