Engineering services
For businesses that need something built rather than bought.
Embedded firmware, circuit board design, prototype bring-up, and the software that goes around them. Billed hourly against a written scope, or fixed-bid when the scope is defined well enough to price.
Capabilities
What gets built
One engineer across the whole stack — from the power supply on the board to the dashboard reading it. Nothing gets lost in a handoff because there is no handoff.
Embedded firmware
Bare-metal and RTOS work on ESP32, ARM Cortex-M, and Arduino targets. Sensor drivers, wired and wireless protocols, power management for battery devices, over-the-air update paths, and getting a design through the certification and reliability problems that show up after the prototype works on a bench.
PCB schematic and layout
Schematic capture through fabrication-ready layout and assembly documentation. Mixed-signal boards, switching supplies, motor drive, and the grounding and layout discipline that keeps a design quiet enough to pass testing the first time.
Prototype build and bring-up
First-article assembly, power-up, and debug. Boards that are dead on arrival, work intermittently, or behave differently in the third unit than the first — brought to a known state with the failure explained rather than worked around.
Applications and integration
React, Node, and PostgreSQL for the software that surrounds hardware: dashboards, reporting, data pipelines, and integration between systems that were never designed to talk to each other.
Rates
Hourly rates
Time is billed against a written scope, in increments you can see. No retainer, no minimum engagement beyond the consultation hour.
| Service | Rate |
|---|---|
| Embedded firmware developmentESP32, ARM, Arduino | $115 / hr |
| PCB schematic capture and layout | $115 / hr or fixed-bid |
| Prototype build and bring-up | $115 / hr |
| Web application developmentReact, Node, PostgreSQL | $105 / hr |
| Systems integration and data pipelines | $105 / hr |
| Technical documentation and as-builts | $85 / hr |
| Consultation / design review1 hr minimum | $125 / hr |
| On-site work outside 50 mi of Watrous | + $0.70 / mi and travel time |
Fixed-bid quotes available on defined scopes. Custom projects are billed 50% at start; the balance is due before hardware ships or final files are handed over. This applies to every account — deposits sit outside Net 30 terms.
Rates effective 2026 and subject to change on new quotes only.
Terms
You own what you paid for
The intellectual property terms are not negotiable because they do not need to be — they already favor you.
- Estimates are free
- Diagnosis fees are disclosed before work begins and credited against approved repairs.
- Payment due on completion
- Net 30 available for established commercial and trade accounts. It does not extend to deposits on custom work.
- Deposit on custom work
- Custom projects are billed 50% at start; the balance is due before hardware ships or final files are handed over. This applies to every account — deposits sit outside Net 30 terms.
- You own the work
- Client owns all deliverables, source code, and design files on final payment.
- Warranty
- Repairs carry a 90-day warranty. Custom systems carry a 1-year hardware warranty.
In practice that means schematics, board files, firmware source, application source, and build documentation are handed over on final payment. Nothing is held back as leverage, and there is no license you have to keep paying to use what you commissioned.
Questions
Common questions
Hourly or fixed-bid?
Fixed-bid quotes are available on defined scopes. If the work is exploratory — debugging an intermittent fault, or a design where the requirements are still moving — hourly is more honest, because a fixed bid on an unknown is priced with a risk premium you end up paying for.
Custom projects are billed 50% at start; the balance is due before hardware ships or final files are handed over. This applies to every account — deposits sit outside Net 30 terms.
Who owns the source code and design files?
You do, on final payment — all deliverables, source code, and design files.
Will you work on someone else's existing design?
Yes. Inherited firmware, an undocumented board, or a project the original developer walked away from is common work. It starts with a consultation hour to establish what is actually there before anyone estimates the rest.
Do you travel for on-site work?
Yes. On-site work beyond 50 miles of Watrous adds $0.70 per mile plus travel time; inside that radius there is no travel charge.
What does the consultation cover?
A design review or scoping conversation at $125 per hour with a one-hour minimum. For most projects it is the right first step: you leave knowing whether the thing is worth building and roughly what it costs, whether or not you build it here.
Describe the problem, not the solution.
The most useful first message says what has to happen in the physical world, what it has to talk to, and what has already been tried. The design conversation goes faster from there.