AI engineering for startups, answered plainly.
Straight answers to the questions funded teams ask before bringing in senior AI engineering - what the roles are, when to hire, and what it costs.
Forward Deployed Engineer: what it is, and how to hire one
A forward-deployed engineer embeds inside your team and ships production code, instead of handing over a strategy document. Cognitiv works as that engineer for funded startups - taking the roadmap from AI strategy through to deployed code, usually one to two days a week.
Read the answerFractional AI EngineerFractional AI Engineer for startups
A fractional AI engineer gives a funded startup senior AI engineering part-time - building and shipping AI features into your product without a full-time hire. Cognitiv embeds one to two days a week and takes the work from model choice through to deployed code.
Read the answerFractional CTOFractional CTO for funded startups
A fractional CTO gives a funded team senior technical leadership part-time - owning architecture, hiring, and vendor calls, and still shipping code. Cognitiv offers this from USD $15,000 a month, 30-day rolling, for teams that need a senior engineer on the technical direction without a full-time hire.
Read the answerShipping AI featuresHow to ship AI features into your product
Shipping AI features means deploying working software - a rubric engine, classifier, retrieval, or agent - into your product, not a prototype. The fastest, lowest-risk path is a fixed-scope sprint that ends with one feature running in production, then iterating from there.
Read the answerHiring an AI engineerHire an AI engineer for your startup: full-time, fractional, or agency
A startup that needs AI in its product has three options: a full-time AI hire, a fractional AI engineer, or an agency. A full-time hire is slow and expensive to find; an agency rotates teams; a fractional engineer embeds part-time and ships. Cognitiv is the fractional option - one senior engineer, in your team, shipping production code.
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