Fractional 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.
What a fractional AI engineer builds
Real AI features deployed into your product - rubric engines, classifiers, retrieval, and agents. The work covers model choice, system design, and the code that delivers it, so you get a feature running in production rather than a proof of concept.
Rule-first, model in support
Cognitiv builds AI features so they are fast and explainable. Where a simple rule will do the job, the rule runs first and the model supports it. That keeps decisions quick, cheaper to run, and easy to reason about when something goes wrong.
Pricing and how it works
A two-week Ship Sprint at USD $4,000 is the on-ramp - it ends with an AI feature deployed. After that, an embedded retainer runs from USD $8,000 a month, 30-day rolling.
Common questions
What does a fractional AI engineer do?+
They design and ship AI features into your product part-time - choosing the model, building the system, and writing the production code. Cognitiv works one to two days a week inside your stack and repo.
How is this different from an AI agency?+
An agency usually hands work to a rotating team. Cognitiv is one senior engineer embedded in your team, accountable for the code that ships.
What does a fractional AI engineer cost?+
Cognitiv starts at a USD $4,000 two-week Ship Sprint, then a monthly retainer from USD $8,000. Retainers are 30-day rolling with a 90-day checkpoint.
Have a roadmap you need shipped?
Start with a two-week Ship Sprint - deployed, not a document.