Contract software development
A contract shop without the staff aug overhead.
Senior engineering capacity for existing engineering teams that need a fractional staff engineer, not a body shop. Weekly retainer, no minimum headcount, no PMs in the middle.
Most "contract software development" arrangements are staff augmentation in disguise. You sign a 12-month contract, get a junior engineer in another time zone, and route everything through a project manager who codes nothing. The contract shop wins; you write a check.
That is not what we do. BlueScripts is a boutique Clearwater software studio that takes on contract engineering work the same way we run our own SaaS products: senior engineers, weekly retainer, opinionated stack, and a direct line to the people writing the code. No PM layer, no offshore handoff, no junior burning your runway.
If you have an in-house team and you need a fractional staff engineer to unblock a hard problem, lead a migration, or fill a gap while you hire — that is the work we are best at. Most contract engagements are 8–32 hours per week for 3–12 months. We embed in your stack, your repo, your Slack, and your standups.
What you get
In every engagement
A senior engineer, directly
You work with the engineer doing the work, not a PM relaying status. Slack DM, code review, pairing — direct.
Weekly retainer billing
Predictable cost, predictable capacity. No surprise overages, no scope-creep arguments. The price is set; the work flexes.
No minimum headcount
One senior engineer, part-time, is a perfectly valid engagement. We do not require you to "scale up the team."
No long lock-in
Month-to-month after the first engagement. End anytime with two weeks notice. The work is good or it is not.
Codebase you can keep maintaining
We write code in your style, with your patterns, in your repo. When the engagement ends, your team can read every line.
Onshore time zone overlap
We are in Florida, Eastern Time. Your morning standup is our morning standup. No 12-hour offshore lag.
How we work
Process
Scoping call
A 30-minute call to understand the work, the team, and the constraints. We tell you whether we are a fit and what a 4–8 week engagement would look like.
First sprint
A short 2–4 week engagement on a contained problem. Real work, real code, in your repo. Both sides decide if we want to keep going.
Embedded retainer
Once we are aligned, we move to a weekly retainer with defined hours per week. Standups, code review, Slack — embedded with your team.
Quarterly check-ins
Every quarter, we re-scope. Need more capacity? Less? Different focus? The retainer adjusts.
Clean handoff
When the engagement ends, we leave documentation, an exit summary, and any open knowledge transferred. Nothing breaks because we stopped.
Stack
What we reach for
We commonly take on
- Backend services in Go or Node
- Web app feature work in React/Next
- iOS feature work in SwiftUI
- Database migrations & performance
- Kubernetes / DevOps
We will adapt to
- Python, Ruby, Java, C#
- Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB
- AWS, GCP, Azure
- Your code style guide
- Your CI/CD pipeline
We will tell you
- When your stack choice is wrong
- When you have a tooling gap
- When the bug is architectural
- When the fix is "rewrite this"
Pricing
Weekly retainer pricing depends on hours-per-week and engagement length. Typical engagements run 8–32 hours per week. Email us with a paragraph about your team and the work, and we will quote a weekly rate. No 1-year minimums, no hidden fees, no junior bait-and-switch.
Common questions
FAQ
How is this different from hiring through a staffing agency? +
Two ways. First, you are not paying a markup on a junior contractor placed by a recruiter — you are working directly with the senior engineer doing the work. Second, we own the relationship. If the engineer needs to be backed up, escalated, or rotated, that is on us, not on you.
Can you work in our existing stack? +
Almost certainly. We default to Go/TypeScript/Postgres but routinely work in Python, Ruby, Node, and other backend languages, and any modern frontend framework. The first sprint is usually a learning sprint.
Do you embed with our team or work as an outside vendor? +
Embedded. We join your standups, your Slack, your repo, your on-call rotation if appropriate. We work as if we were on your team — because for the duration of the engagement, we effectively are.
What is the minimum engagement? +
A 2–4 week first sprint. After that, we run on month-to-month retainers. We do not require multi-month commitments, multi-year contracts, or any kind of paper-heavy procurement process.
Can you scale capacity up or down? +
Yes. The retainer is set in hours-per-week, and it adjusts quarterly or sooner with two weeks notice. Need 8 hours one quarter and 24 the next? That is a normal conversation.
Are you really only senior engineers? +
Yes. Two senior engineers is the company. There is no junior pool, no offshore handoff, no PM layer between you and the code. That is the whole boutique angle — small team, senior people, no exceptions.
Other services
Have a contract software development project in mind?
Email us a paragraph about what you're trying to build. We'll respond within one business day.
[email protected]