Hiring an AI developer
You want AI in your product or process, and you are looking for someone to build it. Perfectly sensible. One note before you hire anyone.
With AI, building is rarely the problem
A developer builds what you specify. That works well when you know what you want and why it creates value. With AI that is exactly the hard question: most failed AI projects do not fail on the technology, but on an idea nobody turned out to use.
Hire a developer when: the specification is set, the problem is proven, and you mainly need capacity.
Hire me when: you know something needs to happen with AI, but not yet exactly what — and you want it built afterwards too.
What an AI developer actually does
The work looks less like training models than people expect. It is mostly connecting a language model to the systems your knowledge lives in, catching the edge cases, and building something around it that someone understands without instructions. The hard part is those last two.
On top of that, building itself has got faster. With AI-assisted development, what used to take weeks is there in days. That shifts the scarcity: build time is not the problem, the answer to what you should build is.
So I work hands-on — in your stack, next to your developers — so the team is faster after I leave. No workshop afterwards, just building together.
How it works
01
First understand what is going on
I join for a few days, talk to the floor and to management, and look for where AI actually delivers instead of where it merely sounds good.
02
Then build, not advise
I build the most promising ideas into something that runs on your data, in your processes. No report, no slides.
03
And a clear decision
Every proof of concept ends in keep building, adjust, or stop. You decide based on something that works.
How hiring me actually works
So you know what you are saying yes to.
- Shape — one to three days a week, embedded in the team, for the length of an engagement. That is usually two to three months.
- To start — a signed quote, a desk, and one fixed contact who can make decisions.
- On site — yes, deliberately. Getting people excited in person works better than digitally. Day-to-day communication runs over Slack or Google Workspace; Teams works too.
- Stopping — cancellable monthly, hours worked are simply invoiced. If a phase does not produce a working proof of concept, that phase costs you nothing.
- Availability — two clients at a time at most. I can usually start fairly soon, and within two to three months at the latest.
- The code — yours, with no IP claim or licensing construction.
What not to expect from me
Three things someone else is better at.
- A year of capacity on an existing backlog. I come to get something moving, not to fill a seat.
- Maintenance and support on what is already there. A permanent developer or an agency is better at that, and cheaper.
- A team I bring along. I work alone — which is exactly why there is so little between the idea and the first working version.
building became the easy part →
Why my hourly rate is higher
I charge € 150 per hour, more than a developer. The difference is in what you do not build: the idea that looked good but nobody uses. One avoided three-month project pays that difference back many times over.
Work out what your engagement costsA working proof of concept — or that phase costs you nothing
And you can stop at any decision point — no obligations
What people ask about this
- Do you work with our own developers?
- Yes, preferably. I work in your stack and workflow, so what is left does not depend on me. Whatever I use along the way in AI-assisted development, your developers pick up by themselves — that is the point.
- Does this take a lot of our team’s time?
- Yes, and that is the intention. I have to genuinely become part of the team — without that involvement you build something that is technically correct but nobody uses. Expect regular contact with the people who will use it, and a conversation with the fixed contact every one or two weeks.
- Which AI models do you use?
- Whichever fit the problem best. If you want to limit yourself to European models, that is possible in consultation.
- How soon can you start?
- Usually fairly soon, and within two to three months at the latest. I work for two clients at a time at most, because an engagement needs that attention.
in closing
Want to see if this fits?
One conversation to find out whether there is something worth building — and if there is not, I will say so.
€ 150 per hour · 1 to 3 days a week · you can stop at any time