Senior AI Engineering Studio

We build & ship
production AI.
Software you own.

We take over stalled builds, ship new AI products, and embed as your engineering team, in regulated, data-heavy domains where most shops can't operate.

A mangrove tree with its anchoring prop-root system
Trusted in regulated, data-heavy domains Healthcare· Fintech· Legal· Logistics· Public sector
Direct engagements  ·  AI engineering and fractional CTO since 2011
GoodRx CVS Deloitte The Mather Group ListReports PhotoPharmics Flagright Hiatus Wicker Park Group Spyglaz EstateCo Provenance Vrolio Bonus Homes Sage Capital Skin Research Institute Syncro Monitoring
How we engage

Three ways in, one standard of work.

01
Build

Zero-to-one, full-stack AI products designed, built, and shipped to production, not slideware or a prototype that stalls.

02
Embed

A fractional CTO plus a senior team, working inside your org, accountable for delivery, hiring, and the roadmap.

03
Rescue

We take over stalled builds and shaky infrastructure, stabilize what's live, and get delivery moving again.

The method

A short path from
problem to production.

No open-ended discovery, no team you never meet. A senior engineer owns your problem end to end, and you own the software at the end.

01
Diagnose

A paid, fixed-scope diagnosis of the build, the data, and the risk, you leave with a plan whether or not we continue.

02
Scope

We cut the work to the smallest thing that ships real value, and commit to a timeline you can hold us to.

03
Build in production

We ship to a real environment early and often, so you're testing against reality, not a demo, from week one.

04
Hand over

Documented, tested, and yours, your team can run and extend it without us. No lock-in, no black boxes.

Principles

How we work, and why it holds.

Senior people only

The person who scopes your work is the person who builds it. No hand-offs to juniors you never agreed to.

You own the software

Code, infrastructure, and knowledge transfer to your team. We're a force multiplier, not a dependency.

Production or it doesn't count

We measure progress in things that are live and used, not decks, not accuracy on a slide.

Built to hold

Systems for regulated domains that stay standing under real load, audits, and edge cases, like roots that anchor.

Casework

Shipped, in the hard domains.

Discuss your project
Consumer platform  ·  Mobile payments
A stalled build, shipped in three months.

Inherited a half-finished codebase and shipped a full consumer streaming app, auth, streaming, search, Stripe payments, and creator payouts, live on the App Store. Full-stack build, owned end to end by the client.

Flutter  ·  NestJS  ·  Stripe Connect  ·  AWS
3 months
from a half-built repo to a live, paying app on the App Store.
Clinical AI  ·  Neurology
Commercial expertise, put into production.

Codified a neuro-therapeutics team's targeting judgment into a treatment-ecosystem data layer and a physician-scoring system their commercial team runs on.

HIPAA  ·  Snowflake  ·  ML scoring
Wealth management  ·  RIA
Advisor instinct, turned into a model.

Codified which client relationships were at risk into a churn-prediction system, plus the data platform behind it, for a multi-billion-AUM advisory.

Python  ·  XGBoost  ·  SF Data Cloud
Mortgage SaaS  ·  Real estate tech
The backbone their product runs on.

Built the data-engineering and analytics platform across 300M+ rows of property data, owned in-house, on a multi-year engagement.

AWS  ·  dbt  ·  Analytics
Clinical AI  ·  Enterprise healthcare
Documentation judgment, productized.

Took over from an offshore team and scaled a clinical AI scribe from pilot to enterprise platform, embedded as fractional CTO plus a dedicated engineering team.

LLM pipeline  ·  EHR integration  ·  HIPAA
Legal AI  ·  Legal tech
A methodology, now a SaaS product.

Codified a legal-industry advisor's client-feedback method into a relationship-intelligence platform for law firms, with full product, security, and roadmap ownership.

LLM  ·  RAG  ·  Agentic workflow
Logistics SaaS  ·  Freight
A freight operator's playbook, made software.

Turned a broker's sales process into an AI-native CRM with voice capture and LLM next-step recommendations. Fixed Phase-1 build, then ongoing roadmap ownership.

Python  ·  Optimization  ·  Route ML

Answered plainly.

Q.01 Who is Method for? +
Operators and domain experts who run an established business and want to turn their proprietary process, the thing that actually makes them valuable, into software they own. You have the expertise, the data, and a business that funds the build. What you don't have is a senior engineering team in-house. That's us. We work primarily in regulated, high-trust verticals: healthcare, legal, fintech, wealth, insurance, and logistics.
Q.02 How is this different from a fractional CTO? +
A fractional CTO gives you technical leadership. Method gives you that plus an embedded team that actually builds: LLM pipelines, data infrastructure, and full-stack product, shipped. Most fractional CTOs advise; we lead and build, because that is how the studio is staffed.
Q.03 What's the smallest way to start? +
Two doors. The lightest is a paid scoping session, from $1K: a focused call plus a short written build-plan sketch. The fuller step is a $12K–$25K Build / Rescue Diagnosis over one to three weeks, where we map your system, the gaps, and the fastest path to shipping, and hand you a sequenced build plan. Stop after either, or continue into embedded engineering with 30-day notice.
Q.04 What does a full engagement cost? +
Month-to-month retainers run $20K–$75K depending on team size and scope: embedded CTO plus dedicated engineering, scaled to the engagement. 30-day notice. Scope adjusts monthly. Phase 0 diagnostics and Phase 3 takeovers are fixed-fee. Method prices transparently and publishes ranges publicly, so you never have to ask.
Q.05 Who owns the IP you create? +
You do. In every case. Method retains zero ownership over client software, methods, or derivative IP. Assignment is executed at kickoff. This is a non-negotiable part of how we work.
Q.06 Do you work under HIPAA / BAA? +
Yes. Multiple active HIPAA-covered engagements with executed Business Associate Agreements. Method operates comfortably inside regulated-data environments and will run inside your VPC if required. No data retention outside your environment by default.
Q.07 Can you replace an offshore or vendor team? +
Yes. Phase 3 Takeover & Scale is designed for exactly this. We stabilize production in the first 60 days, then own the roadmap. Method has replaced a large offshore vendor and two domestic teams without a production incident.
Q.08 Who is on the team? +
Each engagement is led by a senior operator backed by the studio's bench: dedicated LLM, data, and ML engineers assigned per engagement, not subcontracted, plus 15+ years of combined delivery in regulated industries. You work with the same team from kickoff through completion. Team composition is disclosed in the engagement letter.
Q.09 What happens if the lead is unavailable mid-engagement? +
Every engagement letter names a successor with equivalent authority, all IP and documentation is escrowed in your environment as the work happens, and the embedded team is built to continue delivery without lead involvement for up to 30 days. Continuity is a contract term, not a promise.
Start with a diagnosis

Tell us what's stuck. We'll tell you how to ship it.

A 30-minute call with a senior engineer, not a salesperson. You'll leave with a clear read on the fastest path to production.

Schedule a 30-min call →

or email contact@methoddatascience.com  ·  Newport Beach, CA