Hey!

Chris here. Welcome to Blueprint—the newsletter to help you build a winning engineering team.

Today we're tackling a 6-figure mistake I see smart founders make every week: picking the wrong type of engineering contractors.

When you're drowning in technical challenges, any life raft looks good. But choose wrong, and that life raft will be as useless as the floating door from Titanic—sorry, Leo.

I've spent years watching companies burn through cash trying everything from offshore teams to solo freelancers. 

Most end up with expensive lessons instead of working solutions.

Want to know what actually works? Let me break it down👇🏼

📒 DEEP DIVE

How to Pick the Right Technical Partner

After 2 decades, I've seen every technical hiring mistake—here's how to avoid the biggest ones.

Look, technical hiring isn't rocket science. But I watch founders overcomplicate it every single day. Here's what usually happens:

You hit a technical wall. You need help fast.

You Google "engineering contractors."

Suddenly you're drowning in options. Everyone's selling you the same story: "We're the best at everything."

But that's BS. Nobody's the best at everything.

After building engineering teams for 20+ years, I can tell you there are only 3 real options for hiring great talent:

➝ Offshore teams

➝ Freelancers

➝ Agencies

 Each one works—but only in specific situations.

Offshore Teams: Your Execution Engine

Offshore teams are great. They allow you to hire amazing talent, for a fraction of the price, for however long you need them. 

But you must have deep engineering expertise in-house if you’re going to hire offshore talent—I'm talking "could-build-it-yourself-but-don't-have-time" level knowledge.

You need to have 99% of the technical decisions locked down before they touch a keyboard. They're an execution engine, not your brain trust.

If you don’t have a technical founder? Don't even think about it. You'll end up with exactly what you asked for—whether it's what you needed or not.

Freelancers: The Solo Specialists

Freelancers are like special forces—elite at one thing, but they don't build armies.

They're perfect for deep expertise in a specific domain. But they come with 2 problems:

1) They don't scale 

2) They invented ghosting 

Plus, their knowledge is usually narrow. Not that this is always bad, but again, freelancers are your specialists. Need them to branch into a different tech stack? Good luck.

Agencies: The Sweet Spot

Agencies are like an engineering partner that scales with you.

You get the deep expertise of freelancers without the reliability issues. Plus, you're not betting your entire project on one person's availability (or mood).

The real value? Cost averaging. When you work with an agency, you're not paying for learning curves or downtime. 

You get the right expertise at the right time.

At Surton, we see this play out all the time. A client needs AI expertise one week and cloud architecture the next—having a full team means we can flex to their needs so they don't have to find and vet new people every time.

How Big is Too Big?

But here's the catch with agencies—size matters. A lot.

If you're a startup, you need a smaller agency. Big agencies have massive overhead and minimal dedicated capacity. You'll get B-team talent and C-team attention.

Match your size—your revenue and success should matter to them. 

That's why we built Surton the way we did. 

We're deliberately staying small and focused. Would we make more money taking on every F500 company that comes knocking? Sure. 

But that's not what builds great engineering solutions.

TLDR: If you want reliable, scalable engineering help without the management overhead, the right-sized agency is your best bet. 

But choose carefully—bigger isn't always better.

The Reality

Look, we all make mistakes. But choosing the wrong engineering help doesn't have to be one of them.

Here's what it comes down to: 

➝ Offshore teams = execution engine—but only if you've got the technical chops to direct traffic 

➝ Freelancers = special forces—perfect for that one specific battle 

➝ Agencies = long-term partners—bringing scalability, reliability, and broad expertise

Match your needs to the right solution and you'll save yourself a mountain of headaches and cash.

🎙 EPISODE OF THE WEEK

This week's "Build Your Business" podcast is all about taking the leap into entrepreneurship.

Matt and I break down our journeys from corporate jobs to building from scratch.

We dive into the fears, myths, and actual risks of starting a business. Plus, I share my transition from a "safe" tech career to building software companies.

If you're sitting on a business idea but scared to pull the trigger—this one's for you: Check it out on YouTube.

BEFORE YOU GO…

Technical talent can make or break your company. We've all heard the saying, "You can have fast, cheap, or good. But not all three."

But too many founders treat contractor decisions like they're ordering takeout—going with whatever's fastest or cheapest, which all but guarantees it won't be good.

Here's the truth: The wrong choice today will cost you 10x tomorrow.

Every successful company I know has one thing in common: they picked the right type of help at the right time.

Know your needs, know your options, and make the right call.

P.S. If you're ready to work with an agency, reply back to this—Surton's ready to help.

Talk soon,

Chris.