Get a second opinion before you sign

An independent engineer reads the quote, the proposal or the code, and tells you plainly whether the price, the timeline and the plan are reasonable. They are not bidding on the work, so they have nothing to gain from either answer.

What do you want checked?

You have a quote, a proposal or a contractor, and you want a second pair of eyes.

Proposals

Comparing offers written in different shapes

Suppliers structure proposals however they like, which makes direct comparison impossible until you normalise them. Here is how to get them onto the same axis.

Proposals

How to read a development proposal

The price is the last thing to look at. Four other things tell you far more about whether the project will finish on time, and all of them are visible before you sign.

Requirements

How to write an RFP suppliers can answer

Most RFPs fail in the same way: they specify a solution instead of a problem, and they leave out the constraints that would actually change a supplier's answer.

Proposals

Warning signs in a proposal

Every one of these is visible before money changes hands. None of them is proof of anything on its own; two or three together is a pattern worth acting on.

Estimates

Have someone read the quote who is not selling to you

An independent engineer goes through the estimate line by line and tells you what each item actually involves, whether the days are plausible, and which parts of the work are not in the document at all.

Requirements

Check these before the RFP leaves your desk

Four groups of checks. Each corresponds to a specific way that RFPs come back with proposals you cannot compare against each other.

Requirements

A worked example, annotated

A realistic brief for a small internal system, with a note on each section explaining what it does for the supplier and what a weaker version would have cost.

Requirements

An RFP template short enough to be used

Six sections with a note under each explaining what a supplier does with it. Copy the headings, delete the notes, fill in your case.

Requirements

Do you actually need an RFP?

A request for proposal is a good tool for a narrow set of situations and a waste of several weeks for everything else. Here is how to tell which one you are in.

Independent audit

Get an Independent Second Opinion Before You Rebuild

Developers often reflexively recommend rebuilding existing code from scratch because reading others' code is hard. Get an unbiased assessment of whether your software truly needs a rewrite or just targeted refactoring.

Why the person quoting cannot be the person checking

Every technical opinion you receive from someone who wants the contract is, unavoidably, also a sales document. That does not make it dishonest — it makes it unverifiable by you.

A review is worth having precisely because the reviewer is not competing for the job. Their only output is an assessment you can take to any supplier, including the one who gave you the quote.

What a quote should let you check

The number at the bottom is the least informative part of a quote. What matters is whether the structure underneath it can be argued with.

Work broken into items you can recognise, not one line reading 'development'.
Hours or days per item, so the rate and the effort are separable.
A stated assumption list — what the price depends on being true.
What happens when something takes longer than expected, agreed in advance.
What you own at the end, written down: code, accounts, designs.

The signals that a proposal is trouble

A few patterns show up again and again in projects that later go wrong, and all of them are visible before any money changes hands.

A total price with no breakdown, offered before anyone examined the existing system.
A rewrite recommended within the first conversation.
Timelines with no dependency on anything you have to provide.
Reluctance to name who will actually do the work.
Ownership of the code left unstated, or assigned on final payment only.

Reviewing a codebase you already own

The same logic applies to code you have already paid for. An independent read tells you whether what you own is a reasonable foundation, and gives you a concrete list of what to fix — which is useful whether you keep your current developer or not.

It is also the cheapest form of insurance before an acquisition, an investment round, or handing the project to a new team.

Common questions

Will the reviewer try to win the work themselves?

No. Reviews are deliberately assigned to engineers who are not candidates for the project, because the value of the opinion depends on that.

What do I actually receive?

A written assessment in plain language: what the quote or code implies, what looks reasonable, what does not, and what to ask before you sign.

Specialists for this

Illia Pihovych

Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine

$15–$20/ hour

Full-Stack Developer — Websites, Apps, Servers, Databases, AI, SEO & QA

Full-stack developer working across the entire stack — websites, apps, servers, databases, AI integrations, SEO, and QA. Languages & Core: writes code in JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, PHP, Go, and Rust. Architects scalable systems for large-scale projects. Frontend & Interfaces: builds websites and web applications with React and Next.js. Crafts responsive interfaces with Tailwind CSS, Radix UI and Shadcn, adds smooth animations with Framer Motion, and interactive charts with Recharts. SEO Audit & On-Page Optimization: semantic keyword research, resolving technical indexing issues, and optimizing page load speeds. Structures page architecture, meta tags, and multi-language support (i18n). Copywriting & Content Strategy: writes technical articles, drafts precise content briefs for writers, and develops content plans. QA & Testing: full-cycle testing for websites, web services, and Android apps — manual QA for UI/UX and business logic, plus automated testing with Jest, Vitest, Playwright and E2E. Backend, Cloud & Databases: complex API integrations of any scale. Builds servers with Node.js (Express, Fastify). Works with PostgreSQL, MySQL and MongoDB, ORMs (Prisma, Drizzle), and cloud infrastructure (Supabase, Firebase, Cloudflare). Browser Extensions & Automation: develops Manifest V3 browser extensions for Chrome, Edge, Firefox and other browsers. Builds web scrapers for complex data extraction using Puppeteer and Playwright. AI & Intelligent Agents: builds custom AI agents and integrates LLMs from OpenAI, Google Gemini, and Anthropic Claude via API, including Claude Code setups. Servers & DevOps: Linux (Ubuntu) and VPS administration — setup, updates, real-time monitoring, secure process isolation, Nginx, PM2, and CI/CD deployment via GitHub Actions. Telegram Bots: develops advanced Telegram bots (Telegraf, Grammy) integrated with AI, payment gateways, Google Sheets, and crypto exchanges. Desktop Applications: builds cross-platform software for Windows and macOS using Electron and Rust. Additional expertise: site development and customization with WordPress and Astro.

Experience: 16 yearsAvailable Now

JavaScript

TypeScript

Python

React

Next.js

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Dmitry Savenkov

$70–$100/ hour

AI & Distributed Systems Architect | Enterprise AI, RAG, Cloud, Blockchain | Advisory & Fractional Leadership

AI and distributed systems architect providing advisory and fractional leadership on enterprise AI, RAG pipelines, cloud architecture and blockchain-backed data systems.

Experience: 11 yearsPart-time (20h/wk)

AI Engineering

RAG

AWS

Blockchain

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Roma Vandolyak

Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine

$45–$65/ hour

Senior Backend Engineer | AI Engineering | PHP, Python, LLM Applications

Senior backend engineer working across PHP and Python, with a growing focus on AI engineering: building LLM-powered application features on top of existing backend systems and APIs.

Experience: 8 yearsAvailable Now

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Python

LLM

AI Engineering

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