Why Your Agency Spends $500/hr on Coffee: The Overhead Tax
I do this by delivering architecture-grade software, incident playbooks, and AI workflows for agencies, banks, and campuses—without the layers of project managers, account executives, and shiny office space you’re currently paying for.
For two decades, I’ve watched companies throw millions away on large agencies, paying for a structure that guarantees overhead over outcome. It's time to talk about the Overhead Tax, and why I can deliver enterprise quality at a fraction of the cost.
1. You Pay for the Pyramid, Not the Product
When you hire a large agency, you are signing up to fund a pyramid.
The Base: Junior developers learning on your dime.
The Middle: Layers of scrum masters, resource coordinators, and middle managers whose primary job is internal communication.
The Apex: Account executives and partners whose value is selling the next phase, not ensuring the success of the current one.
When your invoice arrives, only a fraction of that hourly rate actually pays the engineer writing your critical code. The rest funds the beautiful lobby, the quarterly off-sites, and the three layers of reporting required just to commit a git diff.
I skip the pyramid. When you work with me, you get the person who:
Owned .NET/C# services and SQL tuning for Wells Fargo.
Patched SAN firmware after lunch while running campus networking.
Is an adjunct programming instructor.
My incentive to be efficient is immediate and personal. Your money goes directly into two decades of proven, high-stakes experience—not administrative fat.
2. The Focus: Measurable Outcomes vs. Billable Hours
Agencies thrive on billable hours and scope creep. Their KPI is keeping the contract running.
My KPI is resilient architecture and sub-200ms latency.
I am relentlessly focused on measurable outcomes. I define success based on the results you need:
Platform Modernization: Successfully migrating monoliths to service meshes.
AI Workflow Design: Delivering RAG pipelines that won't leak data.
DevOps: Setting up CI/CD and observability (logs, traces, canaries) that make systems auto-heal.
I don't need a 30-page SOW and ten internal meetings to start solving your problem. I need your architecture diagrams, your goals, and a Slack channel.
3. The Accountability: On-Call Leadership vs. Ticket Slams
Agencies are experts at diffusing accountability. When something breaks, finding the person who owns the fix requires a ticket system, a severity matrix, and a team meeting.
I built my career on on-call leadership and solving the problem myself.
My background is the full stack: Programmer, DBA, Sysadmin. I’ve lived the fire drills. I know what happens when you skip a backup strategy or ignore a critical vulnerability. This experience dictates my architecture choices from day one, leading to systems with a "99.999% obsession with observability."
When you hire a focused expert, you hire direct, undiluted accountability. You get the person who designed the system and who is prepared to maintain it.
☕ Stop Paying the Overhead Tax
Your enterprise-grade software doesn't need a huge agency brand name to be successful. It needs systems thinking, engineering discipline, and someone who ships production code—not paper reports.
I need to deliver world-class results to pay the bills and keep my ex-wife happy (and paid). You want enterprise resilience without the overhead tax. It’s a win-win.
Ready to bypass the pyramid and invest directly in your core product? Bring me into your architecture review.