sourceBOLD doesn't hire developers for you. We engage independent contractors — and engagement is a specific contractual structure, distinct from full-time employment and from traditional staff augmentation. Here's what it actually is.
What "engagement" means
An engagement is a month-to-month contractor relationship governed by three documents:
- The Master Services Agreement (MSA) between you and sourceBOLD — covers billing, IP, confidentiality, term, governing law.
- A Statement of Work (SOW) per developer — names the developer, the start date, the monthly Service Fee, and the scope of work.
- An Independent Contractor Agreement between sourceBOLD and the developer — the contract that makes the developer an independent contractor rather than an employee of either party.
You sign the MSA + SOW. sourceBOLD signs the Independent Contractor Agreement separately with the developer. The legal relationships are kept clean — the developer is not your employee, not sourceBOLD's employee, and there's no joint-employer relationship.
Why "engagement" instead of "hire"
The word matters because the legal structure matters. Engaging a contractor and hiring an employee are not interchangeable:
- No W-2. The developer files a 1099 (or the international equivalent). You don't withhold taxes, file payroll, or carry employment-tax exposure.
- No benefits obligation. No health insurance, no PTO accrual, no 401(k) match on your side. The developer's economics are handled through the sourceBOLD payout, not through your HR system.
- No equity vesting. A contractor isn't eligible for the employee equity pool. (Some clients do issue contractor warrants — that's an option that lives outside the engagement.)
- No at-will-employment relationship. Termination follows the notice period in the MSA, not US at-will employment law.
If what you actually need is a full-time employee with benefits and equity, an engagement isn't the right fit. We'll say so.
Why "engagement" instead of "staff augmentation"
Traditional staff augmentation firms typically bill an hourly rate × hours worked, reconciled weekly via timesheet; retain 40–50% margin between client bill rate and developer pay; operate on a "bench" model where the firm pre-employs developers and rents them out; and offer team-based engagements (Scrum team of five, with a PM bundled in).
sourceBOLD differs on every dimension:
- Monthly Service Fee, not hourly. One US-dollar invoice per developer per month. No timesheets, no weekly billing reconciliation.
- 75/25 revenue split. Seventy-five percent to the developer, twenty-five to sourceBOLD. For months 1–3 the recruiter installment fully consumes the spread, so sourceBOLD's per-developer margin is $0 until month 4.
- No bench. We don't pre-employ developers and rent them out. Every placement is sourced for a specific client SOW.
- Single-developer engagement. No PM bundled in, no team-as-a-unit pricing. You direct the work; we placed the developer.
What that means in practice
You add a senior contractor to your team. They show up to your standups, write code in your repos, take direction from your tech lead, and integrate the way an in-house senior contractor would integrate. Your team treats them as a member of the team. The contract structure is invisible day-to-day — it surfaces when an invoice arrives on the 15th, when you sign a new SOW for the next developer, or when the engagement ends and the notice period runs out.
That's the engagement model: contractually clean, operationally invisible.
For the contract math underneath the model, What it costs covers the per-developer numbers. For the engagement playbook, How it works walks through scoping to first standup.