How engagements work.
The questions that come up on most discovery calls — NDAs, conflicts, pricing, IP, what happens after you send an enquiry. Answered upfront so you can decide whether a conversation is worth your time.
Do you sign NDAs before a discovery call?
Yes — happy to sign your standard mutual NDA before any technical detail is exchanged. If you don't have a template, I can send one. Discovery calls cover the shape of the work, not protected technical content, so for many clients the NDA waits until the second conversation.
How are conflicts of interest handled?
Before accepting an engagement I screen the brief against current and recent work for direct competitors or overlapping product categories. If there's a conflict I'll tell you on the discovery call and either walk away or propose a workable boundary. No exceptions.
What's the minimum engagement size?
Smallest scoped engagement is a one-day piece — a focused design review, an analysis sanity-check, or an investigative bench session. For brief advisory or second-opinion work, hourly billing is available against an agreed cap, with the rate set per engagement. Most clients land somewhere between a one-week sprint and a multi-month programme.
What's the typical engagement length?
Review and analysis-only engagements: one to four weeks. Specialist design work: six to twelve weeks. Full prototype loops: three to six months. Anything longer than that we agree milestone gates so either side can pause.
Do you work alongside our existing CAD, PLM, and issue trackers?
Yes — that's the default. I'll use your Altium / KiCAD / Diptrace / EasyEDA project structure, your Jira / Linear / Asana workflow, and your Confluence / Notion documentation conventions. Bring me into your tools rather than running parallel artifacts.
Can you review only part of a design?
Yes — most reviews are scoped to a sub-circuit, such as a gate driver, protection stage, analog front-end, sensing chain, or power section, rather than the whole board. Tighter scope usually means faster turnaround and written findings against the specific risks that matter for that stage.
How does pricing work?
Most projects are priced as a fixed bid against a written scope — audits, WCA packages, DFMEA packages, design reviews, analysis reports, gate-driver designs, prototype loops. The number depends on scope size, complexity, and timeline, and is agreed in writing before work starts. Day-rate work is available for advisory, extension, or longer-running engagements where the day is the natural unit — the band is agreed per engagement rather than published.
How is invoicing handled?
Fixed-bid: 30% on contract signature, balance on milestone gates or final delivery. Day-rate: monthly invoicing, 14-day terms. UK and EU clients: GBP or EUR. International: USD or your preferred currency by agreement.
Who owns the deliverables and IP?
Default: all work product (schematics, layouts, simulation files, analysis reports, code) becomes your IP on payment of the relevant invoice. I retain a portfolio right to describe the engagement in anonymized form, never naming the client or product, and only with your explicit case-study sign-off.
What happens after I send my enquiry?
Within two working days: a written reply with three to five clarifying questions and a proposed 30-minute discovery call. After the call: a one-page scope and quote within five working days. If we both sign, work usually starts within one to four weeks depending on capacity.
Remote, on-site, or hybrid?
All three. Most engagements run remote. On-site visits are scheduled where bench work, customer audits, or design-review sessions need physical presence — billed at day rate plus reasonable travel.
What if your domain isn't on the listed industries?
Ask anyway. The technical core — power electronics, embedded hardware, schematic and PCB design, analysis, debug — transfers across domains. If the brief is genuinely outside what I can deliver well, I'll tell you on the discovery call and where helpful refer you to someone who can.
Question not answered here?
Send it through the contact form — I'll reply within two working days.