AI engineering
Build the eval before you build the feature
The fastest way to lose three months on an AI project is to ship the demo first and figure out correctness later.
Rowan Ellis · 7 min
Austin, Texas · United StatesTaking on new work for Q4
Software that holds up.Engineers who keep it that way.
Nexa is a US-based AI and software engineering studio. We ship production systems for teams who need them to actually work — and we grow the next generation of engineers while we do it.
- Founded in Austin, Texas
- 2021Founded in Austin, Texas
- Developers mentored
- 180+Developers mentored
- Products shipped to production
- 40+Products shipped to production
- US time zones covered
- 4US time zones covered
Trusted by teams shipping in production
- Atlas Mutual
- Northwind Freight
- Meridian Health
- Kindling
- Halcyon Labs
- Veritas Retail
- Orchard Bio
- Sable Financial
01 · What we doAll services
Four ways we plug in.
Most engagements start with one and grow into another. All of them are led by senior engineers who stay on the project.
02 · Selected workAll case studies
Shipped, measured, handed over.
A sample of recent engagements. Every one ended with the client’s own team owning the code.
Why we’re different
We don’t just deliver.
We bring people up.
Every Nexa pod pairs senior engineers with developers from our mentorship track, at a capped ratio of one mentor to four. Clients get sustainable throughput. Apprentices get real work with real review. Nobody is doing anyone a favour.
- Developers mentored since 2021
- 180+Developers mentored since 2021
- Apprentices in engineering roles within 3 months
- 86%Apprentices in engineering roles within 3 months
- Mentor to apprentice ratio, capped
- 1:4Mentor to apprentice ratio, capped
- Cost to apprentices — the programme is paid
- $0Cost to apprentices — the programme is paid
03 · How we work
No black boxes, no surprise integration weeks.
The same four phases on every engagement, whether it runs four weeks or four quarters.
01
Frame
A short paid discovery: we map the problem, the constraints and the definition of done before anyone writes code. You leave with a plan you could hand to any competent team — including one that isn’t us.
02
Prove
We build the riskiest slice first. Whatever is most likely to sink the project gets tested in week one, not week ten, so budget decisions are made with evidence.
03
Build
Weekly increments in your repository, your CI, your cloud. Demos every Friday, written notes the same day, no black boxes and no surprise integration weeks.
04
Hand over
Documentation, runbooks and pairing sessions until your team is genuinely independent. We measure success by how quickly you stop needing us.
“They spent the first three weeks building the thing that told us whether we were wrong. Nobody else pitched that, and it turned out to be the whole project.”
04 · InsightsAll writing
What we’ve learned the hard way.
Notes from live engagements — evaluation, handover, inference cost, and the case for hiring juniors.
Next step
Tell us what you’re building.
A 30-minute call with an engineer, not a salesperson. You will leave with a straight answer about scope, cost and whether we are the right people for it.
Or email hello@nexa.com · Austin, Texas · United States