WAVECT vs STAFFING

Wavect or a staffing agency. We do staff augmentation too. Just not the cheap-bodies kind.

Our Extended Team mode slots senior people into your stack on a weekly retainer. That is staff augmentation. The differences from a traditional staffing firm are seniority bar, billing model, and scope ownership. If you need five mid-level engineers next Monday at the lowest hourly rate, traditional staffing is the right tool. If you need one or two senior people billing weekly outcomes who push back on scope, that is us.

Book a thirty-minute call

“Staffing got us four engineers in two weeks. Twelve months later we had shipped a beautiful product nobody wanted.”

// 01

How they actually differ

Six dimensions where Extended Team and traditional staff augmentation diverge.

WAVECT DIMENSION ALTERNATIVE

Weekly outcome fee. One number per week.

PRICING UNIT

€60 to €100 per hour per engineer, billed monthly. Margin on top.

Senior only. No juniors on the work.

SENIORITY BAR

Whatever seat shape you ask for. Mix of seniorities is normal.

One to three senior people per engagement.

TEAM SIZE

Any size, fast. Tens of engineers is feasible.

We push back. We own the outcome.

SCOPE OWNERSHIP

You own scope. Staffing fills seats against it.

Cancel any week.

EXIT TERMS

Per-engineer notice. Ramp-down terms vary by contract.

Refund the last week if it did not blow you away.

WHAT IF IT FAILS

Engineers are paid for hours worked. Outcome is your problem.

// 02

The real difference, in practice

Our Extended Team mode is staff augmentation, so the comparison is fair: senior people slotted into your stack on a weekly retainer. A traditional staffing firm does the same shape of thing. Three differences decide which one fits.

First, seniority. Staffing optimizes for filling headcount at a rate, and junior-heavy benches are normal. Our bar is senior-only, and we do not put juniors on your retainer to pad margin. Second, billing. We bill a weekly outcome, not tracked hours, so the incentive is to finish, not to log time. Third, scope. A staffing engineer executes the tickets you hand them. We push back when a ticket should not exist.

If your metric is raw headcount at the lowest hourly rate and you already have the technical leadership to direct it, staffing is the more efficient tool, and we will say so plainly. If you need one or two senior operators who own outcomes and challenge scope, that is us.

See how the Extended Team retainer works.

// 03

When each is the better call

// 01

When Wavect is the better call

  • The outcome matters more than headcount. You need the product to ship and sell, not five seats filled.
  • You cannot afford a post-mortem on a twelve-month staffing contract. The runway math does not survive a wrong bet at that scale.
  • You want product judgment in the room, not just engineering capacity.
  • Your team is small and a staffing-driven culture would dilute it. You need a partner, not vendor overhead.
// 02

When staffing is the better call

  • You are 100% certain about the product. The strategy is set, the roadmap is set, the only constraint is engineering throughput.
  • You need to fill a known seat shape (senior Go backend, Snowflake data engineer, Salesforce architect).
  • You have engineering leadership in house to manage hired contractors. The staffing firm does not need to think about scope.
  • You have the budget and runway to absorb a six to twelve month contract even if the underlying bet turns out wrong.

If the bullets on the right describe your situation, staffing is the more efficient answer. If the bullets on the left describe it, talk to us.

// 04

Relevant Wavect work

// 05

FAQs

On the surface, yes. We slot senior people into your stack on a weekly retainer, same shape as staff augmentation. Two things actually differ. Seniority: we do not bring juniors. Billing: weekly outcome fee, not hourly per engineer. If lowest cost per hour or raw headcount at scale is your metric, traditional staffing wins. If senior-only with outcome accountability is what you need, that is us.
Usually, yes. €60 to €100 per hour for a senior engineer through a staffing firm is real. The total cost depends on what those hours produce. If the product question is open, a year of cheap hours shipping the wrong thing is not cheap.
No. Our model is one to three senior people per engagement. If you need five engineers on the bench by Monday, a staffing firm is the right tool. We will say so directly in the discovery call.
No. We are roughly four to ten times the hourly equivalent of an offshore staffing rate. The comparison is meaningful only if you are buying hours. We sell outcomes. The math changes.
We run discovery first, define what actually needs to ship, then bring in known senior contractors only if scope demands it. The accountability line stays with us. The team size grows only when the outcome requires it.
Weekly demos against a written milestone plan. If we miss the milestone, we say so, we name why, and we cut scope or rework. Refund the week if the work did not blow you away. The cancel-any-week clause is what keeps us honest.
Then staffing is the wrong tool. When the gap is technical leadership rather than headcount, see our Fractional CTO Austria tier. One founder-operator running the technical call, not five contractors waiting on tickets you write.
Last reviewed: byKevin Riedl wiki ↗
Book a thirty-minute call