Process · four stages
The working build.
Most design engagements end with a file and a meeting. This one ends with a URL your team can open, a repository they can run, and a Figma library that matches both.
Step 01. Scope
Two days, free
Twenty minutes on a call about the problem. Then I go away, look at the screen myself, and come back with what I think is actually wrong. If your problem is not one I can solve well, this is where I say so.
What this stage produces
- A written scope with a fixed price and a delivery date
- An honest read on whether the thing you asked for is the thing you need
Step 02. Spec
Week one
Research sized to the engagement, then decisions written down. Your data, your support tickets, your users where they exist. Every screen-level decision gets traced to a participant, a metric, or a principle.
What this stage produces
- A findings document, prioritized by impact against engineering effort
- Flows and states, including the empty, loading and error cases
- The list of things I decided not to do, and why
Step 03. Build
Weeks two to four
I design and build at the same time, in code, working in Claude Code and Figma together. You see a running URL from the first week, so feedback lands on something you can click.
What this stage produces
- A working front end, deployed somewhere you can open on your phone
- Reusable parts with every state built, from empty to error
- A weekly call against the live build, never against a slide
Step 04. Handover
Final week
Your engineers get a repository they can run and read. Your designers get a Figma library built on the same shared colours, type and spacing, so the two do not drift apart the week after I leave.
What this stage produces
- The repository, with a README written for someone who has never seen it
- A live catalogue of every component (Storybook), so nobody rebuilds one that already exists
- A Figma library matching the code
Three rules the process is built on
Decisions get traced.
Every screen-level decision should trace to a participant, a metric, or a principle. If it traces to none of those it is an opinion, and opinions do not survive a six-engineer team.
The build is the deliverable.
A Figma file transfers a picture of a decision. Running code transfers the decision itself, along with all the states nobody remembered to draw.
Untested is said out loud.
Where a claim has been tested I give you the number and the sample. Where it has not, I say that plainly rather than dressing an opinion up as a finding.
Terms, before you have to ask for them
Hiring someone you found on the internet is a risk, and more so across a border. These are the terms that keep it a small one. They are the same for every client, and the same after a call as before it.
- What you pay, and when
- A fixed price, quoted in writing before anything starts. The audit is split in half: half to start, half when the document lands. Projects are paid in three, 40% to start, 30% at the middle milestone, 30% at handover. The monthly partner is billed in advance.
- Every payment is attached to something you can open
- A milestone is a named artifact, never a percentage of progress: the findings document, the spec, the running build. If the artifact does not land, the invoice does not go out. The shorter the engagement, the simpler the split, which is why the five-day audit is halves and a six-week build is thirds.
- You can stop after any milestone
- Seven days of notice, either direction, no reason required. You pay for the milestones already delivered and you keep every one of them in full, source files included. Nothing further is owed.
- Changes are priced before they start
- Anything outside the written scope gets its own price and its own date, agreed before I begin. The scope does not quietly grow, so neither does the invoice.
- You own the work
- The repository, the Figma file and the documents transfer to you on final payment. I keep the right to show the work here, and I ask before publishing anything.
- Invoices are net seven
- Priced in US dollars, payable by bank transfer, with the details on the invoice. No Indian GST is charged. This is an export of services and it is zero-rated.
Engagements at $1,000 and above run on a two-page agreement. Below that, an email saying yes is enough.
Three client slots this quarter
Stage one is two days and costs nothing. You get a scope, a price, and an honest read on whether I am the right person.