Senior product builders, embedded with serious clients.
Small senior teams. Agent-led delivery, human-led judgement. If that is already how you work, we would like to hear from you.
A network of senior builders, not a permanent team.
LevelFive runs as a small core and a network of senior associates. Every engagement has a fixed price, a clear outcome, and a team named in the proposal. We do not hire associates as full-time employees; the relationship is per engagement.
You join the network on referral or after a conversation, and we get in touch when an engagement matches your skills and your availability. Between engagements, you work for whoever you want, including direct competitors. There is no bench, no retainer, no non-compete.
The deal is straightforward: well-scoped fixed-price work, a small senior team, and the autonomy to deliver it your way.
Forward Deployed Builder, Associate.
The role we are advertising right now. Senior, embedded with the client, accountable for shipping the outcome.
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Own engineering delivery against the agreed scope
You own the build day to day. You make the tactical technical calls, and ship working software to a staging environment every fortnight.
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Direct AI agents, do not assist them
You break the outcome into well-defined tasks, agents generate the code, you review and refine. Tests, CI, infrastructure, and documentation go to agents under your direction. Architecture, judgement calls, and security review stay with you.
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Talk to the client directly
No layer of project managers between you and the people whose business this is. Brief async updates daily, a clear view of progress, risks, and decisions at the weekly check-in.
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Raise risks early, not late
If the brief is wrong, the timeline is at risk, or the approach is not working, you say so the moment you know. The fixed-price model gives you permission to be honest because nobody is protecting billable hours.
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Ship something that lasts
At the end of the engagement, the client owns working software they can run, extend, and maintain without us. That is the standard.
The kind of associate we engage.
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Ten years or more of shipping software
Real products that real users paid for, with your name on the work. Senior across at least two of product, design, and engineering. Most of the network can do all three to some degree.
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Daily, fluent use of AI coding agents
Not "I have tried Copilot." Agents are how you already work. If you are not yet using them in anger, this is not the right network for you.
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Owns outcomes, not hours
You care whether the thing actually works in production. You would rather finish fast and well than stretch work to fill a calendar.
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Says what needs saying
You can tell a client their brief is wrong, with empathy and an alternative. You raise problems early instead of hoping they go away.
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Self-directed
Nobody is going to manage your time. You manage your own work and turn up to engagements with the standard already set.
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Curious about how the work is changing
Tools, models, and patterns are moving fast. You read, experiment, and bring what you learn back to the network.
One oath for everyone, founders included.
Every builder in the network affirms our Code of Conduct at onboarding, the same eleven commitments the founders hold themselves to. It is our digital Hippocratic oath. It opens with who the work is for, and it is blunt about who owns what the machine produces: the person who let it through.
Read it before you email us. If it grates, better to find out now than three weeks into an engagement.
Where this will not fit.
Better to say it up front than discover it three weeks in.
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You want a permanent role with a guaranteed pipeline
We engage you per project. Between engagements you find your own work. If you need a steady retainer or a salary, the model will frustrate you.
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You bill by the hour and stretch work to fill it
Engagement fees reward speed. If your instinct is to lengthen scope to maximise a day rate, the incentives here will feel wrong.
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You need a project manager assigning your tasks
We hire seniors who set their own pace and standard. There is no daily standup checking what you did yesterday.
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You think AI is a fad
Every product builder in the network uses agents daily. If you would rather wait this out, that is a fair choice, just not with us.
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You avoid hard conversations
Telling a client what they need to hear is part of the job. Nodding along makes the work worse and the relationship dishonest.
How your engagement runs, and how you are paid.
Engagements are typically two to four seniors, eight to twelve weeks, fixed price, embedded with the client. We use kanban, not sprints. Daily async updates, a weekly check-in, fortnightly demos of working software in a staging environment. Most engagements run hybrid: kickoff and the moments that matter in person, the rest remote.
Compensation is an engagement fee: a share of the fixed price, agreed in the Statement of Work before work starts. The faster and better you deliver, the more your share is worth per day spent. The specific share is agreed per engagement and depends on scope and duration. Day rates and time-and-materials are not part of the model.
Register your interest.
Email us with your CV attached, and a short note covering three things: what you have shipped recently and what you are proudest of, how you are using AI coding agents day to day, and the kinds of engagements you would want to take on.
The role above is the only one we are advertising right now. Other associate roles will open up as the network grows; if your strengths fit somewhere different, say so in your note and we will keep your details on file.
You are registering interest, not applying for a vacancy with a start date. When an engagement comes up that matches your skills and availability, we will be in touch. The first conversation is a thirty-minute call with a founder, no slide deck required.
Start a conversation.
or email us directly at [email protected]