Hire AI developers vs agency

There is no universal winner—match time horizon, risk, and existing platform team.

Hire FTEs when

• AI becomes a core product competency for years
• You already have platform eng, security, and ML ops headcount
• You can mentor seniors who have shipped agents before

Hire contractors when

• You need temporary capacity on a known backlog
• Internal PM and architecture are strong; gaps are hands on keyboard
• Contract includes IP assignment and security onboarding

Hire an agency (including us) when

• You need end-to-end delivery (spec, build, launch, handoff) on a deadline
• Internal team is new to agents/RAG and wants a reference implementation
• You want documented runbooks, not only merged PRs

Hybrid pattern we often see

Agency ships MVP + eval harness; FTEs own iteration. Budget agent development cost separately for run vs build.

PunkSolid Company operates this agency site and PunkSolid implementation—disclosed on about.