Five options when an SES firm has deals but not enough engineers
When your SES firm has deals but no one to assign, compare five options before hiring — full-time hiring, freelancers, expanding partner firms, offshore, and an AI development & operations team — and see which fits which conditions.
The situation behind "we have deals but no engineers" is usually the same — winnable deals slip because there is no one to assign. Rather than pushing one answer, this page compares five sourcing options with their trade-offs, then shows, conditionally, when an AI development & operations team (FDE Box) is the right fit.
Deals exist, people do not
You could win the work, but with no engineer to assign you pass it to another firm or lose it outright.
Caught between hiring and rates
Hiring costs time and money; raising rates thins the margin. On the man-month model, delivery capacity hits a ceiling.
Thin margins in deep subcontracting
The deeper the subcontracting tier, the thinner the margin — and bench cost eats the profit.
IT talent itself is scarce
Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry treats the digital-talent shortage as an ongoing issue, so one firm's hiring effort alone rarely closes the gap.
Limits of the man-month model
Revenue is bound to "headcount × rate × billable months," so with no more people there is no more revenue. Small shifts in utilization or rate swing the profit sharply.
An on-site-first commercial flow
In a flow built on on-site, named-person staffing, the moment there is no person the deal turns into a lost sale.
No single option is always right. Fit depends on the nature and conditions of the deal.
1. Full-time hiring
Builds capacity in-house, but hiring time, training cost and attrition risk are high — and it is too slow for the deal in front of you.
2. Freelancer sourcing
Easy to secure ready hands short-term, but rates are high and continuity and quality vary.
3. Expanding partner firms (BP)
Widens the flow, but deep subcontracting thins margins and blurs quality and accountability.
4. Offshore development
Lowers cost, but communication, time-zone and quality-control overhead remain.
5. AI dev & ops team (FDE Box)
Instead of adding people, an AI multi-agent team handles design, implementation, environment setup and operations. Not a plain replacement for on-site staff, but delivery capacity for development, infrastructure and operations. See the checklist below for when it fits.
Conditions where FDE Box fits
- Deals that need delivered outcomes in build and operations, more than physical presence
- Deals centered on web development or modernizing existing systems
- Deals needing AWS/Azure/GCP builds, DB migration or performance work
- Deals short on operational execution — CI/CD, monitoring, incident response
- Deals that can be redesigned as quasi-delegation, contract or managed-operation work
Frequently asked questions
Can AI be on-site in place of a person?
No. Named-person on-site presence, or work where the customer directs a specific individual, cannot be replaced as-is. FDE Box separates "what it can execute" (design, implementation, test automation, environment setup, CI/CD, monitoring, incident analysis, performance) from "conditional areas" (attending regular meetings, direct access to customer systems, handling confidential data).
Is the contract quasi-delegation or contract work?
It depends on the deal. After checking deliverable responsibility, security conditions and on-site requirements, we determine whether quasi-delegation, contract development or operations support fits. We propose after seeing the deal sheet.
Do you feed customer source or personal data into external AI?
Data location, no use for external training, per-customer data separation, access control and audit logs are defined under enterprise governance. The scope of handling is agreed per deal.
Can it run alongside the other four options?
Yes. Keep the deals that full-time staff, freelancers or partner firms already cover, and use FDE Box only for the development, infrastructure and operations deals you were turning away.
We diagnose the deals you were about to decline — free
Send one deal sheet with the customer name hidden. We assess whether it can be handled and send it back.