h1e — Human First Engineering

Senior engineers
using AI tools.

Most AI-engineering shops are junior operators running tools. We’re senior operators using tools. Different price point. Different buyer. World-class expertise.

Book a discovery call What we do

Remote. Las Vegas HQ. Clients across the US.

The shift

Every company built something with AI in the last 18 months.

  • 50%

    doesn’t hold up under load.

  • 33%

    has secrets committed to the repo.

  • 25%

    will fail its first real audit.

“Half of it doesn’t hold up under load.”

Who’s going to fix it?

What we do

Four shapes of engagement.
One operating philosophy.

01

Validation Sprint

Quick read on a codebase before an investor or acquirer gets it. We find what their diligence team will find — before they find it.

Duration
3–4 wk
Fee
$7.5K–$12.5K
02

Audit / Rescue

Offshore-built, AI-heavy, or orphaned codebases. We make them shippable again — rescue when rescue is right, rewrite only when rewrite is right.

Structure
Fixed fee
Range
$20K–$75K
03

Fractional Engineering

Senior pair-of-hands for a team that needs adult supervision. We sit inside your engineering practice and ship with it.

Term
3–6 mo
Retainer
$8K–$15K / mo
04

Advisory

Standing access for founders making high-stakes technical calls. On-demand judgment from someone who’s built, sold, and fixed the broken parts.

Term
Month-to-month
Retainer
$2.5K–$5K / mo

Every engagement starts with a 60-min discovery call. Free. First deliverable is always a written assessment. You can walk at any time.

How we’re different

Paid by outcome.
Not by headcount.

Other AI shops h1e
Junior engineers running Cursor Senior engineers using Cursor
Paid by headcount Paid by outcome
“Rewrite it” is always the answer Rescue when rescue is right
No opinion on whether it should exist We tell you when it shouldn’t
Certification-driven Experience-driven
“We tell you when it shouldn’t.”

Proof

De-identified, recent,
and still running.

Case 01 · Consumer app, pre-Series A

631 MB

Heap dump with AWS credentials committed to the repo. XSS vectors open. Encryption silent-failing. Delivered a prioritized remediation plan in three weeks.

  • XSS vectors in the client-side HTML parser
  • Encryption using the wrong cipher function — decrypt failed silently
  • Delivered: prioritized remediation plan + 90-day rescue roadmap

Case 02 · Aviation platform, offshore vendor fired

1 engineer

Replaced a multi-vendor contract. Senior-plus-AI, solo operator, shipped production-grade auth, verification, matching, and messaging. Months, not quarters.

  • Rebuilt backend + mobile with a senior-plus-AI approach, solo operator
  • Shipped production-grade auth, verification, matching, messaging
  • Months, not quarters, to production

Case 03 · Compliance platform, monolith migration

7,000+ LOC

Analytics ported without rewriting. Flask monolith to FastAPI + React, strangler-fig pattern, zero downtime. In-production the entire migration window.

  • Flask monolith → FastAPI + React, zero downtime
  • Strangler-fig pattern, both systems live throughout
  • In-production the entire migration window

Case 01 · in depth

Consumer AI startup, pre-Series A.
What we found, where it lived, how we closed it.

Audit findings: 631 MB heap dump committed to repo, multiple XSS vectors in HTML parser, one broken cipher function, 90-day rescue roadmap delivered.
Findings. Three critical classes of risk surfaced during the audit — credentials, injection, cryptography — plus the deliverable we handed back.
Application architecture diagram with severity pins marking where each finding lived in the system: client app, API, data layer, and build pipeline.
Where it lived. Findings pinned to the layers they touched, so engineering and leadership could agree on priority without re-reading the full report.
90-day remediation roadmap: phased execution plan across the critical findings with milestone markers.
How we closed it. A 90-day roadmap the team could execute against — phased, prioritized, and defensible to the board.

Case 02 · in depth

Aviation platform, offshore vendor fired.
One engineer, four production surfaces, months — not quarters.

Rebuild results: one senior engineer replaced a multi-vendor contract, shipped four production surfaces (auth, verification, matching, messaging), delivered in months.
Results. A senior-plus-AI solo operator replaced a multi-vendor offshore contract and shipped four production surfaces against a rescue clock.
Rebuilt stack architecture: mobile client (Expo/React Native) through FastAPI gateway to four backend services (auth, verification, matching, messaging) with Postgres and third-party integrations.
What we rebuilt. FastAPI backend, Expo mobile, four product surfaces stood up from scratch — each one tagged where it was rebuilt, not where it was patched.
Rebuild timeline from vendor-fired crisis through audit, foundation, product surfaces, mobile release, to shipped.
How we shipped. From the vendor-fired inflection to a production release cleared for users — five phases on a rescue clock.

Case 03 · in depth

Compliance platform, live migration.
Strangler-fig, zero downtime, both systems live throughout.

Migration stats: 7,000+ lines of analytics code ported without rewriting, zero downtime, both stacks live throughout, strangler-fig pattern.
Scale. Seven thousand-plus lines of analytics ported without rewriting, zero downtime, both systems live the entire migration window.
Strangler-fig architecture: legacy Flask monolith on the left, edge router in the middle, new FastAPI plus React stack on the right with migrated routes highlighted.
How it worked. An edge router in front of both stacks; traffic routed by path. The new stack grew; the monolith de-scoped — one route at a time.
Dual-rail migration timeline: top rail fading (Flask monolith), bottom rail growing (FastAPI + React), ending at a modern stack with zero downtime.
Through the window. Dual rails — the monolith fading, the new stack growing — with every route migrated without a maintenance window.

Who we work with

Four kinds of calls.
All urgent.

  • → Founders raising a B-round who need to show a clean diligence packet.
  • → Companies who fired an offshore vendor and need to rescue what’s left.
  • → Regulated-industry teams — defense, healthcare, finance — who need senior engineering with AI fluency.
  • → Investors doing technical diligence on portfolio companies.

Next step

Book a 60-min discovery call.
Free. Non-binding.

Either we have the right shape for you, or we tell you who does.

hello@h1e.ai

Under Magnetic Ventures — investment + management consulting.