Forward-deployed AI engineering for business teams
You describe the outcome. We ship the system.
A senior AI engineer embedded with your strategy, marketing, or research team, turning intent that is not yet a specification into systems running inside your stack. The industry standardized the name in 2025: forward-deployed engineering. We have been doing the work since 2014.
Delivered with IT kept close: their governance, their stack, their sign-off.
You should not have to write technical requirements
Seventeen years ago a marketing director told us the truest thing anyone has said about requirements: "Show me what you have and I'll tell you what I want." That is still how real requirements surface on the business side of the house. So we build the artifact that does the eliciting: a working prototype your team reacts to, instead of a specification no one could have written up front.
The arc of an engagement
It starts with a free 30-minute scoping call: no pitch, a straight answer on whether this fits. From there, four rungs, each one earning the next, with fees crediting forward as you climb.
1. AI Readiness Check
A live working session with a senior AI architect: your AI opportunities ranked by effort vs impact, the readiness gaps that would block them, and a one-page brief your leadership team can act on.
100% of the fee credits toward the sprint.
2. AI Discovery Sprint
We sit with the people who do the work: not a one-hour meeting, the actual work, and map what we see. You get an operating map of the workflow as it truly runs, and an ROI matrix: which workflows are worth automating, which are not, and what each is worth in revenue, cost, or risk.
Your Readiness Check credits in full, and the sprint fee credits toward the prototype within 90 days.
3. Working Prototype
Business owners decide when their wheels start spinning: you see a working prototype, about 40% of the finished thing, that proves out your non-negotiables one by one and fixes the final scope in the room, not in a document.
Project already underway but stalled? Same rung: we diagnose why the demo never reached production, then ship it or recommend killing it, with a clear alternative.
Haven't done a Discovery Sprint? It's included. Already completed one? Your fee is credited.
4. Forward Deployed AI Engineering
A senior AI engineer embedded with your business, not beside it: shadow mode first, autonomy as the evidence earns it, your people leveling up while real work ships.
A forward-deployed engineer with no product to deploy: nothing to lock you into, we extend the stack you already run. Each quarter you get the numbers your board reads: hours saved, tasks shipped, risks retired.
Enterprise scope (multiple teams, formal security review, procurement) is quoted per RFP: those programs typically start at $50,000.
Why this works
Built to make its champion promotable
Bringing in outside AI help is a risk for whoever signs off. We know, because we have been the bet someone made. So the engagement is designed to de-risk YOU: visible milestones, deterministic checks on anything that must be right 100% of the time, an audit trail for every agent action, and a quarterly report with the numbers your board reads: hours saved, tasks shipped, risks retired.
Book a scoping callWho we work with
Strategy, Marketing and Research leaders
You can see what AI should do for your function. What you cannot get is engineering that understands you. That translation gap is our specialty: senior technical depth with an ear for the business, since 2014.
Companies where the business feels unheard by IT
When every request becomes a ticket and every ticket becomes a quarter, momentum dies. We work for the business side, with IT kept close: their governance, their stack, their sign-off - your velocity.
For consulting and professional-services firms
You win the strategy work; don't watch a vendor capture the build. Magma adds forward-deployed AI delivery to your bench without you building the practice: co-delivery or fully behind the scenes, under your paper, your NDAs, your brand. Your client is never our lead: no direct sales, no poaching, in writing. It is how we already work: our enterprise delivery history runs through consulting partners.
The role, before it had a name
"I'd like to highlight Daniel's 'superpower' - his ability to bridge the conversations between the 'business' and 'IT'. In fact I described him then as a 'unicorn' and he remains one of the few IT professionals I've worked with who have an uncanny ability to translate business needs, shield us from the complexity of the back end and work to provide solutions that benefit all stakeholders. His natural curiosity, excellent communication skills and solutions orientation sets him apart."
Nicole FrancisDirector, Sales Enablement, Softchoice
Delivered through Google Cloud PSO, Quantiphi, Intuitive.ai, and Ciklum. Led by Daniel Zivkovic, delivering production systems since 1996.
Google Professional Services caliber, Canadian pricing.
Results that speak for themselves
Frequently asked questions
How much does this cost?+
Our entry point is the AI Readiness Check at $3,500: a 90-minute working session plus a brief your team can act on. The two-week AI Discovery Sprint starts at $15,000, scoped to your organization, and every dollar of the check credits into it. Prototype and embedded pricing is scoped in a conversation, fixed before any work begins, with the sprint fee credited within 90 days. Enterprise scope (multiple teams, formal security review, procurement) is quoted per RFP: those programs typically start at $50,000. The numbers here are the same ones we would quote on a call.
Will our IT team be okay with this?+
It is designed for that. We work inside IT's governance: their stack, their security review, their sign-off. Nothing ships around them, and autonomy ramps in shadow mode until the evidence earns it. We arrive with an audit trail, not a shadow system: IT gets a governed system to review, not one to unwind.
Isn't "forward-deployed engineer" a Palantir term?+
Yes: Palantir coined the role two decades ago, and in 2025 the industry adopted the name broadly. The job itself, a senior engineer embedded with the business side, turning intent into running systems, is what Daniel has done since 2014, before the label traveled. Our field guide to the model tells the full story.
We are a consulting firm. Can you deliver under our brand?+
Yes, that is how most of our enterprise work has always shipped: co-delivery or fully behind the scenes, under your paper and your NDAs. Your client is never our lead: no direct sales, no poaching, in writing.
How is this different from hiring a consulting firm?+
You get the senior engineer who built systems for the logos above, directly. No B-team, no markup for project-management overhead. You pay for talent, not org chart.
Can one person really handle enterprise projects?+
I cover the full SDLC: not just implementation, but the discovery, architecture, security, and governance work that gets skipped when teams panic. For larger engagements, I partner with Google Cloud PSO and specialist firms. The work behind those logos was production delivery at Fortune 500 scale.
Do you only build, or strategy too?+
Both. Alongside the delivery work, Magma offers Strategic Foresight: a cited, dated, six-lens read on the shifts coming at your market, so your team can adjust positioning and place its bets early. Same evidence-graded method, applied to your market instead of your codebase.
What if I just want to talk first?+
Book a 30-minute scoping call. No pitch. Bring your messiest AI question and I'll give you a straight answer. If there's a fit, I'll tell you. If there isn't, I'll point you in the right direction.
Start the conversation.
A 30-minute scoping call: no deck, no pitch, a working conversation. If a sprint fits, your operating map lands within two weeks of starting.
No pitch. Bring your messiest AI question. I'll give you a straight answer.
Want to read before you talk?
A field guide and the other half of the job. Start with whichever question is more pressing.