What one senior hire really costs
A senior software engineer in the US is paid well over $150,000 a year, and in the larger cities often far more. Benefits, payroll taxes, equipment and software add roughly a quarter to a third on top. Recruiting takes months and often a fee, and a new engineer needs more months to become fully productive.
And one engineer is one skill set. Most products also need design, product thinking, someone to review the code, and someone to keep it running when that person is on vacation.
What a studio partnership gives you instead
- A whole team: design, engineering and the running of the software, not one person.
- Work from week one: no recruiting, no ramp-up.
- Terms that fit: ongoing, per project, or a share of what the software earns, sized to how much you need built.
- No lock-in: you own the code, and you can hire later with a working product to hand over.
When hiring is the better choice
When software is your core product and there are years of work ahead for a full team, build that team. Many companies start with a studio, prove the product and the roadmap, then hire, with the studio helping the first engineers take over.