The Golden Team Program
From autocomplete to agentic engineering in 90 days. Measured, or your money back.
We take one of your teams, 5 to 10 developers, and move them from AI-as-autocomplete to task-oriented agentic engineering: scoped ticket in, reviewed PR out. Not training. Embedded change.
$2,500, fully credited against the program. We only sell the program at the workshop debrief, never cold.
Not sure yet? Take the free 3-minute maturity assessment →- $30,000
- Fixed price, fixed scope
- 90 days
- Kickoff to executive readout
- 5 to 10
- Developers, one team, one real codebase
- 50% back
- If we miss 2 of 4 written criteria
At day 90 you have
Your workflows get redesigned around agentic delivery, your top developers become certified internal champions, and you get hard before and after numbers on cycle time, hours saved, and quality you can show your board.
A team working agentically as the default
Scoped ticket in, reviewed PR out, on your real codebase. Not in a sandbox.
2 to 3 trained champions
Your own developers, certified, with explicit authority. They carry the practice after we leave.
A production-grade AI setup
Shared agent skills, context architecture, and enforced standards in your repo. An organizational asset, not a per-seat tool that walks out with people.
A measurement dashboard
Your before and after numbers, from your own git and CI history. 75% of engineering leaders cannot measure AI impact. You will.
A written rollout playbook
For taking the same transformation to your next teams, drafted by your champions.
Three phases, one weekly rhythm.
From week 3 the rhythm is fixed: one 90-minute cohort session, one office hour, one champions session, plus async support. The 3 hours per developer per week are their actual tickets, done the new way.
Weeks 1 to 2
Baseline & champions
We measure before we touch anything.
- Baseline report from your git and CI history: cycle time, review latency, AI usage. Signed by your CTO. These are the numbers we are judged against
- Developer survey and interviews, plus a map of how your target workflows actually run today
- 2 to 3 champions selected from your own developers. Opted in, never appointed
- The Level 4 target workflow, co-designed with your champions so it is theirs
Weeks 3 to 10
Build & embed
Production-grade setup, then the new workflow becomes the default.
- Shared agent skills and standards in your repo, including a code-review skill trained on your own PR history
- Governance starter pack: allowed tools, data handling, review requirements for AI output
- Workflow cutover: real tickets get agent-ready specs, PRs follow diff-based review discipline
- Week 6 measurement pulse against the 70% usage criterion, day-45 checkpoint with your CTO
- From week 7 your champions run the sessions, and we coach the champions
Weeks 11 to 13
Prove & institutionalize
The same measurement as the baseline. No cherry-picking.
- Day-90 results report, criterion by criterion against the baseline, honest on misses
- Standards in the repo, onboarding doc for new joiners, dashboard handed over
- Executive readout with your CTO, sponsor, and champions
- Rollout playbook for your next team, written by your champions with our editing
We don't push everyone. That is the point.
The top 30% become champions
The developers already experimenting get advanced enablement and explicit authority. They are the internal delivery force, and they stay when we leave.
The middle 40% get structure, not inspiration
Redesigned workflows, defaults, and a weekly cadence. This is where the measurable ROI lives.
The skeptics get left alone
No mandates, no shaming. The environment changes around them, and most follow once the new way is the easy way.
Your team's process changes so that reverting becomes the effortful thing. That is the product.
Four success criteria, written into every contract.
Fixed in a signed baseline report in week 2. Measured at day 90 with the same instruments. No retroactive changes.
- 1 AI weekly-active usage above 70% of the team by week 6
- 2 PR throughput +15%, or more than 3 hours saved per developer per week, measured
- 3 Positive movement on at least 2 of 4 DX Core 4 dimensions vs baseline
- 4 AI code churn within 2 weeks below 8%, because speed without quality is theater
Measured, or your money back.
If we miss 2 of the 4 criteria at day 90, you get 50% of the program fee back within 14 days, no negotiation. Nobody else in this market puts that in a contract.
Start with the Escape Velocity WorkshopPayment: 50% at signature, 50% at day 45. Your Escape Velocity workshop fee is fully credited.
The guarantee works because the program has conditions.
Three commitments from your side. Non-negotiable, in the statement of work.
Pick the team
5 to 10 developers, one real product, no skunkworks.
Mandate 3 hours per developer per week
Protected, not optional. It is not extra work, it is their actual tickets, done the new way.
Show up at three checkpoints
Kickoff, day 45, day 90. Your presence is what tells the team this matters.
Who the program is not for.
The money-back clause only works because we qualify hard. We decline or defer the program when:
-
Your team has fewer than 5 or more than 10 developers. Scope and price are built for exactly this size, no exceptions.
-
You are mid-crunch or mid-reorg. No 3 hours per week means no program. We would rather calendar the kickoff for after your release.
-
There is no CI and no code review culture, and test coverage is near zero. Level 4 on a Level 1 codebase produces expensive chaos. You can't skip levels.
-
You want training for everyone. That is a workshop series, not a transformation.
If that sounds like your team today, the honest alternative is a Hands-On Setup Day: $5,000, one day, your AI infrastructure done right, with $1,250 credited if you book the Golden Team Program within 90 days.
What engineering leaders measure with us.
"We were using Claude Code but treating each session as a one-off, with no shared conventions across the team. Now we approach it as an orchestration model, not a coding assistant. The goal shifted from AI helps us code faster to AI handles implementation while we supervise architecture and outcomes."
Bryan Scown
Director of Software Engineering, Valant
Questions CTOs ask before signing.
Why can't we do this ourselves? +
You can, and your best people are probably halfway there. Two honest data points: BCG finds about 60% of companies get minimal value from DIY AI investment, and the gap to the top performers is practices, not talent. Internal change also has a structural problem. Your champions have day jobs, so it becomes six months of evenings instead of 90 days with a forcing function and written success criteria.
We already have Copilot and Cursor. Aren't we done? +
That is the start, not the end. Adoption is above 90% everywhere now, yet measured gains stall around 10% without deliberate enablement. McKinsey's high performers get 16 to 30% real productivity out of the same tools everyone else has. That delta on your fully loaded engineering cost is the gap we close, and we measure it so you see exactly what you got.
Can you prove the ROI before we start? +
That demand is the program. Week 1 is a baseline with your real cycle times, your real AI usage, your real quality numbers. Day 90 is the same measurement again, with four written success criteria and money behind them. And 75% of engineering leaders say they cannot measure AI impact at all. The measurement system alone outlives the program.
Didn't the METR study show AI makes experienced developers slower? +
Correct, and we quote that study ourselves. Experienced developers were 19% slower while believing they were 20% faster. Two lessons. Self-reports are worthless, which is why we measure. And that was naive adoption, tools dropped on experts with no workflow change. The study is the strongest argument for doing this deliberately.
Will our developers resist one more initiative? +
The data agrees with the concern. Trust in AI output actually fell last year among experienced developers, because naive rollouts produce exactly that resistance. That is why the program does not push everyone. We find your top 30%, make them champions, and let them pull the middle. And the 3 hours per week are not extra work, they are real tickets done the new way.
Anthropic and GitHub offer free training. Why pay you? +
Use it. We point your developers at it during the program. Vendor training teaches tools. It cannot redesign your review process, cannot pick your champions, cannot measure your before and after, and has zero stake in your outcome. Free training is why 90% adopted. It is also why most teams are stuck near 10% gains.
What happens when you leave at day 90? +
Best question. The program is designed around leaving. Champions are trained by week 8, standards live in the repo instead of in heads, and the playbook for your next team is written by your own people. If we do our job, you do not need us at day 91. Most clients keep us anyway to scale to the next teams, but that is your call at the readout, not before.
Can you guarantee Level 4 or a specific percentage? +
We guarantee the four criteria in the statement of work, with money behind them. What we will not do is promise a specific percentage before the baseline exists. Anyone who does is selling you a deck. By week 2 you have the baseline, and from there the targets are written, not vibes.
The path in is a 90-minute workshop.
We do not sell the Golden Team Program cold, and we do not pitch it in the workshop room. Book Escape Velocity for your team. At the debrief a few days later you will know whether the program fits, and the $2,500 fee is fully credited if you go ahead within 6 months.
90 minutes, live, up to 25 developers. Fully credited against the program within 6 months.
Or start with the free 3-minute maturity assessment →