Sprint-Based Svelte and SvelteKit Development

Two weeks. $6,000. One engineer. Something deployable at the end.

A sprint is a fixed-scope, fixed-price chunk of Svelte or SvelteKit work I can take from "kickoff" to "deployed and you can use it" in ten working days. No hourly billing, no long-term contract, no agency layers between you and the code.

If the work is bigger than one sprint, we run consecutive sprints. Each one independently scoped. Each one with a real deliverable at the end. You can pause between any two. You can stop at any sprint boundary. The work compounds, but the commitment doesn't.

I've shipped this way for the last three years. It's the most honest cadence I've found for client work: long enough to do something real, short enough that nobody's wondering where the money went.

What you get for $6,000 / 2 weeks

• One engineer on the project, start to finish. Me. No handoffs, no mid-sprint swaps, no junior touching the code.

• An agreed scope before the sprint starts, with a short call if it helps us work through the details.

• A 30-minute mid-sprint sync to talk through blockers and let you steer.

• Async updates throughout the sprint, pushed to GitHub or whatever's clearer, on whichever channel you already use (Slack, email, Basecamp, Linear).

• Production-ready code: typed Svelte and SvelteKit, accessibility-tested, performance-checked, deployed somewhere you can use it.

• Code review and PRs you can actually read, not a 5,000-line "feature merge" you have to take on faith.

• A short Loom or doc at sprint end explaining what shipped, what's outstanding, and what the next sprint could tackle.

You own the code from day one. GitHub commit access from the first PR. If we stop after sprint one, the work is yours, no asterisks.

What can fit into one sprint?

These are example scopes for an existing SvelteKit app, not a list of features every sprint includes. I review your codebase and dependencies before we agree on what ten working days can cover.

A dashboard your team can use

One dashboard with an agreed set of metrics, filters and a detail view, using your existing API.

Before we start: A working app, documented API access, sample data and approved designs or an existing component library.

Outside this sprint: A new data pipeline, a real-time backend or a redesign of the rest of the app would need separate scope.

Done when: The agreed metrics match the source data, filters work, and loading, empty and error states are covered. The dashboard works on mobile and is deployed for your team.

Sign-in and account settings

Integrate one authentication provider and add protected routes, sign-in/sign-out and a profile settings screen.

Before we start: Your provider account and test credentials, a decision on the sign-in method, and a clear list of public and protected pages.

Outside this sprint: Enterprise SSO, complex organization permissions and migrating an existing user database would need separate scope.

Done when: A test user can sign in, update the agreed profile fields and sign out. Signed-out users cannot access protected data, and expired sessions and failed requests are handled.

A CMS-backed section of your site

Connect one content type from your headless CMS to a listing page and a detail-page template in SvelteKit.

Before we start: An agreed content model, API access, representative content and approved page designs.

Outside this sprint: A whole-site migration, bulk content cleanup, localization and a custom editorial workflow would need separate scope.

Done when: Published entries render at the agreed URLs with metadata and working pagination where needed. Missing entries return a 404, and content updates appear through the agreed publishing flow.

When the work needs more than two weeks

A new product with accounts, billing, a dashboard and a CMS usually needs several separately scoped sprints. So does work with unresolved dependencies. We pick a usable first release, agree on its acceptance criteria, and leave the next set of features for a later sprint. You decide whether to book it.

How it works

01 / Email and scope. Email me what you need. I reply within one business day and tell you whether a sprint makes sense. We agree on the scope and a start date by email, with a short call if useful. If I'm not a fit, I'll point you somewhere that fits better.

02 / Payment and setup. Once we agree on scope and a start date, I send payment instructions. You pay upfront, then I slot into your tools: GitHub, Jira, Slack, Notion, Linear or whatever you already use. No tool migration. If you don't have a setup yet, I run sprints in Basecamp and pull you in.

03 / Build. Two weeks heads-down with one mid-sprint sync. Async updates as I go. PRs are small, frequent, and reviewable. You always know where the work stands.

04 / Ship. Working code at the end of week two. You decide what's next. Book another sprint, pause indefinitely, or wrap. No pressure to extend, no contract to exit.

Why this shape

Vs. hourly billing. Hourly billing makes us adversaries: you want me to work fewer hours, I want to log more. Fixed sprints align us. I want to ship the scope as efficiently as possible. You want the same. Same goal, no clock-watching.

Vs. project-based pricing. Project-based pricing requires me to know upfront how long a project will take. Most projects don't fit cleanly in that frame, and the ones that do tend to balloon because nobody wants to renegotiate scope mid-flight. Sprints make "renegotiate scope" the default at every two-week boundary.

Vs. retainers. Retainers reward me for showing up. Sprints reward me for shipping. I'd rather be paid for the second one.

Vs. hiring a full-timer. A senior Svelte (Kit) engineer in the US or EU costs roughly $180K–$220K all-in per year. That's about thirty sprints. Most of my clients don't have thirty sprints of work, they have three to ten, spaced out. Sprints fit that shape. When clients outgrow me, they hire.

Who this is for / not for

For. Founders and product teams that:

• Have a Svelte or SvelteKit project that needs to ship and a real deadline

• Want one experienced engineer who owns the work start to finish, not an agency

• Want to start small (one sprint, no commitment) and scale up if it works

• Already have a stack and just need someone who can plug in

Not for. People who need:

• Twenty engineers (I am one engineer)

• Procurement-heavy enterprise contracts (I'm a one-person LLC)

• Non-Svelte stacks (I do Svelte and SvelteKit; I'll point you elsewhere otherwise)

• Long-term staffing (sprints are project work, not headcount replacement)

• Design from scratch (I work with designers but don't replace them; if you don't have one, I have a few I work with regularly)

I'd rather tell you "no" upfront than pretend to be the right fit and miss the mark in week two.

Pricing

$6,000 per two-week sprint. Paid upfront, after we agree on scope and a start date. I’ll send you payment instructions then. Same price every sprint, regardless of complexity, deadline, or how many Slack messages you send.

No additional fees. No retainer, no setup fee, no hourly overflow, no "this took longer than expected" addendum.

Pause or stop between sprints. If you don't want a second sprint, you don't book a second sprint. If you want to pause for two months and come back, the rate is the same when you do.

First-sprint refund. If the first sprint doesn't ship something usable, you get a full refund. I've never had to issue one, but the option exists because it should.

Client work: Updraft for Cyfrin

I built the first version of Updraft as an Okupter contractor in four weeks. I owned the REST API, database and SvelteKit frontend, including account management, the lesson interface and a course-progress dashboard.

The MVP launched with a first course and beta users. I later joined Cyfrin as a senior software engineer and continued working on the platform. Over the following year, Updraft grew to around 100,000 monthly users and 2 million lessons completed per month. Those are later platform milestones, not results from a single two-week sprint.

Read the Updraft case study: scope, tradeoffs and what shipped

Ready?

If your project sounds like it might fit (a real Svelte or SvelteKit app, a real deadline, real scope), send me a paragraph. I reply within one business day. We can work through the scope by email or arrange a short call if useful.