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About Shipwright
What is Shipwright?
Shipwright is an independent engineering practice based in Zürich, founded by Jason Angelus. It helps companies get AI initiatives from pilot into production, and helps engineering teams get real leverage from AI tools. It offers three service lines: Engineering, Consulting and Advisory.
Who is Jason Angelus?
Jason Angelus is an engineering leader based in Zürich with 25 years of experience, including leading engineering organisations of more than 250 engineers at Cisco and serving as fractional CTO of a community platform used by 2 million people. Since 2025 he has shipped live enterprise agentic-AI work hands-on, in production and under regulatory requirements.
Is Shipwright an AI agency?
No. Shipwright is an engineering practice that is very good at AI, not an agency selling agents or chatbots. Engagements start by understanding the business and the engineering organisation, and only then decide what, if anything, AI should do.
Who it's for
Who does Shipwright work with?
Shipwright works with CTOs and VPs of Engineering, founders of startups and scale-ups, and non-technical companies that run an in-house development team. Enterprise engagements are taken when there is a specific engineering problem and a single accountable sponsor, not for transformation programmes or multi-year framework contracts. Work is remote by default, with clients anywhere, in English or Italian; German to a working level.
Is Shipwright a good fit for an early-stage company?
Yes: founders deciding whether to commit a team to an AI direction, and companies whose developers have no senior technical lead, are exactly what Shipwright's Consulting and Advisory lines are for. What Shipwright needs is a concrete problem and someone accountable for the decision.
The AI Delivery Review
What is an AI Delivery Review?
An AI Delivery Review is a fixed-scope, fixed-fee engagement of one to three weeks in which Shipwright examines why a company's AI effort is stalled and delivers a concrete path to production or to measurable team leverage. It is designed as the starting point for new clients; scope and duration are agreed before work starts.
What do I get from an AI Delivery Review?
You get interviews with your leads, a read of the codebase and the delivery pipeline, a written report with the three things to change first, and a half-day working session to start them. The report is specific enough to act on with or without Shipwright.
How much does an AI Delivery Review cost?
The AI Delivery Review is a fixed fee, agreed before work starts, with no hourly overruns. Shipwright does not publish a price list; every engagement is scoped in the first conversation.
Why do AI pilots fail to reach production?
Most AI pilots fail to reach production because the demo skipped the unglamorous engineering: evaluation, guardrails, data quality, observability, cost control and the governance review the organisation requires. The AI Delivery Review identifies which of these are missing and in what order to fix them.
My developers already use Cursor, Claude and Copilot. Why isn't velocity improving?
Buying AI coding tools rarely changes team output on its own; leverage comes from changing how the team plans, reviews, tests and ships with those tools. Shipwright reviews the actual workflow and identifies the two or three practices that produce a measurable change.
How engagements work
What kinds of engagements does Shipwright offer?
Three: Engineering (hands-on delivery, typically 40–60 hours per month), Consulting (the AI Delivery Review and fixed-scope projects) and Advisory (monthly retainers and fractional-CTO leadership). The Review is designed as the starting point, with Engineering or Advisory following when there is more to do.
What is a fractional CTO, and does Shipwright offer that?
A fractional CTO is a senior technical leader who works with a company part-time on a monthly retainer instead of as a full-time hire. Shipwright offers this through its Advisory line, typically for companies whose AI ambitions have outgrown their current technical leadership.
What makes Shipwright different?
Shipwright is led by someone who has run engineering organisations of more than 250 people and who still ships production AI code. Engagements are fixed-scope and fixed-fee wherever possible, and every engagement starts with the business, not the technology.
Does Shipwright work with our existing engineering team or replace it?
Shipwright works with your existing team; the goal is that the team ships better after the engagement, not that it depends on Shipwright. Hands-on Engineering work is done alongside your engineers in your repositories and tools.
Does Shipwright work in regulated or high-security environments?
Yes. Shipwright has shipped live agentic-AI work under human-in-the-loop and audit requirements in a regulated enterprise, and can deliver inside highly secure, local or on-premises setups where nothing leaves the client's environment. Client data stays in client-controlled systems; Shipwright works in your repositories and tools rather than copying anything out.
Will Shipwright sign an NDA?
Yes. Shipwright signs mutual NDAs as standard, and client names and details are never published without written consent.
Where is Shipwright based, and do you work remotely?
Shipwright is based in Zürich, Switzerland, and works remotely with clients anywhere; leading distributed engineering teams remotely is a setup Jason Angelus has run for years. When a client needs the human contact, he travels and works on site. Working languages are English and Italian; German to a working level (B1/B2).
How do I start working with Shipwright?
Book a 30-minute conversation through the contact page. If there is a fit, the usual next step is an AI Delivery Review; if there is not, you will be told so in the first call.
Thirty minutes. Bring the thing that's stuck.
No deck, no pitch. You describe the situation; I tell you what I'd look at first.
Book a 30-minute conversation