Rescue Engineers
Your AI built the demo.
We build the company.
Rapid Diagnostic $1,500 Credited toward the full audit.
Senior engineers who assess, harden, finish, and scale the apps AI helped you build. Diagnostic in days, not months.
We rescue apps built with
Tell us what's broken.
Get a reply within one business day
Before to after, out of 100
The numbers on AI-built code aren't reassuring.
Sources: Symbiotic Security app scan · UpGuard Research Supabase study · Stack Overflow 2025 Developer Survey · public incident reporting. Every figure is verified at its original publisher and reproduced unaltered; see the State of Vibe-Code Security for each study's method, sample and scope.
AI closes 80% of the distance. The last 20% is where companies get built, or quietly break.
Vibe coding is genuinely incredible for getting to a working demo. But a demo and a business are different things.
The difference is exactly the part AI is worst at:
- Security
- Data integrity
- Scale
- The boring rigor that keeps a product alive once real people and real money are on it
It looked done. It wasn't safe.
The app demoed perfectly, so nobody checked whether the database was wide open. Independent scans keep finding the same thing: the polish hides missing fundamentals like access control and key management.
Then real traffic arrived.
Built for a screenshot, not for scale. The first spike in users surfaces N+1 queries, no caching, no indexes, and a data model that was never meant to hold a business.
And someone asked to look under the hood.
An investor, an acquirer, or a serious customer wants a technical review, and "I don't really know how it works" becomes the most expensive sentence a founder can say.
Six ways an AI-built app goes wrong. One team that fixes all of them.
Every engagement starts with a diagnosis, then we scope exactly what you need, nothing you don't. Pick what's broken.
Security & hardening
Exposed keys, disabled row-level security, unauthenticated endpoints. We find what's open, close it, and prove it's closed with a scorecard.
- Start here
- Rapid diagnostic $1,500
- Matching tier
- Rescue & harden $10k to $100k+
Finish the build
Stuck at 80%, the last bug the AI keeps going in circles on. We finish it properly and get you to a launch you can stand behind.
- Start here
- Rapid diagnostic $1,500
- Matching tier
- Rescue & harden $10k to $100k+
Takeover & handoff
Your freelancer vanished or your no-code developer hit their ceiling. We read the codebase, document it, and become the team you should have had.
- Start here
- Rapid diagnostic $1,500
- Matching tier
- Rebuild & takeover Pending scope
Scale & rebuild
It buckles under real users. We fix the data model, add caching and indexes, and migrate you off the no-code ceiling onto a stack that holds.
- Start here
- Rapid diagnostic $1,500
- Matching tier
- Rebuild & takeover Pending scope
Due-diligence readiness
A term sheet is contingent on a technical review. We produce the scorecard, architecture review, and remediation plan you can hand to their engineers.
- Start here
- Rapid diagnostic $1,500
- Matching tier
- Diagnostic audit $3k to $9,500
Ongoing engineering
Once it's stable, we stay on as your fractional engineering team, so the next feature doesn't start the fire all over again.
- Start here
- Rapid diagnostic $1,500
- Matching tier
- Retainer Priced after scope call
Final scope is set after the diagnostic. Every tier and range is on the pricing page.
A calm, senior process, on an emergency's timeline.
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Step 1 · Day 0 to 1
A senior engineer reads your actual code and infrastructure. We tell you what's on fire, what's fine, and what it will take, in plain English.
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Step 2 · Day 1 to 3
A full diagnostic: security scorecard, architecture map, and a prioritized findings list. This is the deliverable you can show an investor.
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Step 3 · Week 1 to 2
We stop the bleeding first, close the critical security holes, recover data integrity, and get you a system that won't fall over tonight.
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Step 4 · Ongoing
We harden, scale, and document, then hand you a codebase you own, with the option to keep us on as your engineering team.
Not another AI-hype shop. Senior engineers, picked for your specific problem.
Rescue Engineers is a senior-only engineering firm. Every engagement is staffed deliberately, with an engineer chosen against what is actually broken in your codebase.
Every credential we point at is issued by a third party rather than written by us. We have read a lot of code we didn't write. That's the whole job.
- Senior engineers only. No offshore junior pool, no hand-off to someone who's never opened an AI-generated repo.
- Not afraid of AI. We adopted it completely. We just knew what we were doing before AI existed, which is why we're lean enough to run a diagnostic in days.
- We fix, we don't lecture. We keep what works and repair what doesn't, instead of billing you to rewrite your own product.
- Fixed scope, fixed price. You'll never be billed into an open-ended hole. Every engagement has a defined outcome.
- You own everything. Your code, your infrastructure, your accounts. We hand back the keys and full documentation.
@@ security score, out of 100 @@
Security score31
Security score94
@@ findings @@
Critical vulnerabilities5
Critical vulnerabilities0
Exposed secrets7
Exposed secrets0
@@ reliability @@
Test coverage on critical paths0%
Test coverage on critical paths91%
p95 load time4.8s
p95 load time0.1s
Uptime monitoringnone
Uptime monitoringlive
Hypothetical example of a diagnostic-to-handoff scorecard. Not a specific client.
If any of this sounds like you, it's not too late.
Composite personas, written to describe who this is for. Not real clients, and not real messages.
"An investor wants to see the code, and I'm not sure what they'll find."
You raised on a great product. It's ~95% AI-generated and diligence is in two weeks. We assess the code, remediate what we can before the date, and prepare a written remediation plan for the rest.
"I already paid someone $15k. Now it's broken and they're gone."
You believed in the product enough to pay for it once. We take over the unfinished build on a fixed scope.
"It worked in the demo. Now it's breaking and I can't read the code."
You have real users on a foundation you don't fully understand. We make it solid without making you feel dumb about how you got here.
A paid diagnostic maps the scope. Then a fixed price in writing, no hourly billing after.
Real ranges, so you know where you stand before the first call. Final scope is set after the diagnostic.
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Rapid diagnostic Start here
$1,500
An async scan and a written findings report in days. Credited toward the full audit if you go ahead.
Start a rescue -
Diagnostic audit
$3k to $9,500
Security scorecard, architecture review, prioritized findings. The document you hand an investor.
-
Rescue & harden
$10k to $100k+
Remediate the critical findings, stabilize, and harden the app for production. Scope dependent.
-
Rebuild & takeover
Pending scope
Migrate off the no-code ceiling, rebuild for scale, and take over as your engineering team.
Talk to us
Your rescue gets staffed on purpose, not on whoever happened to be free that month.
We don't keep a large salaried bench sitting idle between projects, and we're not going to dress that up as something else. Here is how it actually works.
- 1
A rescue comes in.
- 2
We read the problem ourselves.
- 3
We go into our own network and bring in the engineer whose track record matches that specific problem.
- 4
The same person stays on the engagement from the first read of your code through to handoff, so you always know exactly who is accountable to you.
A retrieval pipeline leaking data and a Postgres schema buckling under real traffic are not the same job, and they should not land on the same person just because that person was available.
Most firmsgive you whoever is between projects.
Wegive you the engineer the problem needs.
That is the advantage, not the apology.
Certified by the companies that set the standard
Not a self-declared seniority label. Third-party certifications, held by engineers working on rescues, issued by the companies whose platforms your app is built on.
Badges GitHub only hands out for merged work
The public code record carries GitHub's Pull Shark and Pair Extraordinaire achievements.
If you're not technical, here is why that matters more than anything else on this page.
- GitHub awards Pull Shark automatically for pull requests other engineers reviewed and merged into a real codebase.
- It awards Pair Extraordinaire for commits co-authored with another engineer.
- Neither can be bought, self-declared, or typed into a profile. They only appear because somebody else agreed the code was good enough to merge, repeatedly.
The systems behind the badges
That public work is not weekend toys. It is:
- E-commerce storefronts
- Healthcare and patient-facing applications
- A food delivery platform
- Inventory management
- Multi-tenant admin platforms
Clean-architecture implementations repeat across them. It is the same system shape an AI-built app eventually has to grow into, which is exactly why the failure modes are already familiar before we open your repo.
Evidenced in that public work
Building custom used to be the expensive answer. That is the part that changed.
For a long time, building software from scratch meant a long timeline and a large team, so buying whatever came closest and bending the process around it was often the only realistic option.
Senior engineers working with modern tooling have moved that line. Custom is now a sensible answer to problems where buying was the only sensible answer, and what you get is software shaped to the way your business actually runs, in a repository you own.
What changed, and what didn't
The constraint was never the idea. It was the sheer volume of labour between the idea and a working system, and that is the part modern tooling compresses, which is why a build that used to be quoted in quarters can arrive in a fraction of that time.
The judgment didn't get cheaper. It is still the thing that decides whether the software survives contact with real users, real money, and the second year.
We build the opposite of what we get called in to repair
We know exactly which corners get cut when AI writes an application unsupervised: access control bolted on at the end, a schema with no indexes, secrets sitting in the client bundle, no tests on the path that moves money.
The judgment that lets us read a broken codebase is the same judgment that stops a new one from becoming one. Auth, data model and cost to serve are decided in week one, not discovered later.
It fits how you work, and you own it
The software matches the process you already run, instead of your team reshaping itself around someone else's product. It lives in a repository and a cloud account in your name from the first commit, with no seat licence and no platform lock-in.
The larger the recurring bill on a tool you will never own, the more that is worth costing out properly.
Often.
If a category is genuinely commodity and an off-the-shelf product fits you well, building your own version of it is a poor use of money, and we will say so in the first conversation rather than after you have signed something.
- the software sits close to how you actually make money
- every product you have tried only ever gets most of the way there
- the thing you need does not exist to buy
Same terms as every other engagement: fixed scope, fixed price, agreed in writing before work starts, billed against milestones.
Renting a stack you will never own is its own decision, with its own arithmetic. The enterprise and mid-market case for owning it instead runs the numbers, states what we will never build, and publishes the price structure.
Healthcare operators first. Then anyone whose software sits close to how they make money.
Home health and hospice
Field documentation layers that work alongside the clinical system you already run, visit scheduling, intake, and the operational reporting an administrator actually opens.
Anything that touches patient data, we assess and harden, and we help you prepare for the security review that comes with it.
We do not build an EHR of record, e-prescribing or claims clearinghouse connections. We build the tooling around the systems that do.
Multi-location provider groups
One view across every site. Scheduling, intake and operational data that lives in a different system at each location, consolidated into reporting leadership can rely on, with access controls that match who should see what.
Operators outgrowing their tools
Service businesses, field teams, logistics and professional firms. Internal tools, customer portals and workflow software shaped to the way the business already runs, where every product you have tried only gets most of the way there.
Founders with a product to launch
A first version with auth, data model and cost to serve decided in week one, in a repository and a cloud account you own from the first commit.
The things founders ask us first.
Will you rewrite my whole app?
No. We fix what's broken and keep what's working. A full rewrite is a last resort we only recommend when the foundation genuinely can't be made safe, and we tell you that plainly, before you spend a dollar on it.
How fast can you start?
We aim to start triage within 24 to 48 hours. If you're actively down or exposed, tell us in the first message and we'll treat it as an emergency.
Can you get me through investor technical due diligence?
Yes. We produce a security scorecard, an architecture review, and a remediation roadmap written to be handed directly to an investor's technical partner, and we remediate the blocking issues on a diligence timeline.
My developer disappeared. Can you take over what they left?
Yes, that's a core service. We read and document the existing code, stabilize it, and become the engineering team you should have had, on a fixed scope so you're never billed into an open-ended hole again.
I don't have an app yet. Do you build from scratch?
Yes. Building custom software used to mean a long timeline and a large team, which is why buying something close enough and working around it was often the only realistic option. Senior engineers using modern tooling have changed that calculation, so a custom build is now a reasonable answer to problems where buying used to be the only sensible one. Fixed scope, fixed price, and the code lives in a repository and a cloud account you own. The new builds page covers how we work and what it costs.
Who actually does the work?
Senior engineers only, and every engagement is staffed on purpose. We read the problem first, then bring in the engineer from our own network whose track record matches it, instead of assigning whoever is free that month. The engineers hold third-party certifications from GitHub, Meta and IBM, and their public GitHub record carries the Pull Shark and Pair Extraordinaire achievements, which GitHub awards automatically for pull requests other engineers merged and for commits co-authored with another engineer. No offshore junior pool.
An AI-enabled, full-service development firm.
Rescue, finish, build from scratch, or keep us on as your engineering team. The AI tooling is why a custom build now costs less than it used to.
Senior judgment is why it is still built properly, with security, the data model and cost to serve decided before the first feature, and a codebase you own at the end.
Send us the repo. We'll tell you the truth about it.
Start with a $1,500 Rapid Diagnostic. A senior engineer reads your actual code and sends back a written assessment: what's on fire, what's fine, and what it takes to fix. The fee comes off the full audit if you go ahead. No sales engineer, no junior.