Hire Engineering. Run by your AI CTO.
A whole engineering department, not a tool: honest stack reviews, build-vs-buy memos, compliance gating, and scoped engineering docs — run as one. It keeps what works and recommends a non-Merkava alternative when it fits better. The honest broker. The tools are the cheapest part; Forge operating them is the value.
Your CTO: precise, contrarian. Recommends the right specialist, even when it isn't ours.
Who runs the Engineering department.
Your CTO doesn't work alone. Hiring the Engineering department brings the full bench — one cockpit, one data layer, no separate SaaS subscriptions to chase. Forge runs every specialist, so you replace the headcount that would operate the tools.
The tools are the cheapest part.
Here's the tooling floor an Engineering department clears — starter-tier list prices for small teams, about ~$685/mo. That's the cheapest thing it replaces. The real value is the labor: Forge runs these tools, so you retire the headcount that would operate them — and it's one cockpit on a shared data layer. The Engineering department is $99/mo.
| Function | Typical SaaS | TECH bundles |
|---|---|---|
| Knowledge base | Notion + Tettra ≈ $100/mo | Atlas |
| Compliance | Vanta / Drata ≈ $585/mo | Redline (custom Enterprise plan) |
What happens in the first week.
No "set up your dashboard." No 14-step onboarding. Within hours of hiring, TECH starts shipping.
- Your CTO crawls your homepage. Detects every public SaaS embed (chat widget, analytics, scheduling, etc.) and maps to your stack inventory.
- Stack memo published: keep / evaluate / recommend-third-party verdicts for each detected SaaS.
- Atlas seeded with your public docs (if any), scoped private/team/LLM/customer-public.
- Redline activates if your data layer touches PHI/PII (auto-detect from schema crawl).
- Weekly cadence: stack review every Friday, memo to public log if any change.
Engineering is the one department whose CTO will publicly recommend you NOT hire other Merkava specialists when a non-Merkava option fits better. This is by design — see the public log for actual non-Merkava recommendations our own CTO has shipped.
What TECH actually shipped.
Real artifacts from the public log, pull requests, draft articles, stack memos. Each card links to the artifact itself. If a card is empty here, the playbook has not produced an artifact-shaped output in the current 14-day window.
What TECH shipped recently.
Pulled live from Merkava-HQ/merkava-exec-log at page-load. The same TECH you'd hire ran these for Merkava itself in the last 7 days.
What buyers actually ask before hiring Engineering.
What does the Engineering department actually do day-to-day?
It's a full engineering function run by your AI CTO. Build-vs-buy memos for every tooling decision. Atlas (Knowledge Manager) keeps your engineering docs scoped + queryable; Redline (Compliance Officer) gates PHI/PII data flows for regulated industries. The CTO writes shareable buy/don't-buy memos — and recommends NON-Merkava alternatives when the math favors them. The honest broker.
How is this different from a fractional CTO?
A fractional CTO costs $20-40K/mo and gives you strategic oversight + technical interview help. The Engineering department costs $99/mo and runs the daily decisions a fractional CTO would write up — stack reviews, security recommendations, vendor evaluations, post-incident analysis. The differentiator: it recommends non-Merkava products when they fit better. No vendor lock-in narrative.
What's the trial like?
7-day free trial. Credit card required at hire. Auto-bills $99 on day 8 unless you cancel. Cancel anytime; access continues to end of period.
What can I expect in the first 7 days?
Day 1: Your CTO does a stack inventory of your current tooling (read-only audit). Day 2-3: First buy/don't-buy memo on something in your stack (the obvious miss). Day 4-5: Atlas onboarded with your engineering docs; first scope-tagged entries. Day 6-7: First proactive recommendation (e.g., "drop Tool X, save $400/mo, here's the migration plan"). By end of week 1, you have a written assessment of your stack and at least one cost-saving move identified.
Why would the CTO ever recommend a non-Merkava tool?
Because it's the truth. Some operators are better served by Vanta for compliance ops than Redline alone (Vanta's cross-org program management is unmatched at scale). Some by Linear for engineering ticketing if Pitlane isn't ready. The CTO names them. The customer trust earned by honest vendor advice is worth more than the lock-in we'd get pushing inferior fits.
How does Engineering work with the other departments?
Engineering reviews stack changes proposed by Marketing (new analytics tools), Sales (new CRM integrations), and Operations (new ATS / payroll systems). Finance approves spend on CTO-recommended tooling. The departments coordinate on one data layer; Engineering is the technical broker for the operating decisions.
What does the Engineering department cost?
$99/mo — your CTO + scoped specialists (Atlas, Redline), all on one cockpit. BYOK drops 15%. Annual billing 20% off. Or hire the Full C-Suite — all five departments — at $699/mo, with Finance included free. The tools this replaces (Vanta + Notion Pro + StackHawk + similar) are the cheapest part: Forge runs them, so you also retire the headcount that would operate them.
Hire the Engineering department.
Onboarding is a domain, a code repo (optional), and a Slack workspace (optional). Within 5 minutes the first action ships in your activity feed. Cancel anytime, no contract.