Following the 2009 financial crisis, I designed a system to migrate over 1,000 mainframe routines with a team of just four engineers - in four months.
The merger depended on it; hiring more than a few extra consultants would have jeopardized our sponsors' careers. We succeeded, and the merger was completed without needing a mainframe.
What made that project unique was how we approached it. We realized those mainframe routines were, in essence, early ETL processes. To replace them without hand-coding hundreds of individual scripts, we built a metadata-driven master engine. We abstracted complex code into simple documents. This was the birth of Augmented Engineering™ (AE).
That success also revealed something deeper: pressure reveals alignment. When incentives are clear and everyone shares the same goal, extraordinary things happen. But outside those rare conditions, misaligned incentives quietly dominate.
Building on those techniques, I went on to lead a large-scale data practice at a global consulting firm. There, I ran headlong into the other side of the problem. From the inside, I saw how the incentives were structured: architects were encouraged to design systems that maximized billable hours rather than engineering efficiency. The business model rewarded labor volume, not the elegance of a solution.
Later, when I joined a major enterprise on the client side, I hoped to drive more efficient decisions from within. But even there, as the payer, the same misalignment persisted. The consulting partners advising us still optimized for hours, not outcomes.
Traditional tech consulting thrives on inefficiency. When I led a global data practice, I saw firsthand that architects are incentivized to maximize billable hours, not engineer elegant solutions. I once pitched a highly efficient system to a senior partner, and his response changed my career:
“Someone once tried your idea.
I asked, "How did it work?"
The idea worked great, but the person who implemented it didn't get a Christmas bonus.
The industry is broken because the incentives are broken. To break the paradox, I distilled 30 years of enterprise data experience into one methodology: Augmented Engineering. AE replaces hundreds of independently implemented code units with a unified master engine. We don't bill you for horizontal plumbing, because AE eliminates it. We charge fixed prices so we are rewarded for results, not delays.
EveryArrow is the result of that journey. A company built on the principles of truth, alignment, and engineering excellence.
