How Working With Automation Interns Works
By Jon Schack, Founder, Automation Interns · Updated
Working with Automation Interns runs in four steps. It opens with a free 15-minute intro call: tell us what eats your team's time, and we tell you straight whether AI can fix it. Next comes a free 30-minute scope call, a deeper dive on your problems that ends with us picking the highest-ROI two-week deliverable, explaining the outcome, and sending you a proposal. Delivery then runs in one-week sprints, where a junior engineer builds and a senior engineer reviews, with a 30-minute demo call every week and support available around the clock in between. The engagement closes with handoff: your business owns the finished system, we train your team on the AI behind it if that is useful, and no licensing fees follow. No long-term commitment is required at any step, so you can stop after any sprint.
What happens on the free 15-minute intro call?
The intro call is fifteen minutes and costs nothing. You describe what eats your team's time, and we give you a straight answer on whether AI can fix it. If the honest answer is that automation would not help much, you hear that on this call rather than after a proposal and an invoice. Nothing is scheduled or billed off the back of it unless you want to keep going.
What do you get out of the 30-minute scope call?
The scope call is a free thirty-minute deep dive on the problems you raised. By the end of it, a senior engineer has picked the single highest-ROI deliverable that can be built in two weeks, explained the outcome you should expect from it, and sent you a written proposal. Choosing the target is the point of the call: most teams have several time sinks, and the first build is worth aiming at the expensive one.
How does a one-week sprint actually run?
A junior engineer does the hands-on building and a senior engineer reviews the work before it reaches you. Every week closes with a 30-minute demo call showing what was actually built, not a status document describing what is planned, and support is available around the clock between demos. Because architecture and scope were settled on the scope call, sprint time goes into building rather than into deciding what to build.
What does handoff mean for ownership and cost?
Handoff transfers the finished system to your business outright. We hand over the build, train your team on the AI tooling behind it if you want that training, and charge no licensing fees afterward. Nothing continues running on our infrastructure or our subscriptions, so there is no recurring bill attached to keeping what was built.
Frequently asked questions
How long before the first working software appears?
Sprints are one week long, so the first working piece of the system typically appears at the end of the first sprint and gets demonstrated on that week's 30-minute call. The proposal from the scope call targets a deliverable sized for roughly two weeks of work.
Does the work happen on-site or remotely?
Both arrangements are available. Automation Interns are based in Tempe, so Phoenix-metro businesses can have people on-site, and businesses elsewhere in the United States are served remotely on the same sprint schedule. Read about the Phoenix service area
Can the scope change between sprints?
Yes. Because no long-term commitment is attached to the proposal, the senior engineer can re-scope the next sprint as priorities shift, and a business can also stop after any sprint.
Who reviews the code before it reaches production?
A senior engineer reviews everything a junior engineer builds before it reaches your systems, and stays involved across the whole engagement rather than only at kickoff.