This is the handbook for engineers working on Cadence. It is short, opinionated, and practical. Read it once when you join, skim it when something is unclear. Anything not covered here, ask engineers@cadence.work.
The bargain
Cadence routes founder demand to you. In exchange we ask three things: you ship reviewed, merged code on the cadence the founder agreed to. You communicate proactively. You honor the rate you set. That is it. The rest of this handbook is just the mechanics.
Setting your weekly rate
- You pick your own tier: Junior $500, Mid $1,000, Senior $1,500, Lead $2,000 per week, 40 hours dedicated.
- Match volume drops sharply if you set a rate above your relevance score band. Set honestly, the algorithm rewards it.
- You can change your rate any time. Active bookings finish at the agreed rate, new matches use the new one.
Match requests
- You have a 2-hour window to accept or decline a match request. After that it routes to the next engineer.
- Acceptance is not commitment. You can still decline at the intro call if it is a poor fit.
- Decline freely. Declines do not lower your relevance score. Ghosting matches does.
The intro call
- 30 minutes, scheduled by the platform, run on Daily.co.
- Spend the first 5 minutes confirming the brief. Spend the next 15 walking through one specific thing you would build first. Spend the last 10 on questions.
- If you decide it is not a fit during the call, say so before it ends. Founders respect a clean no.
The 48-hour trial
- The trial is paid by Cadence, not the founder. You earn for these hours regardless of whether the founder converts.
- Goal of the trial: ship one small, real thing end-to-end. A merged PR, a deployed change, a fixed bug. Not a take-home.
- Take handoff seriously. Read the codebase. Ask three good questions. Get repo access in the first hour.
Daily ratings
- Founders rate every day, 1 to 5, with one optional sentence of context.
- Average across the last 30 days drives 40% of your relevance score.
- Ratings under 3 trigger a check-in from us within 24 hours. Two consecutive 1s pause matching while we mediate.
Communication norms
- Async-first. Default to written updates in the platform thread or the founder's preferred channel.
- Reply within one working day. Within two working hours during the trial.
- Send a short EOD summary on weekdays you worked: shipped, blocked, plan for tomorrow. Three lines is fine.
- If you need to take a day off, say so the day before. Booked weeks assume 40 hours of capacity.
Pause, replace, end
- Pause: founders can pause an engagement for up to 4 weeks. You receive 25% of the weekly rate during the pause to hold capacity. Decline if you do not want to.
- Replace: founders can ask to replace at week-end. You finish the week and get paid in full. We send the next match.
- End: you can end any engagement at week-end with one weekend's notice. Wrap cleanly: documented PRs, handover doc, repo access transfer.
Payouts
- Every Friday, 9am UTC. Stripe Connect, direct deposit in 50+ countries via Wise where Stripe is unavailable.
- You receive 80% of the gross weekly rate, less Stripe fees, paid as 1099 / contractor income.
- Tax forms (1099-NEC for US, equivalents elsewhere) are issued by January 31 each year.
Off-platform poaching
Founders are barred by the platform terms from hiring or contracting you off-Cadence within 12 months of the start of the engagement. If a founder approaches you off-platform, route them back through Cadence. We have your back if anyone tries to bypass this. Email trust@cadence.work.
AI tooling
You can use any AI assistant as part of your work. The standards are: do not paste customer code into models the founder has not sanctioned, do not commit unreviewed AI output, and treat AI as a collaborator, not a deliverer. The founder pays for shipped, reviewed, working code. How you produce it is up to you.
Confidentiality
- Treat everything you see in a founder's codebase, customer data, or business as confidential.
- Do not share specifics of one engagement with another founder, including in casual conversation.
- If you discover a security or privacy issue, tell the founder first. If it is not addressed within 7 days, escalate to trust@cadence.work.
Conduct
Be honest. Be on time. Decline cleanly. Refund a day if you did not work it. Do not take an engagement if you cannot deliver. Two strikes on these and we remove you from the pool. We have not had to do it often, and we plan to keep it that way.
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