You can replace any engineer on Cadence at the end of any week, no penalty, no notice period. Most replacements happen for fit reasons, not skill. The mechanics are designed to make this clean for both sides.
How to request a replacement
- Open the engagement in your founder dashboard.
- Click Replace at week-end.
- Add a one-line reason (private to Cadence, never shown to the engineer).
- Confirm. The engineer wraps Friday and gets paid in full for the current week.
What happens next
- The engineer is notified within an hour, with the reason redacted.
- You will receive a fresh shortlist of 4 engineers by Monday morning.
- Intro calls scheduled for Monday afternoon. Pick one to roll into a 48-hour trial Tuesday.
- No charge for the gap week if the new engineer cannot start immediately.
Mid-week replacement (rare)
If something is genuinely broken (no-show, conduct issue, ratings collapse), email trust@cadence.work. We can pull an engineer mid-week and credit your account for the unused days. Reserved for real issues, not preference.
What is not a replacement reason
- The engineer pushed back on a poor scope. That is them doing their job.
- One bad day. Daily ratings exist to capture the trend, not the noise.
- A salary or rate change you want to negotiate. Use rate adjustment instead.
Does this affect my account?
Replacements are normal and we expect every founder to use them at some point. Heavy replacement patterns (more than 3 in 8 weeks) trigger a check-in with your success contact, usually because the brief is too vague rather than because the engineers are wrong.
Anything else, hello@cadence.work. Back to help center.