Outsourced Engineering

I’m a little late in posting this here, but it’s been a busy couple of months. As has already been reported in the local press, Cardinal Peak moved in late September. We’ve been adding some folks in the past year, and we had outgrown our previous location. But we also had a couple of other... View Article

At Cardinal Peak, we are willing to include royalties as part of our compensation under certain circumstances, but there are powerful constraints limiting our appetite for such deals. So in this post, I'll explain a few of our reservations about royalties.

When a prospective customer calls us, they generally have one of two engagement models in mind: time and materials (T&M), or fixed price. This post explains why Cardinal Peak strongly prefers T&M engagements to FP ones — and why savvy customers should, too.

We normally take the humble bug report for granted, but getting your company to write good bug reports is one of the cheapest and easiest ways you can increase product quality and shorten development schedules. That’s because, when a bug report is poorly worded or doesn’t include all the key information, it takes a lot... View Article

There’s a lot of advice on the internet directed to engineers and other tech workers who reach a certain age. According to Penelope Trunk, you’re supposed to hide your age on your resume by deleting work experience older than about 15 years ago and omitting the date on your college degree. (I’m going to blow... View Article

Learn how Cardinal Peak navigates project planning challenges with realistic estimates. Discover effective techniques for accurate engineering timelines.

In all the sturm und drang of bad economic news, Cardinal Peak is on a bit of a hiring spree. If you’re a talented engineer who is interested in embedded application development and lives in the Denver/Boulder area, please get in touch! We’re working on some very cool products that I hope to be able... View Article

We recently became aware of another contract engineering firm that had appropriated our Why Contract Engineering page for their own website. This other firm (and no, I’m not going to link to them) claims on their home page that they “operate in an honest, ethical and professional manner,” so I guess they’ve got that going... View Article

My last post suggested ways to reduce parts costs in a low- to mid-volume product. This post explores ways to keep development costs low while still creating a cost-effective product. You can’t escape the fact that it takes money to create a low-cost product. It is estimated that the first version of the iPhone had... View Article

I take it as a given that when a client approaches us with a new embedded product idea, they will require a very demanding set of features and a minimal price tag. The “minimal price tag” part always applies to the development effort required. For products with a hardware component, it also applies to the... View Article

I had intended to give the indemnification issue a rest. But then the following caught my attention this morning: One big difference between patents and other kinds of intellectual property, like copyrights and trademarks, is that patent-holders who want to sue someone for infringement don’t have to show that their patents or their products were... View Article

Discover why Cardinal Peak chose to walk away from an engineering engagement for the first time. Learn about our stance on indemnification and why it matters in high-stakes engineering contracts.