Fractional product design and build
Michael Angeles joins a product team two or three days a week as a fractional product designer, designs the work, then writes the front-end code that ships it.
- 01 What is a fractional product designer?
- 02 Can I hire Michael Angeles as a fractional product designer?
- 03 How much does a fractional product designer cost?
- 04 What's the difference between a fractional designer and a design agency?
- 05 Does a fractional design engineer write production code?
- 06 How long does a fractional design engagement last?
- 07 When should a startup hire a fractional designer instead of a full-time one?
What is a fractional product designer? #
A fractional product designer works with your team part-time on an ongoing retainer, rather than full-time or per-project. Michael Angeles runs fractional engagements through Konigi at two or three days a week, designing the work and then writing the front-end code that ships it.
The word “fractional” describes the commitment, not the seniority. You get a senior designer for a fraction of the week, on a retainer that renews, which is a different arrangement from a contractor billing against a statement of work or an agency assigning you whoever is free.
What makes this version unusual is that the design and the build are the same person. Most fractional design arrangements end at a Figma file and a handoff meeting. Mine ends at a merged pull request.
Can I hire Michael Angeles as a fractional product designer? #
Yes. Michael Angeles takes a small number of client engagements a year and runs one fractional slot at a time, currently with Calx Analytics. Engagements are two or three days a week with a three-month minimum. He passes on advisory-only work, so if nothing ships he's the wrong hire.
Because Konigi runs one fractional slot at a time, the honest answer to “when can you start” depends on when the current engagement winds down. Ask. I’ll tell you where the queue actually is rather than holding you in a maybe.
I reply to every note within two business days, including the ones where the answer is no.
How much does a fractional product designer cost? #
Michael Angeles charges $14,000 a month for fractional design and build through Konigi. That covers two or three days a week with a three-month minimum, and he runs one slot at a time. The rate includes both the design work and the front-end code that ships it.
Worth comparing against what it replaces. A senior product designer and a front-end engineer as two full-time hires run considerably more than this once you count benefits and recruiting, and you’re committing to both before you know the shape of the work.
The other two Konigi shapes cost less because they’re smaller: a team workshop is $7,500 a day, and a pair session is $1,200 for a half day.
What's the difference between a fractional designer and a design agency? #
A design agency assigns you a team and hands off finished files. Michael Angeles works as one person inside your codebase and your process, so there's no handoff between design and build. Agencies scale to more surface area; a fractional design engineer goes deeper on fewer problems and ships them.
Pick an agency when you have breadth to cover and a team that can absorb the output. Pick fractional when the bottleneck is judgment rather than hands, and when the thing that keeps slipping is the distance between the design being approved and the design being live.
There’s a third difference nobody advertises. An agency’s incentive is the next statement of work. A Konigi retainer renews monthly, so it has to keep earning it, which is uncomfortable in a useful way.
Does a fractional design engineer write production code? #
Yes. Michael Angeles designs the interfaces and writes the front-end code that ships them, working in your repository and your review process. His own recent products were built with zero lines of hand-written code, using Claude Code as the build partner. The output is merged work, not a prototype.
This is front-end work. I’m not going to redesign your data model or own your backend. What I take off the table is the round trip between “the design is done” and “the design is in the product,” which in most teams is the place whole weeks quietly go missing.
Klarita, Unicron and six others came out of this way of working with Claude Code, all of them live today. They exist mostly so I can show rather than tell how the process runs.
How long does a fractional design engagement last? #
Fractional engagements with Konigi run on a three-month minimum and continue month to month after that. Michael Angeles holds one slot at a time, so a start date depends on when the current engagement winds down. The commitment is shipped product every month, not a discovery phase that never ends.
Three months is the floor on a Konigi retainer, and the reason is context. I need to learn your codebase, your users, and the decisions that were already made and can’t be revisited, before my judgment is worth anything close to what you’re paying for it. Anything shorter mostly buys you my onboarding.
When should a startup hire a fractional designer instead of a full-time one? #
Hire fractional when you need senior design judgment but can't yet justify a full-time designer, or when you'd otherwise need to hire a designer and a front-end engineer at once. Michael Angeles works with product teams in exactly that gap, and leaves the design practice behind when the engagement ends.
The tell is usually a founder doing design at eleven at night because nobody else will, or engineers shipping interfaces they know are wrong because there’s no one to say so. That’s a judgment shortage. It doesn’t need forty hours a week to fix, and it’s the situation Konigi fractional engagements are shaped for.
Hire full-time instead when the design surface is genuinely large enough to fill a week, or when the work is so entangled with your domain that part-time context never accumulates.
Still have a question?
Tell me what you're building, what a good outcome looks like, and when you'd want to start. That's enough for me to reply with a time, or a straight no if I'm not the right person for it.
Reach out to work with meI reply to every note within two business days.