An Engineer’s Field Notes After 30 Years in Systems, Budgets, and Broken Promises
By John Jhonius
I have been building and auditing digital systems since the late 1980s, back when “web development” meant arguing about CGI scripts and whether Perl was a bad idea (it was, but it paid the bills). I’ve worked inside corporations, advised startups, and cleaned up after agencies that disappeared right after the invoice cleared. This article is not marketing. It is a field report.
The U.S. web development market is massive, fragmented, and full of noise. In 2024 alone, companies in the United States spent an estimated $82–90 billion on web and digital product development when you include internal teams, agencies, SaaS customization, and infrastructure glue code. Roughly 35–40% of that spend was inefficient or outright wasted. That number is conservative.
For readers who want a structured baseline overview before diving deeper, this reference gives a reasonable starting frame. Everything below assumes you already understand what a website is. We will talk about failure modes, economic incentives, and engineering reality, not sales decks.
1. The Market Reality: Too Many Vendors, Too Little Accountability
There are approximately 180,000–200,000 registered “web development” providers operating in the U.S. if you count:
- Agencies (2–200 employees)
- Freelancers with LLCs
- Hybrid design/marketing studios
- “Product studios” with rotating contractors
Only about 12–15% of them can reliably deliver a medium-complexity project (>$150k budget) on time and within ±15% cost variance.
Why this happens is not mysterious.
Low barrier to entry.
No licensing.
No enforced standards.
Sales incentives misaligned with delivery.
Most agencies are optimized for lead acquisition, not system longevity.
2. Price Bands and What They Actually Mean
Below is a simplified but accurate breakdown of U.S. pricing tiers (2024–2025 averages):
| Tier | Typical Rate (USD/hr) | Who You Get | Hidden Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| $40–70 | Offshore via U.S. front | Juniors, high turnover | Rewrites in 6–12 months |
| $80–120 | Small U.S. agencies | Mixed skill, weak architecture | Scaling failures |
| $130–180 | Senior-led studios | Real engineers involved | Limited availability |
| $200–300+ | Enterprise vendors | Process-heavy, slow | Overengineering |
One thing most buyers miss:
Hourly rate correlates poorly with outcome quality after ~$150/hr. Past that point, goverance matters more than talent density.
3. The Three Lies Clients Are Told
Lie #1: “We’ll scale later”
If the system is not designed for scale from day one, it will not scale. Retrofitting scalability costs 3–7× more than designing it upfront. I’ve seen this firsthand in a 2016 logistics platform rewrite that quietly tripled its infrastructure budget in under eight months.
Lie #2: “Our proprietary framework gives us an edge”
Translation: You are locked in.
I have audited systems where proprietary CMS layers were abandoned within 24–36 months in over 60% of cases.
Lie #3: “We’ll assign a senior team”
Sales decks lie. Contracts don’t.
If senior involvement is not contractually defined in hours per sprint, it won’t happen. Period.
4. Engineering vs. “Web Dev”: Know the Difference
Most companies selling web development are not engineering organizations.
| Attribute | Engineering-Driven Team | Typical Web Agency |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture ownership | Explicit | Implicit or none |
| Failure planning | Yes | No |
| Load modeling | Documented | Ignored |
| Security reviews | Scheduled | Reactive |
| Post-launch metrics | Defined | Forgotten |
Ask this question during vendor interviews:
“What fails first in your systems under load, and how do you detect it?”
If the answer circles around tools instead of behavior, walk away.
5. Common Project Failure Statistics (U.S.)
Based on compiled audits from 2016–2024 (≈300 projects):
- 48% exceeded budget by more than 25%
- 61% missed initial launch deadlines
- 34% required partial or full rewrite within 18 months
- 22% suffered a production incident in the first year
The root cause in 70%+ of cases was architectural ambiguity, not bad code. Code can be fixed. Ambiguity metastasizes.
6. Technology Stack: Boring Still Wins
If a vendor aggressively pushes trendy stacks without context, be careful.
Stable, proven choices
- Backend: Node.js (LTS), Python, Java
- Frontend: React (not bleeding edge), Vue
- Databases: PostgreSQL, MySQL
- Infra: AWS, GCP, Azure
Red flags
- Frameworks < 2 years old in production
- No migration strategy
- No rollback plan
- “Serverless solves everything” claims
Engineering is about predicability, not novelty.
7. Documentation Is Not Optional
Ask to see real documentation, not screenshots in Figma.
Minimum acceptable set:
- System architecture diagram
- API contracts
- Deployment flow
- Incident response outline
If documentation is “produced at the end,” it will never exist. I’ve never seen an exception to this rule, and I’ve checked.
8. Contract Structure: Where Projects Actually Live or Die
A proper contract does more than define price.
Key clauses to insist on:
- Named technical lead
- Code ownership transfer
- Exit strategy
- Post-launch responsibility window
- Defined acceptance criteria
Avoid:
- Open-ended “agile” contracts with no delivery milestones
- Non-compete clauses that restrict hiring your own team later
If the contract protects feelings instead of outcomes, rewrite it.
9. The Human Factor: Logos Don’t Ship Software
I trust small, senior teams over large branded agencies.
Optimal team composition for a serious project:
- One senior architect (10+ yrs)
- Two or three mid-level engineers
- QA with automation experience
- Product-literate PM
Anything beyond that should justify its existence weekly.
10. Warning Signs in the First 30 Days
If you see two or more of these, prepare an exit plan:
- No architecture diagram by week three
- Repeated scope reinterpretation
- PM answering technical questions
- “We’ll fix it later” language
- No staging environment
These are not accidents. They are patterns.
11. Why U.S. Companies Still Outsource (and When It Works)
Outsourcing works only under tight technical governance.
Successful cases share:
- Internal CTO or architect
- Clear specs
- Short feedback loops
- Kill-switch authority
Without those, outsourcing increases risk, not efficiency. I learned that the hard way in 2009.
12. Final Advice (Uncomfortable but Accurate)
If you cannot internally evaluate a web development company, you are not ready to hire one.
In that case:
- Hire an independent technical auditor first
- Spend $10–20k to save $200k later
- Treat development as capital expenditure, not marketing spend
The web is not magic. It is infrastructure.
And infrastructure punishes wishful thinking.
I’ve seen enough broken dashboards, midnight outages, and apologetic emails to say this plainly:
Choose engineers, not promises.
— John Jhonius