Fractional AI Engineers
for Creative and Marketing Teams
Hire pre-vetted, highly autonomous AI engineers who start in days, scope the work, and build.
working with our customers
Clients
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Performer
High
Performer
The creative bottleneck draining your paid media budget
Your growth team knows what to test. They don't have the system to test it at scale.
- ×You want AI to scale creative output but no one on the team knows where to start
- ×Freelancers are inconsistent and unreliable — quality and output vary every cycle
- ×Building in-house sounds right but nobody has bandwidth to actually own it
- ×Brief creation is manual — pulling from product data and reviews from scratch every time
- ×Performance data sits in dashboards but never feeds back into what gets tested next
// the actual waste
$150k per year
to maintain creative output without a system behind it
$80K creative coordinator or strategist
+ $5K/mo creative agency retainer ($60K)
+ lost ROAS from under-testing angles
= $150K+ before you factor in opportunity cost
That's what most DTC brands spend to keep creative moving — before counting what they leave on the table by testing half as many angles as they should.
How it works
30-min call with one of our engineers
Not a sales call. They ask the right questions, listen to how your team operates, and tell you exactly what they'd build — before you commit to anything.
FreeWe discuss your biggest creative bottleneck
You map out where your team is losing the most time. The engineer shares how they'd solve it — what gets built, what data it pulls from, what it automates.
You buy a package of hours
No retainer. No long-term commitment. Buy the hours you need and use them for the work you agreed on. Most teams start with a 40-hour block — enough to get a working system live and see the impact before adding more.
Pay as you goYour engineer embeds with your team
They start in 2–3 days. They work in your stack, alongside your growth and creative team, on the workflows you identified together. Everything they build is yours to keep.
Starts in 2–3 daysWhat Near engineers build for DTC and CPG brands
Pulls from product data, reviews, SKUs, and past winning ads automatically.
Tied to performance data so every test informs the next creative angle.
For statics, video, emails, and landing pages — from insight to new variation, without starting from scratch.
Surface new testing angles automatically before you're a week behind.
Your best hooks, pulled from what customers already say about your product.
Every test builds on the last. The system gets smarter as you ship more.
Why Our Clients
Choose Near
Talk to one of our Engineers
Pre-vetted, highly trained engineers.
We leverage our local market expertise across Latin America to identify and screen the best AI engineering talent. Every engineer is vetted for technical depth, communication, and autonomy — with a proven track record to back us up.
Four ways brands try to scale creative. One that ships.
Full-time AI hire
$150K-$180K/year
You need 40 hours a week of work for them. Most DTC brands at this stage don't have that yet.
Near
Start at 40-hour package. Pay for hours worked.
Start next week. Add hours as you go. Stop when you want.
Creative agency
Assets without the system
They produce content but won't build the infrastructure behind it. You're still starting from scratch every cycle.
Near
Engineer starts in 2-3 days
They build the system that makes your creative team faster — not just the deliverables.
Off-the-shelf AI tools
Built for generic workflows, not yours
They require customization you don't have engineers to do. So you work around them instead of through them.
Near
Built on your stack, for your brand
Pulls from your reviews, your SKUs, your ad account. No migration, no new platform to learn.
Doing it yourself
Unfinished projects
No time, no dedicated person. Good ideas that never get built into something repeatable.
Near
One dedicated engineer, autonomous
They scope, they build, they ship. You review the output, not the process.
FAQ
What have other DTC and CPG brands built with Near engineers?+
Brief generation systems that pull from product reviews, SKUs, and past winning ads. ML feedback loops tied to Meta and TikTok performance data. Competitor ad analysis pipelines that surface new angles automatically. Most brands start with whichever of these is slowing down their creative testing cycle the most.
Can clients hire the engineer full-time?+
Yes. You can start with a package or two to see how the engineer works with your team. If it's a good fit, you can convert them to a full-time hire. A lot of our clients go that route.
What does the engineer vetting process actually look like?+
Every engineer goes through Near's technical screening before they're placed. We test for engineering fundamentals, AI and automation tooling, and the ability to work independently on ambiguous problems — not just follow a spec.
Can we stop anytime? What are the commitment and package options?+
You buy a package of hours based on what you need. There's no long-term contract or retainer. Use the hours, see what gets built, and decide from there.
What's the average engineer background — experience level and tech stack?+
Our engineers have several years of software and automation experience, including the AI and machine learning layer on top — GCP, Python, Claude, n8n, Make, and Zapier. They're also familiar with the tools DTC and CPG teams already run: Shopify, Meta Ads Manager, TikTok for Business, Klaviyo, and Google Analytics.
What teams say after hiring a Near engineer
The engineers Near provided are incredibly high quality. I worked at Google for 10 years, where the bar for talent is very high, and I would say the people I placed through Near are comparable to the people I worked with at Google.
Ashley Black
Ex-Head of Sales @ Google
Founder, Candid Consulting
Near has allowed us to nearly double our caseload without doubling our in-office staff.
Kathy Patterson
Operations Manager
California Consumer Attorneys
Near was a game-changer for our business. We increased lead generation by 100% with automations built by talent we hired through Near.
Sumner Vanderhoof
Co-founder & CEO
Propensity
Book the call. Bring your biggest creative bottleneck. We'll tell you how we'd build the system behind it.
Talk to one of our engineers