Systems Engineering Consultancy

Engineering ownership for hard technical problems.

Wavelet Solutions is a small, senior consultancy that takes ownership of problems specialists keep walking away from — SCADA migrations stalled, software recoveries stuck, embedded systems with no documentation, technical programs without leadership. We own the engineering end-to-end and deliver, with the documentation your team can use long after the engagement ends.

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Experience 25+ years defense, aerospace, industrial, embedded, RF

Clearance Top Secret, active

Practice Small. Senior. Hands-on.

Most project failures trace back to one of three things: requirements that were never clearly defined, architecture that was wrong from the start, or a team with no one who could own the full technical picture. Fix those three things and projects move.

From the Wavelet engagement playbook

What we work on

Recognizable situations.

Most engagements start when a working engineering team hits a problem that doesn’t fit any one specialist’s scope. Here are the shapes those problems tend to take.

No. 01

Legacy SCADA running on borrowed time.

The RTUs still work. The master station runs on Windows XP. The vendor is gone. The integrator retired. You know it needs upgrading, but you can’t afford downtime and can’t risk breaking what has been reliable for years.

How we respond

Phased migrations that preserve field equipment while modernizing the master station. New network architecture, modern HMI, secure remote access — executed while the system stays operational.

No. 02

A software project that has gone off the rails.

Budget blown, timeline gone, team spinning. The architecture was wrong and the requirements were never properly defined. The original approach is not going to get you where you need to be.

How we respond

An honest technical assessment, then a recovery path with real requirements and realistic scope. We tell you specifically which components need to be rebuilt and why.

No. 03

Mysterious failures nobody can diagnose.

Something is failing intermittently. Maybe it’s timing, maybe RF interference, maybe a protocol edge case. Three contractors have looked at it. None of them figured it out. The pressure to fix it keeps building.

How we respond

Oscilloscopes, protocol analyzers, and actual diagnostic skill. Schematics read, signals traced, timing analyzed, root causes identified. Permanent fixes, not workarounds.

Three more recognizable shapes —

No. 04

A technical leadership gap on a critical program.

Your lead engineer left, or you never had one. There’s a project manager but nobody who can make technical decisions with confidence. The team is capable but directionless, and the schedule won’t wait.

How we respond

We step in as the technical lead. Architecture defined, blocking decisions resolved, engineering standards set, the team moving. Present and engaged, not a consultant who disappears between meetings.

No. 05

Custom hardware with no source code.

Your controller works perfectly but the original programmer is long gone. You need new features or modern connectivity. Everyone says it’s impossible without the original source.

How we respond

We reverse-engineer embedded systems and recreate firmware from scratch. Schematics welcome but not required. Modern connectivity can be added cleanly once the existing behavior is understood.

No. 06

Integration between systems that don’t talk.

Three vendors claim compatibility. None of them work together. None of them will take responsibility for making it work.

How we respond

We become the integration authority. Protocol specs, gateway development, communications debugging. Modbus to DNP3, proprietary to OPC UA — we’ve bridged all of them.

How an engagement works

Scoped. Owned. Delivered.

Most engagements follow the same shape, regardless of domain. The structure works because it forces clarity about the actual problem before any code is written or hardware is touched.

No. 01

Understand the real problem.

Every engagement starts with a technical assessment. The stated problem and the actual problem are often different things. We dig in, talk to your engineers, read the code, look at the hardware, and surface what’s actually broken before proposing how to fix it.

No. 02

Define what “done” looks like.

Requirements before anything else. Functional, non-functional, acceptance criteria. If success isn’t measurable, it isn’t definable — and projects without a finish line drift until they fail. This step is non-negotiable.

No. 03

Own it through to delivery.

Architecture, code, hardware, vendor coordination, integration — whatever the problem requires. You have a direct line to the engineer doing the work, not a project manager relaying messages between you and someone else.

No. 04

Leave your team better off.

Documented systems, maintainable code, trained operators. When an engagement ends, your team understands what they have and why it works. That standard is held on every engagement.

A note on engagement size. The practice runs best on focused engagements with clear scope and real authority. Most engagements range from a few weeks of technical assessment to multi-month programs of integrated delivery. We’ll tell you on the first call whether your situation is a fit.

What we don’t do

Knowing what we’re not.

The practice is small and the focus is deliberate. There are categories of work that look adjacent on paper but aren’t what we do well, and we’re direct about that. If your problem falls in one of these areas, we’ll point you to a better fit.

Pure web/mobile app development.

If your project is fundamentally a CRUD web app or consumer mobile product, our depth doesn’t earn its keep. Hire a product-focused shop.

Staff augmentation by the hour.

We work as the engineering owner, not as one developer in a larger team. If you need a body to fill a seat, we’re the wrong call.

Long-term operations or managed services.

Engagements have a delivery point. Once your team is trained and the system is documented, we hand off and step away. We don’t run your systems for you on retainer.

Generic IT consulting.

Network buildouts, ERP rollouts, helpdesk strategy — not us. We work where the engineering depth matters, not where it’s a category.

Engineering North Star

How we think, written down.

The systems engineering principles we practice on every engagement — first-principles thinking, requirements discipline, what makes architecture survive contact with reality. Read it before you talk to us; it’ll tell you whether we’re a fit faster than any sales call.

No signup. No paywall. Free.

Read the guide →

Start a conversation

Tell us about your situation.

The first conversation is short, focused, and free. We’ll tell you whether your problem is a fit, what we’d propose if it is, and who to call if it isn’t. Either way, you’ll leave with a clearer picture than you came in with.

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