Staff augmentation, with people who already work in your kind of environment.
Need a fractional vCISO, audit-prep burst, or coverage during a leave? Uzado places named Canadian-based people from our bench, integrated into your team, on retainer or block-hours.
What this is, and what it isn't
Staff augmentation at Uzado means deploying named people from Uzado's Canadian bench into your team. They keep being Uzado employees on Uzado payroll, with Uzado's bench behind them, but they work as part of your team for the term.
We are explicitly not a recruiter. There is no finder's fee, no take-home of an onboarded employee, and no responsibility on your side for HR, training, or continuity. The deployment is a service, the person is the deliverable, and the relationship behind that person is Uzado's bench depth.
That model exists because the alternative, hiring a permanent full-time CISO, compliance manager, or senior cloud architect, is the wrong shape for most SMBs. Either the role is fractional by nature, or the moment of need is short and intense. Augmentation lines up with both shapes.
The bench, by role
Fractional Chief Information Security Officer for strategy, board reporting, audit ownership, and security programme leadership. See the dedicated vCISO page for scope.
A named person running your SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, or PCI programme on a fractional cadence. Owns the calendar, the evidence pack, and the auditor relationship.
Burst capacity in the eight to sixteen weeks before an audit. The person who closes the evidence gaps, drives remediation, and runs the dress rehearsal.
Coverage for parental leave, vacancy, or extended absence. A senior IT generalist plugs into your environment for a defined window with a clean handover at the end.
Tier 2 and tier 3 analyst time for organisations that need surge capacity around an incident, a forensics request, or a known peak period.
Azure, AWS, or GCP architects on a project or retainer model. Designs that pass an audit, with handover documentation your team can run from.
Three ways to buy time
A named person allocated on a predictable hours-per-week cadence. The right model for ongoing roles like vCISO and fractional compliance manager.
A pre-purchased block of hours drawn down against project work. The right model for audit prep, migration bursts, and short-cycle engagements.
Fixed scope, fixed price, fixed timeline. The right model where the deliverable is well-defined and the risk should sit with Uzado, not your budget.
A four-step engagement model
Define the role, the outcome, the time commitment, and the engagement model. Decide what success looks like at 30, 60, and 90 days.
Uzado proposes one or two named people from the bench whose history matches your environment. You review their background and meet them.
First 30 days are a fit-confirm window. If the match is wrong, we replace at no charge. The bar for a good match is high, by design.
Quarterly two-way reviews. Outcomes against the plan, scope changes, and any role evolution. Adjustments are made between quarters when the work demands it.
Common staff augmentation questions
How is this different from a recruiter or staffing agency?+
We are not a recruiter. The people we deploy stay on Uzado's payroll, work from Uzado's playbook, and remain Uzado employees throughout the engagement. You are buying access to a bench, not paying a finder's fee on someone you would have to onboard and manage as your own staff.
Can the person work in our office?+
Yes, where logistics allow. Most engagements are remote-first with on-site days for kickoff, key reviews, and the work where physical presence matters. Uzado's bench is Canadian, so on-site cadence in southern Ontario is straightforward.
Can we hire the person at the end of the engagement?+
Sometimes. Conversion is handled case by case under the master services agreement. Uzado's preference is that strong matches keep working with you indefinitely on the augmentation model, because the bench depth behind that person is part of what you are buying.
What is the minimum commitment?+
Most retainers run quarterly with monthly hours commitments. Block-of-hours engagements have no recurring commitment beyond the block. Project-priced engagements run to the project's defined endpoint. Uzado does not lock clients into multi-year minimums for fractional work.
How does this overlap with your managed services?+
Augmentation works well alongside managed services. The augmented person can sit inside your team while Uzado's managed services run the platforms underneath. This is common for compliance-led organisations: a fractional compliance manager from Uzado co-ordinates a SOC 2 programme that runs on Uzado's Managed GRC platform.
How do you handle confidentiality?+
Every engagement runs under Uzado's master agreement, with NDA and data-handling clauses calibrated to your sector. Augmented staff sign individual confidentiality acknowledgements, complete role-specific security training, and follow Uzado's data-handling standards alongside yours.
Need a person, not a project?
Uzado will propose one or two named matches from our Canadian bench within a week. Talk to our team and we will scope the role.