Chapter 6 of 11
How each role earns
What exactly is this person being paid to do, and when is it earned?
Illustrative examples only. These are possible commercial arrangements, not current offers, agreed pay, promised work, forecasts, or evidence of customer results. All amounts are USD, before tax.
| Level | What it defines | What it does not imply |
|---|---|---|
| Master relationship | Background IP, confidentiality, legal framework and who may negotiate. | Does not promise a project, a salary or a share of unrelated business. |
| Specific opportunity | Customer permission, contribution record, pursuit funder and prime selection. | Does not authorize unlimited unpaid presales or lock the buyer to one person. |
| Customer project | Price, scope, acceptance, change control, responsibility and payment dates. | Does not automatically award every participant the same percentage. |
| Individual role / firm scope | Deliverable, budget, earn event, invoice event and due date. | One person can hold several roles only for distinct authorized contributions. |
| Renewal / expansion / reuse | New work, continuing stewardship, IP rights and fresh economics. | No automatic recurring commission, perpetual exclusivity or shared IP rights. |
Different contributions deserve different terms.
| Role | Contribution | Possible earning basis | Boundary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Relationship steward / reactivator | Current trust, access and account development | A scoped retainer, milestone fee or bounded success term | A named opportunity and contribution; no lifetime ownership of a buyer. |
| Introducer | A permissioned, qualified introduction | A fixed referral fee or negotiated contingent fee | Define qualification, fee base, term, exclusions and cancellation treatment. |
| Presales / domain specialist | Discovery, feasibility, proposal and industry judgment | Funded hours, a fixed discovery package or an expressly contingent portion | Identify who funds authorized work even when no project is won. |
| Commercial lead | Negotiation, scope, pricing and handover | Project budget or agreed success term | No authority to promise delivery or discounts beyond delegation. |
| Architect / engagement lead | A workable design and coordinated delivery | Bounded package, time budget or retainer | Define acceptance, dependencies, change authority and escalation. |
| Engineer / specialist / boutique firm | A specified implementation or integration | Milestone invoice or time-based approved scope | A supplier receipt is business income before its own staff, tools and taxes. |
| Evaluator / QA / security reviewer | Independent evidence, including unfavorable findings | Assessment package or authorized review hours | Pay for a sound review, not for a predetermined pass. |
| Customer operator / adoption lead | Data access, adoption, oversight and day-to-day ownership | Customer-funded time or a contracted change-management scope | Count customer effort in the buyer’s economics; adoption is not free. |
| Maintainer / support operator | Updates, incidents, reliability and runbooks | Recurring fee tied to service boundaries | Specify coverage, usage limits, escalation and additional work. |
| Educator / creator / IP owner | Teaching, documentation or rights to reusable assets | Preparation and delivery fees, license, support or sponsorship | Permission, maintenance and distinct deliverables govern payment; avoid double-selling rights. |
| Intent / accountable prime | Customer contract, orchestration, collection and delivery risk | The contribution left after approved project costs | That contribution must also fund company overhead, losses and reinvestment. |
| Platform / model / cloud vendor | Metered infrastructure, models or licensed capability | Usage charges or license fees from the actual account holder | Credits may offset eligible bills; they cannot be treated as cash for wages. |
One person can hold several roles.
In the $80,000 project example, one business might perform $2,400 of relationship work and $2,640 of discovery, plus earn a distinct $400 success fee: $5,440 in gross fees for three separately authorized contributions. That does not authorize billing the same hour twice.
Track three different things.
Attribution records who contributed. The obligation ledger records what was actually agreed and earned. The cash ledger records invoices, due dates and settlement. Credit for an idea is not automatically a payment obligation, and an earned invoice may still be unpaid.
What the research changes about this model
These selected studies and historical cases explain mechanisms to test. They are not a systematic review, industry earnings survey or validation of this network. The teaching applications are our proposed responses, not conclusions that the sources tested for Intent. Scenario prices and volumes remain explicit assumptions.
A salary benchmark is not a supplier quote
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports May 2025 median annual wages of $135,980 for software developers and $104,300 for software QA analysts and testers.
Application to this design: Use wage data as a reasonableness check, then obtain actual supplier quotes. A contracting business must also fund nonbillable time, benefits, tools, overhead and risk. Specialist scope and local conditions can change the rate substantially.
Limits: US employee wages are not international contractor prices, an AI-specialist rate survey or validation of these fictional rates. The project sensitivity changes the supplier rate without claiming any value is a market median.
Research, evidence boundaries and diagram method
This is a proposed operating model illustrated with constructed numbers. The sources below establish program mechanisms and constraints; none establishes the scenario rates, Intent revenue, individual compensation or a guaranteed source of projects.
- Anthropic: Services Track and Partner Hub — Distinguishes practice standing from referral credit and deal protection. Does not establish any scenario fee, Intent tier, inbound work or cash entitlement. Checked 2026-10-12.
- OpenAI Partner Network — Shows an official build, co-sell and delivery program. No claim of Intent enrollment, procurement approval, referral rate or awarded work. Checked 2026-10-12.
- AWS Partner Central: Creating a fund request — Separates funding approval, cash claims, invoices and credits. Eligibility and program terms apply; the customer-paid discovery example is not an AWS award. Checked 2026-10-12.
- AWS Marketplace: Managing disbursements — Explains why accepted work and available cash can occur at different times. A marketplace example only; other procurement and payment routes have their own terms. Checked 2026-10-12.
- Microsoft: Manage co-sell opportunities — Supports a customer-consent gate before sharing contact details in co-sell. Does not grant another firm ownership of an account, a universal commission or guaranteed seller help. Checked 2026-10-12.
- Langfuse: Self-hosted pricing — A public example separating open-source software from paid enterprise capabilities and support. This is an offer structure, not evidence of Intent demand, profitability or transferable pricing. Checked 2026-10-12.
- GitHub Sponsors: Sponsorships, fees and taxes — Shows a distinct sponsorship route for eligible open-source contributors. Sponsorship is not a guaranteed sale, support contract or license transfer; no sponsorship is assumed in the ledgers. Checked 2026-10-12.
- AWS Marketplace: Channel Partner private offers — Distinguishes approved resale from ordinary vendor consumption. This does not authorize resale of an arbitrary model, API, dataset or contributor’s software. Checked 2026-10-12.
Diagram method: Cathryn Lavery’s open-source Diagram Design, using its Sankey, waterfall, bar, line, architecture and layer-stack references in Intent’s established visual style. The selected chart grammar explains the relationship; the worked examples supply the data.
Apply it to a real workflow.
Start with a customer problem, the people who can help, and a clearly bounded first piece of work.
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