His most tenured engineers weren't the ones pushing AI. His Full Scale team was
A conversation with Brandon Grady, CTO of Lytho, on how his Full Scale engineers in the Philippines led the company's AI adoption faster than its most tenured staff, moved across tech stacks without friction, and became core to Lytho after first arriving through an acquisition.
The offshore team is leading Lytho on AI
Lytho started experimenting with AI in 2025 and got serious about it early this year. Brandon expected his most tenured, most technical people to lead that charge. That isn't what happened.
The engineers pushing hardest, and showing the rest of the company what was possible fastest, were his Full Scale team. Younger engineers and QA who were eager, curious, and already fluent in the tools. On a frontier where nobody has the playbook yet, they were the ones out front.
"Our Full Scale teammates are the ones pushing AI the hardest. They're showing us what's possible faster than some of our most tenured people."
— Brandon Grady, Chief Technology Officer, Lytho
They pushed, the veterans followed
Some of the Full Scale teammates drove AI adoption harder than Lytho's most tenured engineers, including the technical people Brandon expected to lead the charge.
Eager and curious
Brandon works with younger Full Scale engineers and QA who dig into AI and keep surfacing new, practical ways to use it in the product.
Built together, not imposed
It isn't Lytho handing a culture down to a vendor. The two teams are figuring out Lytho's new AI way of working side by side.
In some cases, leading
On a frontier with no playbook yet, the Full Scale team is often the one pointing the way toward how Lytho will operate with AI.
"It's not us pushing a culture onto Full Scale. We're building this new tech culture together, and in some cases they're leading us."
— Brandon Grady, Chief Technology Officer, Lytho
"Full Scale is a very high-quality partner. They're responsive to all of my requests and proactive about things I didn't even know I should be asking."
— Brandon Grady, Chief Technology Officer, Lytho
Creative operations software for marketing teams
Lytho makes software for the creative teams inside marketing organizations. It manages the creative process, from campaigns and projects to proofing and the buildout of marketing assets, and warehouses everything in a digital asset manager that teams can reuse over time.
The company grew through acquisition, so its stack spans three worlds: a .NET application, a Java platform, and a smaller Python codebase. Today it's expanding across the whole content lifecycle and leaning hard into AI to keep work on brand and compliant.
Brandon Grady is Lytho's CTO, responsible for platform architecture, infrastructure, security, and AI enablement. He inherited the Full Scale relationship when he joined and has every reason to keep it.
They came in through an acquisition, and stayed
The most telling part of the Lytho story is how the relationship began. Full Scale didn't start at Lytho at all. It started at a company Lytho later bought, and survived the handover because it was working.
It started at DivvyHQ
The relationship began at DivvyHQ, a Kansas City content platform, before it was part of the Lytho family. DivvyHQ needed to expand its engineering team fast with high-quality people who could commit for the long term, not a three-month gig.
Lytho acquired DivvyHQ
When Lytho bought DivvyHQ, it didn't yet have a strong strategy of its own for hiring at scale or offshore. Full Scale was already delivering, so the easy call was to keep going.
It became the strategy
Full Scale didn't just survive the acquisition. The team was trusted enough to be redeployed onto Lytho's core product stack and became the company's offshore engineering approach.
"Full Scale was doing such a great job that we stuck with them, and we're extraordinarily happy with them yet today."
— Brandon Grady, Chief Technology Officer, Lytho
A team you can move to where the problems are
Full Scale's model is staff augmentation: senior engineers in the Philippines who join the client's team directly. For Lytho, the payoff came when the strategy changed.
When Brandon and a new chief product officer arrived, Lytho pivoted its product strategy around its digital asset manager. That kind of shift usually means asking engineers to leave the domain they know. In a high-tenure organization, uprooting someone from 10 or 12 years on one stack is painful. Instead, Full Scale developers moved from the .NET stack to the Java stack with very little friction, and got productive fast.
Moved across stacks
During a product-strategy pivot, Full Scale developers shifted from Lytho's .NET stack to its Java stack with very little friction.
Productive fast
After the move they came up to speed and were productive quickly, not stuck relearning the basics for months.
No one uprooted
Lytho is a high-tenure organization. Asking someone off 10 or 12 years on one stack is hard. The Full Scale team absorbed the change instead.
Move to the problem
Full Scale's flexibility means the team goes where the work is, rather than where an org chart froze it years ago.
"We moved several Full Scale developers from our .NET stack to our Java stack with very little friction, and they got productive fast."
— Brandon Grady, Chief Technology Officer, Lytho
A partner that's proactive, not just responsive
Brandon has worked with a lot of firms, and he knows the Philippines market well. What sets Full Scale apart for him isn't only that the team answers his requests. It's that they reach out first, flagging things he should be paying attention to before he thinks to ask.
Add it up and the picture is a team that leads on AI, absorbs a strategy pivot without drama, and stuck around through a change of ownership. That's why, years in, Lytho is still here and still expanding the relationship.
"Would I recommend Full Scale to other CTOs and founders? Absolutely. Particularly if the Philippines is an area you're targeting."
— Brandon Grady, Chief Technology Officer, Lytho
The team he'd least expect to lead was leading
Brandon assumed his most tenured, most technical people would drive AI. Instead it was the Full Scale engineers, showing the company what was possible faster than anyone.
That's the difference between a vendor and a team. One waits for instructions. The other helps you figure out what to do next.
Today he'd recommend Full Scale without hesitation, especially to teams eyeing the Philippines.
What other engineering leaders can take from how Lytho staffed
An offshore team can lead, not just execute
The people pushing AI hardest at Lytho are the Full Scale engineers. The right partner brings initiative, not just capacity.
Flexibility is the real product
Moving trusted engineers across stacks beats re-hiring every time your strategy shifts. That is what staff augmentation is supposed to buy you.
A good partnership survives a change of ownership
Full Scale came in through an acquisition and stayed. A relationship that outlasts a corporate change is one built on results, not lock-in.
Culture is built together
The strongest offshore relationships aren't a culture handed down to a vendor. They're one team figuring out the hard, new things side by side.
Proactive beats reactive
Brandon values a partner that flags what he should be paying attention to before he thinks to ask, not one that only answers tickets.
The Philippines is a serious talent market
A CTO who knows the region well calls Full Scale a very high-quality partner there. Where you hire matters, and so does who you hire with.