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Pillar / Build · Custom software

Custom software shipped to a contract — not a demo.

SaaS, internal tools, enterprise apps, marketplaces — built by a senior pod that owns the API contract, the cutover runbook, and the on-call paper trail. Most engagements ship a working production slice in 4–8 weeks.

Start a projectArchitecture review · 3 weeks fixed
  • 4–8 wkFirst production slice
  • 30 daysPost-cutover on-call (default)
  • 100%IP transferred to you (MSA)

01 · What we ship

Four shapes the same pod ships routinely.

Pick the closest. Pod composition stays the same — staff engineer, mid-level, junior, plus shared design and DevOps.

  1. 01

    SaaS

    Multi-tenant from day one — authn/z, billing, plan limits, audit logs, observability. Production-ready, not demo-ware.

  2. 02

    Internal tools

    Workflow apps and admin panels that replace spreadsheet sprawl. Modeled to your operations and integrated with the systems you already run.

  3. 03

    Enterprise apps

    Domain-modeled, integration-heavy, deploy-friendly. SAML/SSO, SCIM, role-based access, hard SLAs — what procurement asks for.

  4. 04

    Marketplaces

    Supply + demand, payment splits, dispute flow, trust & safety primitives. Two-sided products are familiar — the failure modes are known.

02 · What you get

Three artifacts every engagement leaves behind.

Not aspirational milestones — written into the SOW, signed off at cutover, owned by you afterwards.

  1. 01

    API contract

    OpenAPI spec + breaking-change policy + versioning plan. Future you (and your customers) can reason about the surface without reading the code.

  2. 02

    Cutover runbook

    Step-by-step migration, rollback procedure, sign-off matrix. The night-of-launch script — pre-rehearsed, not improvised.

  3. 03

    On-call paper trail

    Alert taxonomy + escalation policy + first-30-days postmortems. Your team inherits a system, not a black box.

03 · How we deliver

Discovery → sprint zero → build cycles → cutover.

Same shape every engagement. Predictable enough that procurement can model it; flexible enough that engineers don't fight it.

  1. Discovery

    1–2 weeks

    Scope, risks, success criteria. Output is a written SOW with milestones and a sprint-zero plan — not a verbal handshake.

  2. Sprint zero

    1–2 weeks

    Repo, CI, observability, first vertical slice in staging. By end of week 4, something real is running and you can poke at it.

  3. Build cycles

    4–20 weeks

    Biweekly demo + KPI review with you, your tech lead, and our staff engineer. Scope changes are written, not whispered.

  4. Cutover & on-call

    1–2 weeks

    Migration, runbook handoff, on-call rotation overlap. We stay paged for 30 days post-cutover by default — no upsell.

04 · How to engage

Four shapes — start small, scale only if it earns it.

Same pod, four contracting shapes. Most buyers start with the architecture review.

  1. 3 weeks · fixed

    Architecture review

    A written, fixed-scope assessment with priced recommendations. Zero pressure to engage further — most buyers start here.

    Fits when

    You need a second pair of eyes before a migration, refactor, or vendor swap.

  2. 8 – 24 weeks

    Project-based

    A defined deliverable, a fixed timeline, a quoted price. We ship, hand off, and stay on call through stabilization.

    Fits when

    The scope is clear and the date matters more than ongoing capacity.

  3. Annual retainer

    Managed operations

    A named pod, a unified SLA, and a monthly executive review. The team you'd hire if you weren't trying to stay lean.

    Fits when

    Multiple workstreams, a roadmap longer than a year, no time to coordinate vendors.

  4. Long-term placement

    Embedded engineer

    One senior engineer (SRE, platform, ML, security) placed inside your team for 6+ months, accountable to your manager — backed by ours.

    Fits when

    You have leadership and tooling, but a specific seat is empty and contracting cycles are too slow.

Indicative ranges in the calculator

Open the calculator

05 · FAQ

Five questions buyers ask before the first call.

Greenfield only, or can you rescue an in-flight project?

Both. Rescues need a 1-week paid audit before any commitment — we won't quote a fixed scope on code we haven't read. About 30% of engagements start as rescues.

Tech stack — yours or ours?

Default is TypeScript + Postgres + a boring container runtime, with React or Next.js on the front. We deviate when the domain demands it (Python for ML, Go for systems work). The choice is documented in the SOW.

Who owns the IP and the infrastructure?

You. Code is committed to your GitHub org from day one; cloud accounts (AWS, GCP, Hetzner — your choice) are yours. IP assignment is in our standard MSA. We are contractors, not co-owners.

What happens when our internal team is ready to take over?

Knowledge transfer is part of the engagement price, not an upsell. Two weeks of pair-rotation with your engineers, written architecture handover, runbook walkthrough. We do not gatekeep.

Smallest engagement you take?

A 3-week architecture review. Fixed scope, fixed price, written deliverable. About a third of buyers stop there — that's intentional.

06 · Pairs with

Most software builds need a UI surface, a marketing surface, or a mobile app.

07 · Engage

Bring us a roadmap, an RFP, or a back-of-napkin sketch.

One delivery lead replies within a business day. Architecture reviews are fixed-scope and can be priced in the same reply.

Start a projectSubmit an RFP