CUSTOM SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Software engineered around your business.

We design and build the systems your business runs on: SaaS products, enterprise applications, internal platforms, marketplaces, and the APIs and backends behind them.

Off-the-shelf software makes you work its way. We start from how your business actually works, model it carefully, and engineer the architecture, data, security, and operations so the system keeps fitting as the business changes.

01 / WHY TEAMS CALL US

The problems we’re usually hired to solve.

Most teams don’t need convincing that software could help. They need it to fit how the business works, and to keep fitting as it grows.

01

The business has outgrown its tools.

Off-the-shelf products cover most of the process, and spreadsheets, copy-paste, and workarounds cover the rest. The gaps are where errors and delays come from.

02

The MVP became the product.

Code written to prove an idea is now carrying customers and revenue. There are no clear boundaries and few tests, so every change feels risky and slow.

03

Nobody can explain how it works.

Knowledge lives in one or two people’s heads. There is no architecture overview, no decision record, and onboarding a new engineer takes months.

04

It slows down as you grow.

Pages that were instant now take seconds, background jobs overlap, and nobody knows which part will break first when the next large customer arrives.

05

Releases are an event.

Deployments are manual, happen out of hours, and occasionally need a rollback nobody has rehearsed. So the team ships less often, in bigger and riskier batches.

06

Systems disagree with each other.

The CRM, the billing system, and the database tell different stories. Integrations fail quietly, and someone reconciles them by hand at the end of the month.

02 / WHAT WE BUILD

Systems with a job to do.

Typical systems we design and build. Each one is shaped around your data, users, and constraints rather than a template.

  1. 01

    SaaS products

    Multi-tenancyBillingRBAC

    Multi-tenant products with sign-up, onboarding, subscriptions, roles, and the admin tooling to run them as a business.

    THE HARD PARTTenant isolation that holds in every query, export, cache key, and background job, not just the obvious screens.

  2. 02

    Enterprise applications

    SSOWorkflowsAudit

    Systems for complex, regulated, or high-stakes processes, with approval chains, SSO, and integration into the existing estate.

    THE HARD PARTEncoding years of business rules without also encoding years of workarounds.

  3. 03

    Internal platforms

    Self-serviceShared servicesGolden paths

    Shared capabilities other teams build on: identity, payments, notifications, documents, or an internal developer platform.

    THE HARD PARTInterfaces stable enough for many teams to depend on while the platform keeps evolving underneath.

  4. 04

    Marketplaces

    SearchPaymentsTrust & safety

    Two-sided platforms with listings, search, matching, payments, payouts, reviews, and trust and safety tooling.

    THE HARD PARTMoving money between parties correctly, through refunds, disputes, partial payouts, and reconciliation.

  5. 05

    Operations systems

    SchedulingState machinesExceptions

    Scheduling, dispatch, inventory, fulfilment, and field service: the software that coordinates people and physical work.

    THE HARD PARTModeling real-world states and exceptions faithfully, so the system helps operations instead of becoming the bottleneck.

  6. 06

    Dashboards

    AggregationDrill-downAccess control

    Operational and analytical views over your data, from live queues and SLAs to finance and management reporting.

    THE HARD PARTNumbers everyone trusts: one definition per metric, visible freshness, and row-level access applied to every chart.

  7. 07

    Customer portals

    IdentitySelf-serviceIntegrations

    Self-service for customers and partners: accounts, orders, documents, payments, and support, connected to your back office.

    THE HARD PARTExposing data from back-office systems that were never designed to be seen by customers, safely and quickly.

  8. 08

    APIs

    OpenAPIOAuthWebhooks

    Public, partner, and internal APIs with clear contracts, authentication, rate limits, webhooks, and developer documentation.

    THE HARD PARTEvolving the API without breaking integrations you don’t control and can’t see.

  9. 09

    Backend platforms

    ServicesQueuesWorkers

    The services, workers, queues, and data stores behind web and mobile products, designed to be operated, not just deployed.

    THE HARD PARTKeeping data consistent across components without distributed transactions, and recovering cleanly when one part fails.

  10. 10

    Real-time applications

    WebSocketsPresenceOrdering

    Live dashboards, collaboration, tracking, messaging, and notifications that update the moment something changes.

    THE HARD PARTOrdering, reconnection, and backpressure when thousands of clients are connected and the network is unreliable.

03 / REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE

One reference architecture, traced.

Most systems we build share this shape. Choose a path to follow a real request across it, or select any component to see why it is there.

CLIENTS

EDGE

APPLICATION

MESSAGING

DATA

  • CROSS-CUTTINGObservability

    Traces, metrics, and structured logs from every hop, correlated by trace ID.

  • CROSS-CUTTINGSecurity

    Secrets manager, least-privilege service identities, audit log, and dependency scanning.

  • CROSS-CUTTINGDelivery

    Infrastructure as code, CI/CD, preview environments, and progressive rollout.

PATH · WRITE PATH

A technician completes a work order

Clients layer

Mobile app

Field app for technicians. Works offline, queues changes locally, and syncs when a connection returns.

TYPICAL CHOICES

  • React Native
  • Swift / Kotlin

An illustrative field-service platform. We adapt the shape to your scale: many systems run happily as a single deployable with one database, and we add components only when there is a reason.

04 / ENGINEERING DISCIPLINES

Ten disciplines, one system.

Each discipline answers a question your business will eventually ask. Each one leaves an artifact you can review, not just a promise.

01 / ARCHITECTURE · THE QUESTION IT ANSWERS

Where are the boundaries, and what is allowed to cross them?

We start with a modular monolith and split out services only where scaling, team ownership, or release cadence demands it. Quality attributes such as latency, availability, and recovery time are agreed as numbers before design begins.

  • Modules aligned with business capabilities, with dependency rules enforced in CI
  • Architecture decision records with the alternatives considered
  • Synchronous or asynchronous communication chosen per interaction
  • Explicit conditions under which each decision should be revisited

YOU RECEIVEArchitecture overview, decision log, and quality-attribute targets

docs/adr/0007-modular-monolith.mdEXAMPLE ARTIFACT
# ADR 0007: Start as a modular monolith
Status: Accepted
 
Context
  Three teams, one domain, modest first-year load.
Decision
  One deployable; one module per bounded context.
  Modules call each other's public interfaces only.
  No module reads another module's tables.
Consequences
  + one pipeline, simple local transactions
  - boundaries must be enforced by tooling
Revisit when
  a module needs independent scaling or releases.

05 / DOMAIN MODELING

Model the business before the database.

Boundaries come from the business, not from the framework. Each context owns its language, rules, and data, and the others hear about its changes through events.

ILLUSTRATIVE DOMAIN · FIELD-SERVICE OPERATIONS

  • core domain
  • supporting
  • generic
  • external
Context map8 bounded contexts connected by 8 events. The table below lists each event, its source, its destination, and the reaction.SUPPORTINGCustomersAccountSiteContactCORE DOMAINSchedulingAppointmentTechnicianShiftGENERICNotificationsTemplateDeliverySUPPORTINGInventoryPartStock locationReservationCORE DOMAINWork ordersWork orderChecklistVisitSUPPORTINGBillingContractInvoicePaymentEXTERNAL · BEHIND ACLAccounting ERPJournalLedgerEXTERNAL · BEHIND ACLPayment providerChargeRefund12345678
EVENTS BETWEEN CONTEXTS
#EventFrom → toWhat happens next
01SiteRegisteredCustomers → Work ordersThe site becomes available for new work orders, with its access notes.
02WorkOrderRequestedWork orders → SchedulingScheduling proposes appointment slots using skills, location, and shift availability.
03AppointmentConfirmedScheduling → NotificationsThe customer receives a confirmation with the arrival window.
04PartsRequiredWork orders → InventoryStock is reserved at the nearest location, or a shortage is raised.
05WorkOrderCompletedWork orders → BillingAn invoice is drafted from the contract’s rates and the parts used.
06InvoiceIssuedBilling → NotificationsThe invoice is sent to the customer’s billing contact.
07InvoiceIssuedBilling → Accounting ERPPosted to the ledger through an anti-corruption layer that translates our model into the ERP’s.
08PaymentRequestedBilling → Payment providerThe provider is charged through an adapter, so its API never leaks into the billing model.

Core contexts are where the business differentiates, so they get the most modeling effort. Generic ones are good candidates to buy rather than build. External systems sit behind anti-corruption layers, so their quirks stay at the edge.

06 / OBSERVABILITY

One request, end to end.

What happens in the 34 milliseconds after a technician taps “Complete”, and in the background work that follows once they have their answer.

TRACEPOST /v1/work-orders/{id}/complete

34 ms to response16 spans300 ms including background work

  • Edge
  • Application
  • Database
  • Messaging
  • External call

ON THE REQUEST PATH

  1. POST /v1/work-orders/{id}/complete34 ms · starts at 0 ms · Application
  2. gateway · route, rate limit3 ms · starts at 0 ms · Edge
  3. authn · verify token2 ms · starts at 3 ms · Application
  4. authz · work_order:complete2 ms · starts at 5 ms · Application
  5. validate · request schema1 ms · starts at 7 ms · Application
  6. SELECT work_order FOR UPDATE9 ms · starts at 8 ms · Database
  7. WorkOrder.complete()1 ms · starts at 17 ms · Application
  8. UPDATE + INSERT outbox · COMMIT13 ms · starts at 18 ms · Database

AFTER THE RESPONSE · ASYNCHRONOUS

  1. outbox relay · publish event8 ms · starts at 46 ms · Messaging
  2. billing · draft invoice74 ms · starts at 58 ms · Application
  3. check event ID (idempotency)4 ms · starts at 59 ms · Database
  4. load contract rates16 ms · starts at 63 ms · Database
  5. INSERT invoice + lines · COMMIT16 ms · starts at 80 ms · Database
  6. render PDF → object storage34 ms · starts at 97 ms · External call
  7. notifications · completion email232 ms · starts at 60 ms · Application
  8. email provider API222 ms · starts at 66 ms · External call

Commit, then publish

The event is written in the same transaction as the state change. A crash between the two can’t lose the event, or announce a change that never happened.

Safe to retry

The client sends an idempotency key and consumers check event IDs, so a retried request or a redelivered message changes nothing twice.

Slow is isolated

PDF rendering and a slow email provider happen after the response. The technician waits for the work that matters, and nothing else.

An illustrative trace with representative timings. Real numbers depend on your workload; the shape is what we design for.

07 / DELIVERY PIPELINE

From commit to production, safely.

Every change takes the same path to production. Each stage has a gate, and anything that fails a gate stops before it can reach a customer.

  1. 01Person

    Commit

    • Small change
    • Behind a flag
    • Peer review

    GATEApproved by a second engineer

  2. 02Automated

    Build & checks

    • Types & lint
    • Module boundaries
    • SAST & dep audit

    GATEAny failure blocks the merge

  3. 03Automated

    Tests

    • Unit
    • Integration
    • API contracts

    GATEA broken contract blocks the merge

  4. 04Person

    Preview

    • Environment per PR
    • Seeded data
    • Product review

    GATEAccepted where behavior changes

  5. 05Automated

    Migration check

    • Prod-sized snapshot
    • Lock analysis
    • Backward compatibility

    GATELong locks or breaking changes blocked

  6. 06Automated

    Staging

    • End-to-end journeys
    • Smoke tests
    • Performance budget

    GATECritical journeys pass

  7. 07Automated

    Canary

    • 5% of traffic
    • SLOs watched
    • Error budget

    GATEBudget burn triggers rollback

  8. 08Automated

    Production

    • Progressive rollout
    • Flag-controlled release
    • Post-release checks

    GATERelease noted in the changelog

If: error-budget burn during canary at stage 07

Automatic rollback

Traffic shifts back to the previous version within minutes. Migrations are expand-then-contract, so the old version still works with the new schema.

Previous version keeps serving

The pipeline is usually the first thing we build, before the first feature, so the very first release goes through it too.

08 / CAPABILITIES

Building blocks every business system needs.

Each capability can stand alone, but production systems usually need most of them working together.

Identity and access

Sign-up, SSO with SAML and OIDC, MFA, service accounts, and role- or attribute-based permissions, tested for every role.

Multi-tenancy

Tenant isolation in data, caches, files, and jobs, with per-tenant configuration, limits, and data export.

Billing and subscriptions

Plans, usage metering, invoicing, proration, dunning, and integration with payment providers and accounting.

Workflows and state machines

Explicit states and transitions for orders, cases, and approvals, with timeouts, escalations, and a full history.

Search and reporting

Full-text and faceted search, saved views, scheduled reports, and exports that respect permissions.

Files and documents

Uploads, virus scanning, previews, generated PDFs, e-signature integration, and retention policies.

Notifications

Email, SMS, push, and in-app messages from versioned templates, with user preferences and delivery tracking.

Integrations and webhooks

Typed clients for third-party APIs, signed webhooks in both directions, retries, and reconciliation.

Audit trails

Who did what, when, and from where, recorded immutably for privileged actions and exposed to administrators.

Offline and sync

Local-first data for mobile and field use, conflict resolution rules, and sync that survives poor connectivity.

Need the interface, the app, or the data layer specifically? Web development · Mobile app development · Data & integrations · AI development

09 / ENGINEERING APPROACH

Principles behind every decision.

How we choose when there is more than one reasonable answer, which in software is most of the time.

01

Business first

The software should model how your business really works.

  • Shadow the people who will use it
  • Agree measurable outcomes before features
  • Use the business’s language in the code

02

Simple until proven otherwise

Complexity has to earn its place.

  • A modular monolith before microservices
  • Well-understood technology by default
  • New components only with a stated reason

03

Decisions written down

Future engineers should know why, not just what.

  • Decision records with alternatives and trade-offs
  • Quality targets stated as numbers
  • Conditions for revisiting each decision

04

Production from week one

Integration risk is cheapest to find early.

  • A walking skeleton deployed through the real pipeline
  • Observability in the first iteration, not the last
  • Working software reviewed every iteration

05

Quality built in

Testing and security are part of every change.

  • Tests written alongside the code
  • Security review for sensitive features
  • Performance budgets checked in CI

06

Built to be handed over

Your team should be able to own what we build.

  • Your repositories and cloud accounts from day one
  • Documentation next to the code
  • Pairing and handover planned from the start

Infrastructure, pipelines, and monitoring are delivered with our cloud and DevOps practice; connections to your systems with data and integrations.

10 / TECHNOLOGIES

Tools chosen for the problem.

We recommend a stack after discovery, based on your requirements, existing platforms, and team.

Application

Chosen for your team’s skills and the problem, not fashion.

TypeScriptNode.jsPythonGoJava / KotlinGraphQL

Interfaces

Web, mobile, and internal tools on a shared design system.

ReactNext.jsReact NativeSwiftKotlin

Data & messaging

Boring, proven stores, used for what they are good at.

PostgreSQLRedisOpenSearchKafkaRabbitMQS3

Cloud & operations

Reproducible environments in the cloud you already use.

AWSAzureGCPKubernetesTerraformOpenTelemetry

Representative technologies; no official partnerships are implied. Explore our technology capabilities.

11 / PROCESS

Seven stages, each with an output.

Every stage ends with something you can review, so decisions are made on evidence rather than optimism.

  1. 01

    Discovery

    Understand the business, its users, and its constraints. Map the current process and systems, and agree what success means in measurable terms.

    OUTPUTProblem brief, success measures, and constraints

  2. 02

    Domain and architecture

    Model the domain with the people who run it, define the context boundaries, and make the significant architectural decisions on paper first.

    OUTPUTContext map, architecture overview, first decision records

  3. 03

    Walking skeleton

    Build a thin slice through every layer, from interface to database, and deploy it to production through the real pipeline.

    OUTPUTA deployed, observable end-to-end slice

  4. 04

    Iterative delivery

    Ship features in small vertical slices with tests, reviewed with you every iteration against the agreed outcomes.

    OUTPUTWorking software at a regular cadence

  5. 05

    Hardening

    Load tests, security review, failure drills, and data migration rehearsals before real users depend on the system.

    OUTPUTRelease readiness report

  6. 06

    Launch

    Staged rollout with monitoring, alerts, and a rehearsed rollback. Data migrated and verified, support briefed.

    OUTPUTProduction release and runbooks

  7. 07

    Operate and evolve

    Run, maintain, and extend the system with you, or hand it over to your team with documentation and pairing.

    OUTPUTMaintenance plan and roadmap

See how this fits into our wider delivery process.

12 / RELEVANT WORK

How we think it through.

Client case studies are published once they are approved. The work below consists of illustrative concepts, not delivered engagements or claimed results.

13 / WHY NEURALSHARKS

What working with us looks like.

Commitments you can hold us to during an engagement.

Engineering leadership

NeuralSharks was founded by six software engineering partners. Senior engineers make the architectural decisions, write code, and stay involved through delivery.

About NeuralSharks

Depth across the stack

Domain modeling, backend, interfaces, data, security, testing, and cloud operations in one team, so the parts are designed to work together.

All services

Quality as scope, not a phase

Automated tests, security checks, and release gates are planned from the first iteration by an in-house quality engineering discipline.

Test automation

Honest trade-offs

If buying a product, extending your current system, or building less would serve you better, we will say so, with the reasoning written down.

No lock-in

Your repositories, your cloud accounts, mainstream technology, and documentation good enough for another team to take over.

14 / FAQ

Questions to ask before you hire us.

If yours isn’t here, ask us directly. A straight answer is part of the service.

Should we build custom software or buy a product?

Buy where your needs are the same as everyone else’s, such as accounting, email, or payroll, and build where the software is how you compete or how your operations differ. Often the answer is a mix: products for generic capabilities, custom software for the core, and integrations between them. We will tell you when buying is the better option.

Monolith or microservices?

Usually a modular monolith first: one deployable with strict internal boundaries. It is faster to build, easier to operate, and keeps transactions simple. When a module needs independent scaling or its own release cadence, a clean boundary makes extracting it a contained piece of work rather than a rewrite.

Can you take over or modernize an existing system?

Yes. We start with an assessment of the code, architecture, data, and operations, then usually modernize incrementally: add tests and observability, establish boundaries, and replace parts one at a time behind stable interfaces. Big-bang rewrites are rarely the safest option.

Which technology stack will you use?

We recommend a stack after discovery, based on your requirements, your team’s skills, and your existing platforms. We prefer mainstream, well-supported technology, because it is easier to hire for and maintain long after we are gone.

Who owns the code and intellectual property?

You do. We work in your repositories and cloud accounts from the start, so there is never a handover of access at the end. Ownership terms are set out in the contract before work begins.

How do you handle security and compliance?

Security is part of design, not a final audit: threat models for sensitive features, tested authorization, secrets management, dependency scanning, and audit logs. We design to the controls your compliance obligations require and work with your auditors; we don’t claim certifications on your behalf.

How do you estimate time and cost?

We estimate after discovery, when the scope, integrations, and risks are understood. Discovery itself is a fixed, short engagement. Delivery is planned in increments, so you see working software early and can adjust scope based on what you learn.

Can you work alongside our engineering team?

Yes. We can lead the work, embed engineers in your team, or own a defined part of the system. We follow your conventions or help establish them, and plan knowledge transfer from the start.

What happens after launch?

We can operate and maintain the system, extend it, or hand it over to your team with documentation, runbooks, and pairing. Either way, maintenance is planned: dependency updates, monitoring, incident response, and regular architecture reviews.

START A PROJECT

Build software that fits the business.

Tell us what your business needs to do that its current software can’t, which systems are involved, and where the risk is. We’ll come back with questions, an honest view on build versus buy, and a sensible first milestone.