Software Engineering

We build software that other people maintain. That single constraint explains most of how we work: documented decisions, conventional structure over clever structure, and a handover that assumes the team taking it on was not in the room when it was designed.

Custom platforms

Tailored systems for organisations whose process does not fit an off-the-shelf product, which in practice describes most of the trading, traceability and compliance work we do. Engagements typically start with what is already in place rather than what to replace, on the basis that the existing system usually encodes years of hard-won operational detail that nobody has written down.

Mobile

Applications for field use, where the operating conditions do more to shape the design than the feature list does. Our on-field data collection work for agricultural supply chains had to function for users with intermittent connectivity, on low-end hardware, in conditions where a failed sync means a lost day of work.

Cloud

Scalable infrastructure, deployment pipelines and the automation around them. We treat the deployment path as part of the product: a system that cannot be released safely is not finished, however complete the feature set.

Distributed ledger

Hyperledger Fabric, Ethereum and Corda, applied where a shared record between parties who do not fully trust each other is genuinely the problem. Most of our blockchain work has been in supply chain traceability and trade finance, where the participants are commercial rivals and the audit trail is the point. We are equally willing to say when a database would serve better, which is more often than the market suggests.

Where this has been applied

An end-to-end post-quantum encryption tool, a blockchain platform for Vion Food Group, a metal trade financing platform, a farmer application for on-field data collection, and a crypto trading application rebuild.