Build less.
Build it to last.
We partner with founders and leaders to launch robust, commercially focussed products and systems that evolve gracefully as you scale.
50M+
API calls a month, platform-wide
Most teams build what you spec.
We'll tell you what to cut.
The fastest way to waste a budget is to build the right feature at the wrong time. Before we write code, we work out what actually has to exist for your product to prove itself — and what's a distraction dressed up as a requirement. That judgement is the difference between a lean launch and an expensive one.
DeepFathom came to us in 2019 and has pivoted the product twice since. If we'd built everything on the original wish list before the market had its say, they'd have spent heavily on features the pivots would have thrown away. So we keep it lean: polish where customers touch the product, deliberately plain admin screens behind the scenes, and an existing reporting tool of theirs repurposed rather than rebuilt. The result — they fund new development out of revenue, not a raise.
What "partner" means in practice
We push back on specs when pushing back saves you time and money.
We bring fractional product and technical leadership, not just hands on keyboards.
One accountable team owns your build end to end — developed in-house, so quality doesn't leak through handoffs.
We care about your commercials, not just your code — every feature has to earn its place against the outcome you're pursuing.
What kind of partner do you need?
Agentic Engineering.
Built by humans.
AI is in every step of how we build — but a human engineer reviews, tests and owns every line that ships. That's the difference between a prototype that demos well and software you can run a business on.
Spec, with a second opinion
A product manager shapes the requirements with you; an engineer turns them into a technical spec; AI critiques it; the engineer finalises it and sets the architecture.
AI builds the first pass
AI builds the first iteration against that spec, so our engineers start from working code, not a blank page.
Engineers review — and own it
An engineer tests and refines it for security, scale and standards. The pull request is reviewed by AI and a second engineer, who merges it — and owns it. They have to understand it.
What you don't have to build
Proven foundations, in-house engineering, and everything production-ready from day one.
S16 Platform
Production-hardened building blocks — authentication, payments, notifications — proven across live client products. We run and maintain them behind a standard API, so you don't rebuild or maintain the basics.
S16 Developer
Our in-house tooling automates the repetitive groundwork of a build, so engineers spend their time on what's actually yours and your product ships faster.
Serverless infrastructure
Scales automatically with demand, and you only pay for what you use — cost grows with the business, never ahead of it. Ten users or ten thousand, no re-architecture.
Security by default
Auth, secrets handling, GDPR and recognised security frameworks built into every build. Not an afterthought.
Production-ready from day one
Monitoring, logging, alerts and error tracking included. Launch on the same foundations you need in year-three.
Ongoing support
Our relationships measure in years, not months — monitoring, security updates, scaling, and shipping new features as your priorities shift.
Built on a stack
we trust
Proven tools for products that need to last.
The exciting part should be your product, not your dependencies. We pick mature, well-supported tools with real track records — never the framework-of-the-month.
From serverless infrastructure to modern frameworks, every choice is made with the long run in mind.
Decide first. Build second.
We handle the complexity so you can focus on growth — and at every stage, we're making deliberate calls about what to build now and what can wait.
- STEP 1
Discover
We dig into your goals and users, then hand you a phased, itemised scope of work — yours to keep, and detailed enough to build from whether you bring it back to us or take it elsewhere. You'll see what to build now, what can wait, and why.
- STEP 2
Design
We shape the experience through wireframes and UI. Already have designs? We work straight from them.
- STEP 3
Develop
Our proven platform handles the foundations — authentication, payments, notifications, user management — so your budget lands on what's genuinely yours, not the plumbing.
- STEP 4
Distribute
We get your product into real users' hands — first a controlled beta, then a staged rollout to full launch. Hosting, infrastructure, monitoring and live stability are handled, so launch day is calm, not chaotic.
- STEP 5
Drive
Going live is just the beginning — we support, optimise and evolve as you grow.
Real products. Live, scaling, processing real revenue.
Production-grade from day one, and built to stay that way.
10,000+ users
Recruitment commission software trusted by staffing firms for eight years, processing 25 million API requests monthly across 10,000+ users.
5,000+ assessments
Digital auditing platform built as a scalable, purpose-built compliance application with automated report delivery — replacing a general-purpose BI setup it had outgrown.
20,000+ experiences
Travel experience marketplace unifying hotels, events, and bespoke experiences into a single checkout, with over 20,000 curated UK experiences.
We stay for the long run.
The same team that builds it stays on to evolve it — adding capability, scaling with demand, and adapting when your business changes direction.
Through the pivots, we've kept products and systems in production for years, across fintech, travel and compliance — and we're still building many of them today.
Already built something? We'll get it to production.
A vibe-coded prototype
You moved fast with Lovable, Bolt, v0 or Cursor — a great way to find out if an idea has legs. But what wins a demo won't survive real users: shaky auth, exposed secrets, nothing tested, no safe way to scale. We rebuild it into the real thing.
A product outgrowing its foundations
An existing or inherited build that's missing key pieces or straining as it grows. We add what it needs — payments, security, integrations — and harden it for scale, without starting from scratch.
What we believe
Pragmatism
We build what moves the needle now and defer what can wait — solving a real problem beats over-engineering for an imagined one.
Partnership
We work alongside you, not just for you — bringing judgement where it counts, and saying "don't build that yet" when it's true.
Scalability
We build for the long run from day one — one client product has scaled in production on S16 Platform for eight years, and never been forced to re-architect to keep up.
Quality we control
All development stays in-house — the only way to hold the standard your product demands and keep one team accountable.
Frequently asked questions
For founders and leaders who'd rather get it right.
We do our best work with people who want a thinking partner, not just a pair of hands — who'd rather ship the right twelve features than the wrong forty.
Tell us what you're building over a virtual coffee, and we'll map the shortest path.