Custom software development for Australian businesses
Some problems do not have a product you can buy. When the software your business needs has to be built, it should be built by someone who will still understand it in three years — and who will be accountable for whether it works.
Does this sound familiar?
You are probably here because of one of these
A core part of your business runs on spreadsheets, email and manual steps that should have been software years ago.
You have evaluated off-the-shelf products and none of them fit the way your business actually operates.
You have an idea for a product and need someone who can take it from a conversation to something real.
A previous developer or agency delivered something that does not work, and you need someone to assess it honestly before spending more.
You need a technical person who will ask what the business is trying to achieve before writing any code.
What this covers
The work itself
Not a capability list — these are the specific things an engagement in this area actually involves.
Web applications
Internal tools, customer portals, booking and workflow systems, admin platforms — applications that hold real business process and have to be reliable because people depend on them daily.
SaaS products
Multi-tenant products built to be sold, with the architecture that implies: tenant isolation, billing integration, onboarding, and a data model that will still work at a hundred times the current volume.
APIs and backend systems
The part nobody sees and everything depends on. Well-designed APIs, sound data models and backend services built to stay fast as data accumulates.
Integrations
Connecting the systems you already run — accounting, CRM, payments, logistics, third-party APIs — so data moves automatically instead of being re-keyed by someone.
Mobile applications
Applications where the phone is the product rather than an afterthought, backed by an API designed for mobile constraints from the beginning.
Typically involves
- PHP
- Laravel
- NodeJS
- React
- PostgreSQL
- MySQL
- AWS
- Docker
How the work runs
The approach
Consistent across engagements, because the order these things happen in is usually what determines whether a project goes well.
- 01
Understand the business first
The first conversations are about what the business is trying to achieve and where the current process breaks, not about technology. A surprising number of software projects fail because this step was skipped in favour of building something quickly.
- 02
Design the smallest thing that is genuinely useful
Scope is where software budgets go to die. The aim is to identify the smallest version that delivers real value, get it into use, and then extend it based on what people actually do with it rather than what everyone predicted they would.
- 03
Build it properly
Clear architecture, sound data modelling, code written to be read by whoever comes next. Speed now that creates a mess later is not speed, it is a loan.
- 04
Deploy and stay involved
Getting to production is part of the job, not a separate phase. So is being available afterwards, when the real feedback arrives.
Evidence
Where this has been done
Real projects involving this work, with the reasoning and the results.
Questions
What people usually ask
- How large a project can you take on?
- Small and mid-sized projects are delivered personally. When a project needs more parallel capacity than one engineer, delivery is scaled with trusted engineering resources while architecture, technical decisions and your point of contact stay with me. You do not get handed to an account manager.
- Can you work with our existing development team?
- Yes. Working alongside an in-house team — as a senior engineer, technical lead or architect — is a common arrangement, and often the most useful one when a team is capable but needs depth in a specific area.
- Do you work with businesses outside your local area?
- Yes. Clients across Australia are served remotely, which is how most software work is delivered now. Being in the same timezone and the same business culture matters considerably more than being in the same city.
Have a software problem, project or idea?
Tell me what you are trying to achieve and where it is currently going wrong. You will get an honest read on it from someone who has built this kind of thing before — including if the answer is that you do not need what you were about to buy.
Prefer not to call? Send me a message
Working with businesses across Australia — Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra and regional Australia.