Outsourced development without the offshore trade-off.
Most outsourcing pitches sell you distance as a feature: a lower rate, a hub somewhere, a delivery manager in between. We do not have an offshore arm, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. We are a small senior team based in Germany that works remotely with clients worldwide – on the same timezone logic, the same legal framework and the same engineers you meet in the first call. That is a different offer, and for some projects it is the wrong one. This page says exactly which.
No offshore, no hubs
We do not route your project through a delivery centre. The people who scope your work are the people who build it – that is the whole point of a small team.
EU by default
Development, hosting and data stay in the EU unless you ask for something else. For European clients that removes a category of questions before it comes up; for US and UK clients it is often a selling point toward their own customers.
We say no in the first call
If your project needs three parallel teams, 24/7 on-call or a long reference list in a tender, we are the wrong partner. You will hear that in week one, not month four.
- What it is: outsourced product and software development – mobile apps, web applications, content-driven websites, integrations with ERP systems – delivered by a senior team in Germany, working remotely with clients across Europe, North America, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and Africa, particularly South Africa.
- What it is not: offshore staffing, body leasing, or an account manager fronting a team you never meet. We are small on purpose and say so.
- Engagement models: fixed-scope project, dedicated capacity per month, team extension alongside your in-house developers, or a validation sprint when the scope is not clear yet.
- What you keep: the code, the repository, the hosting and store accounts, and the option to walk away. Everything is in your name or transferred to it.
The reasons outsourcing conversations actually start.
Rarely "we want cheaper developers". Usually one of these six – and each one points to a different engagement model.
Hiring takes longer than the roadmap allows
A senior developer takes months to find and longer to onboard. The feature was needed last quarter. Capacity you can start with in weeks is worth more than a permanent hire you get in six months.
One skill is missing, not a whole team
The in-house team is strong but has never shipped to an app store, never built a Flutter app, never integrated SAP. You need that one capability, not a department.
A previous outsourcing engagement went wrong
The code arrived, and it was unmaintainable. Or the team changed three times. Or nobody could explain a decision six months later. This is the most common reason people arrive here.
The product idea is not validated yet
Committing a full build to an unproven idea is how budgets disappear. What is needed first is a small, real thing in front of real users.
An internal project has stalled
Something is half-built and nobody can say why it is not finished. That is usually not a coding problem, and it does not get solved by adding developers.
Compliance rules out the cheap option
Personal data, regulated industries, public sector clients or enterprise procurement: some organizations simply cannot move data outside the EU, and that decides the shortlist before rates do.
Four ways to work with us.
The right one depends on how clear your scope is and how much you want to keep in-house. We will tell you which one fits, including when the answer is "none of them".
Fixed-scope project
You know what you need built. We scope it, quote it with the assumptions written down, build it and hand it over. Best when the requirements are stable and the outcome is describable – an app, a portal, a website, an integration.
Discuss a projectDedicated capacity
A committed amount of senior capacity per month, working through your priorities. Best when there is a continuous roadmap rather than a single deliverable, and when you want to decide month by month what gets built.
Discuss capacityTeam extension
We work alongside your in-house developers, in your repository and your process, on the part you do not have the skill or the headcount for. Best when your team is good and simply not big enough – or has never shipped this particular thing.
Discuss extensionValidation sprint
When the idea is not proven, building the full thing is the expensive way to learn. A fixed-price sprint puts something real in front of real users first. Details on our business building page.
Validation sprintRemote from Germany vs. offshore.
Offshore development is a legitimate model and it works for a lot of companies. It is simply a different trade-off, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. Here is where each one wins.
Choose remote-from-Germany when …
These are the conditions under which our model is genuinely the better buy – not just the more comfortable one.
- Data residency or GDPR makes moving personal data outside the EU difficult or impossible.
- You need the people who scope the work to be the people who build it, with no translation layer in between.
- The requirements are still moving and you need someone who pushes back rather than builds exactly what the ticket says.
- Your working hours overlap substantially with Central European Time – all of Europe, most of the Middle East, southern Africa, and the mornings of the US East Coast.
- The engagement is a handful of senior people, not a department.
- You care more about what the code looks like in two years than about the rate today.
Choose offshore or a large vendor when …
In these situations we would genuinely point you elsewhere, and we do this in first calls regularly.
- Cost per hour is the deciding criterion and the scope is well specified and stable.
- You need to scale to dozens of developers quickly, or run several parallel teams.
- You need 24/7 coverage or follow-the-sun support with contractual response times in minutes.
- Your procurement process requires extensive reference lists, revenue thresholds or certifications we do not hold as a small company.
- The work is high-volume and repetitive – large-scale QA, data entry, long-running maintenance of a stable legacy system.
What "remote" means in practice.
Remote collaboration rarely fails on technology and almost always on communication. So it has a fixed shape here, whether you sit in Vienna or in Auckland.
- A written project log – Decisions, open questions and their answers live in writing, not in someone's memory of a call. If you join the project in month four, the log tells you why things are the way they are.
- Fixed call windows, not ad-hoc pings – We agree a slot that works on both sides and keep it. Between calls, work continues asynchronously – that is the part that makes distance survivable.
- A daily handover in writing – What moved, what is blocked, what we need from you. Short, same format, every working day. Most timezone problems are actually "I did not know you were waiting for me" problems.
- One point of contact who also builds – You are not handed to an account manager. The person you talk to writes code on your project – which is why answers arrive in minutes rather than after an internal round trip.
- Your tools, where it matters – We work in your repository, your ticket system and your review process when you have one. Introducing our tooling into your company is not part of the deal.
- English or German, at project level – Both languages work for specifications, reviews, workshops and documentation. There is no version of your project that only exists in German.
Timezone detail
Overlap hours per market, and where the difference genuinely hurts: markets & remote work
Where we build
Germany. No offshore arm, no delivery hubs, no subcontracted teams you never meet.
Who does the work
A small core team plus named specialists from our network for design, native development and data topics – disclosed by name and role beforehand, never on the invoice.
Contracts
Project or framework agreement, mutual NDA, and a data processing agreement where personal data is involved.
What is yours at the end – and during.
The single most useful question to ask any outsourcing partner is what happens if you stop working with them. Here is our answer, in advance.
- The code and the repository – In your organization, from the first commit – not handed over at the end. You can read every change as it happens.
- The accounts – Hosting, cloud, app store and CMS accounts are in your name or transferred to it. An agency that holds its clients through access has stopped competing on quality.
- Documentation that survives us – Architecture decisions, setup, deployment and the reasoning behind the non-obvious parts. Written for the developer who comes after us, not for the handover meeting.
- No proprietary framework – We build with mainstream, well-supported technology – Flutter, React Native, SwiftUI, Astro, standard web stacks. Another team can take over without learning our house style first.
- An estimate with its assumptions – You get the number and what it depends on, so you can see what moves the price. When something changes, we say so before it becomes an invoice.
- An early no – If we do not believe scope, budget and timeline can be true at the same time, you hear it before you sign, not after.
From first call to first release.
Deliberately short at the front. Long proposal phases mostly serve the vendor.
A first call, 30–45 minutes
What you want to build, what already exists, what constrains it – budget, deadline, compliance, existing systems. We will tell you in that call whether we think we are the right fit.
A written scope with assumptions
Not a glossy proposal. A description of what gets built, what does not, what it depends on, and an estimate with the assumptions it rests on – so you can see what changes the number.
A small first slice, in real use
We start with the part that carries the most risk or the most pain, and get it in front of real users. A slice that three people genuinely use tells you more than a design system nobody has tested.
Regular delivery, written log
Fixed call windows, a daily written handover, working software you can look at. No status theatre.
Handover or continuation
Either we keep going as ongoing capacity, or we hand over to your team with documentation that makes that realistic. Both are normal endings – neither is a failure.
Questions people actually ask.
Are you cheaper than an offshore team?
No, and we would be lying if we claimed otherwise. Hourly rates in Germany are higher than in most offshore locations. Where the comparison changes is total cost: fewer specification rounds because the people scoping also build, less rework because someone pushes back on a bad requirement, and code that a different team can still work with in two years. If your scope is stable, well specified and large, offshore may well be the better economic choice – and we will say so.
How is this different from hiring freelancers?
A freelancer gives you a pair of hands and usually one skill. What is missing is the part around it: architecture decisions, review, someone who says "this requirement does not make sense", and continuity when that person takes a holiday. We also take responsibility for the outcome rather than the hours. Whether that is worth the difference depends on how well-defined your work is – for a narrow, clear task, a good freelancer is often the right answer.
Do you use AI to write our code?
Yes, and we are open about it – anyone claiming to develop without AI today is probably not telling the truth. It makes us faster at research, boilerplate, tests and documentation. It does not make us faster at judgement, and that is where the quality comes from. Every change goes through human review, and no client credentials or client data go into third-party models without explicit agreement.
What about timezone overlap?
The honest question is not "do you work remotely" but "how many hours a day are we both awake". With Europe, the UK, the Middle East and Africa, the overlap is most of the working day. With the US East Coast, our afternoon is their morning – a solid few hours. With the US West Coast it is tight, and with Australia and New Zealand it is a narrow window that requires genuine asynchronous discipline. We work with all of them, but we plan differently for each. The detail is on our markets and remote work page.
Who actually does the work – do you subcontract?
The core of the work is done by us, and you talk to the people building it. For bounded topics – design, native platform work, specific data topics – we bring in established partners from our network. We tell you beforehand, by name and role, not on the invoice. We remain your contractual partner and the responsibility does not move. If your policies restrict the use of third parties, we comply or we decline.
How big is your team?
Small, and deliberately so. A fixed core plus a network of specialists who join per project. For you that means you speak with the people who build your project and there is no layer in between translating requirements. For programmes needing several parallel teams and staff functions, we are not the right partner – and we say that in the first call rather than discovering it together in month three.
What happens if the project goes wrong?
You hear it from us, not from the calendar. Delays and misjudgements get reported as soon as they are visible, with a proposal attached rather than just a notification. Anything we built that does not work as agreed, we fix under the statutory warranty without a new invoice. And if the collaboration does not work out, it ends without drama: the code, repository and accounts are yours anyway, the state is documented, and another team can take over.
Can you work under our procurement and security requirements?
Usually, and we will tell you quickly when not. We sign mutual NDAs before the first substantive conversation if you need that, we work under a data processing agreement where personal data is involved, and we review your purchasing terms and say what we can carry and what we cannot. Where your process requires certifications, revenue thresholds or reference lists we do not have as a small company, we will not pretend – you will find that out from us rather than in the evaluation.
Which technologies do you work with?
Mobile with Flutter, React Native and SwiftUI; content-driven websites with Astro and Webflow; custom web applications and integrations with ERP systems such as SAP and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. We deliberately stay on mainstream technology so another team can take over without learning a house framework first.
Do you have client references?
Some, and not a logo wall. Our own products are live and public – apps in the App Store and Google Play, websites that have to hold their rankings – and we point to those first because we carry the consequences of those decisions ourselves. Client projects we show only with explicit permission; further examples we discuss in the first call where clients have agreed. If a long reference list is your decisive criterion, we will fall short there, and we prefer saying that to inventing a case study.
Tell us what you are trying to ship.
A few sentences about the product, the deadline and what already exists. You will get an honest read on whether we are the right partner – including when the answer is no.
Outsourced development, without the distance problem.
Describe the product, the timeline and any constraints – compliance, existing systems, an in-house team we would work alongside. We reply with a first assessment, usually within a couple of days.
We usually reply within 24 hours.
Remote & on site – working across the DACH region (DE, AT, CH), with international project experience.
Where to go next.
App Development
Mobile apps for iOS, Android and desktop – the most common outsourced deliverable.
Learn moreCustom Software Development
Web applications and portals that do not exist off the shelf.
Learn moreIT Project Management
When the problem is not capacity but steering between business, IT and vendors.
Learn moreValidation Sprint
When the idea is not proven yet and building the full thing is the expensive way to learn.
Learn moreAI Automation
How we use AI – in our own delivery and in what we build for you.
Learn moreAbout us
Who you would actually be working with, and what we are honest about not being.
Learn more