Software built around your business.
Purpose-built applications for business, industrial, technical, and customer-facing use cases — from the first working prototype to production systems your operation depends on. We replace spreadsheets, disconnected tools, and manual processes with software that fits.
Reviewed
Hover or focus a component to see what it is and what it talks to. Arrow keys move between them.
Users reach a web app that talks to an API over a database, with background workers for the slow work and integrations to the systems already in use.
Components:
- Users: Staff, customers, or both.
- Web app: The interface: fast, accessible, works on a phone.
- API: Typed, versioned, authenticated.
- Database: Postgres, usually. Backed up, migrated, monitored.
- Workers (jobs, queues): Reports, syncs, emails — anything that should not block a click.
- Integrations (existing tools): Accounting, CRM, email, payments.
Connections:
- Users to Web app over REST
- Web app to API over REST
- API to Database over SQL
- API to Workers over events
- Workers to Integrations over webhook, both directions
Sound familiar?
- Half the business runs on one spreadsheet and everyone is afraid to touch it.
- Our current vendor can't build the piece that talks to the equipment.
- We have the idea and the customers; we need the software to actually exist.
What's included
8 services under Software Engineering.
Custom Software Development
Custom software development from Willowark: senior engineers who design, build, and support the system your off-the-shelf tools can't be bent into becoming.
Learn more →Full-Stack Applications
Full-stack application development from Willowark: interface, API, database, and deployment engineered as one system by one team, typed contracts end to end.
Learn more →Internal Tools
Internal tools built for your operations team: dashboards, admin panels, and workflow apps that replace fragile spreadsheets — shipped in weeks, not quarters.
Learn more →Backend Engineering
Backend engineering from Willowark: services, queues, caching, and data logic built correctness-first — observable, tested, and ready for production load.
Learn more →API Development & Integration
API development and integration services: contract-first APIs and reliable system-to-system integrations with retries, monitoring, and reconciliation built in.
Learn more →Distributed Systems
Distributed systems engineering: event streaming, queues, and multi-site coordination with explicit consistency choices and designed failure modes.
Learn more →Database & Data Systems
Database and data systems engineering: schema design, query optimization, pipelines, and reporting stores that keep queries fast and reports trustworthy.
Learn more →Legacy Software Modernization
Legacy software modernization without the big-bang rewrite: Willowark migrates aging systems incrementally, with rehearsed data moves and rollback paths.
Learn more →How we approach it
Straightforward, in this order.
01
Scope in writing
A written scope with deliverables before any build. For bigger systems we often propose a small first phase — an assessment or prototype — so both sides learn the real shape of the work early.
02
Working software early
Checkpoints are running software, not slide decks. You see the system doing real work within weeks, and course-corrections happen while they're cheap.
03
Boring, maintainable choices
Proven frameworks, typed code, migrations, monitoring. Clever architecture that only its author understands is a liability we don't ship.
04
Handover you own
Code in your repositories, documentation that survives us, and no lock-in — to us or to platforms you can't leave.
Ask about Software Engineering
Describe the problem. Get a straight answer.
One line is enough. An engineer replies within a business day.
Typical engagement
- Shape
- Written scope, then a first phase that ships working software early, then iterations at agreed checkpoints. Contract and fractional arrangements for teams that already have a codebase.
- Duration
- Internal tools and integrations in weeks; full applications typically two to six months to a production release.
- Team
- A lead engineer who owns the architecture, plus specialists (frontend, data, infrastructure) as the scope needs.
- You hold at the end
- Scope and architecture document
- Source code in your repositories
- Deployed environments and CI
- Documentation and handover
- Pricing
- Scoped per project after a call; fixed-price phases where the scope is firm, time-and-materials where it isn't. How engagements work →
Work it out yourself
What would a system for this look like?
Answer six questions about what you have and what you want, and watch a system diagram assemble itself — machine, sensor, gateway, broker, store, dashboard, alert. Export it, or send it to us as the start of a scope.
How this gets priced
What moves the number, before there is a number.
We publish no rates — every engagement is quoted against a written scope. What we can tell you is what that scope will turn on, so you can see the shape of the price before the call.
Cost drivers
- Number of distinct user roles and workflows
- Integrations with existing systems and their APIs
- Data migration from whatever came before
- Compliance, audit and access requirements
- Whether it must work offline or on the plant floor
A typical first phase
A written specification with wireframes, a data model, and a list of what is out of scope — produced with the people who will use it. It ends with a fixed scope for the first release.
What makes it expensive
- Replacing a system nobody fully understands
- Many roles with conflicting needs
- Real-time collaboration and offline sync
What makes it cheaper
- A first release that does one workflow completely
- Postgres and boring, proven tools
- Users in the room during specification
In production
Where this work is running today.
Schedulers work in operating software with AI assistance, backed by distributed cloud services and connected to a training game.
A global automotive manufacturer's training operation · Automotive
AI operating software for training operations
AI operating software for the manufacturer's training schedulers — removing manual scheduling labor and logistics tracking, saving hundreds of hours per year — plus a training video game built to help trainers perform better. Used across the manufacturer's training organization.
Read the case study →Legacy points-and-rewards systems migrate onto event streams built as Go microservices, feeding a ledger of balances and global member APIs.
A global loyalty & rewards platform · Financial services
Global loyalty & rewards platform modernization
Engineering with the platform's global loyalty and rewards teams: migrating legacy systems to event-driven microservices in Go, across point tracking and the ledger — distributed systems work through to war-room production deployments.
Read the case study →Who this is for
Built for operators, not for the demo.
OEMs and machine builders who need product software shipped, startups building their platform, integrators who need software depth on a project, and operators replacing spreadsheets.
Available as a scoped project, contract engineering, or a fractional arrangement — see how we work.
Common questions
Asked before every Software Engineering project.
Do you build complete applications or extend existing ones?
Both. We build full applications — frontend, backend, database, authentication, APIs, and deployment — and we also work inside existing codebases to add features, integrations, or modernize aging systems.
What does custom software cost compared to off-the-shelf tools?
If a well-fitting off-the-shelf tool exists, we will tell you to buy it. Custom makes sense when the process is specific to your business, when tool sprawl is creating manual glue work, or when the software is your product. Cost then depends on scope, which is why we define a written scope before any build.
Who owns the code you write?
You do. Work is delivered into repositories you control, with documentation, and without lock-in to us or to proprietary platforms you can't leave.
Can you take over software another developer built?
Yes — inheriting systems is common in our work. We start with an assessment of the codebase, infrastructure, and risks, stabilize what is fragile, and then plan improvements rather than defaulting to a rewrite.
Who owns the code when the project ends?
You do. Source code, infrastructure definitions, documentation, and accounts are handed over in your own repositories and cloud accounts. There is no proprietary framework you would need us for later.
Can you work inside our existing codebase and team?
Yes. Contract and fractional engagements often mean working in your repository, your ticketing system, and your review process. We adapt to your conventions rather than importing ours, and we leave the codebase easier to work in than we found it.
Strategy. Software. Systems.
Have a system that should exist?
Tell us what your operation is doing manually, what isn't connected, or what you're trying to build. We'll tell you plainly whether and how we can help.