Product studio without agency bloat
Slides do not launch products. Design, engineering, and launch need to sit with the same team on the same schedule.
Design and engineering share one backlog, so the visuals never drift away from what can realistically ship on time.
If that sounds like your situation, Arcode is set up for companies evaluating software development agencies. Custom software delivery across web, mobile, AI, and backend systems, owned by senior engineers.
What you get
- Custom software products
- Clear scope and timelines
- Senior engineering quality
- Post-launch support
- One studio accountable for the result
- Design and engineering on the same schedule
- Support available after launch
How engagement works
As your software development agency, we run a shared backlog, design reviews, and engineering sprints, and you keep one point of contact throughout.
- 01
Discover
Goals, constraints, data sources, and success metrics, all settled before we touch architecture or prompts. The work for teams in London stays tied to the outcome you asked for.
- 02
Design
System design, AI/tool boundaries, interface direction, and interaction prototypes. You see progress on the critical path every week.
- 03
Build
Modern stack, clean architecture, evaluated AI behavior, and iterative demos you can react to. Nothing here waits on a handover between separate teams.
- 04
Launch
Ship, monitor, harden, and keep improving models, tools, and product after go-live. On software development projects we favour practical architecture over trendy defaults.
How we build it, and why
The stack is chosen per project, not applied from a template. For software development agency work these are the defaults, and the reason each one is on the list.
- TypeScript
- types across the whole stack, which catches the class of bug that only shows up in production
- Next.js
- server rendering and static generation in one framework, so marketing pages stay fast and app routes stay dynamic
- NestJS
- structure and dependency injection on the backend, which keeps a growing API from turning into a pile of route handlers
- Cloud
- managed infrastructure sized to the traffic you actually have
- AI
- model-backed features scoped to the parts of a product where they measurably help
What the first weeks look like
- Week 1
Scope and architecture
Users, data, integrations, and constraints, ending in a written plan for the software development that you approve before anyone opens an editor.
- Weeks 2-3
Design the critical path
The screens that carry the product, prototyped and clickable. Design and engineering review together, so nothing gets drawn that cannot ship.
- Weeks 4-8
Build in weekly slices
Every week ends with something on a real URL. custom software products lands early, because the rest of the plan depends on it working.
- Launch
Ship, measure, hand over
Release, monitoring, analytics, and a documented handover, so your team can carry it without calling us.
Weighing up your options
There are three realistic ways to get this built. Each is the right answer for someone.
A solo freelancer
Cheapest per hour and fine for a contained task. The risk on software development is breadth — one person covering design, backend, infrastructure, and launch usually means one of them is weak, and there is no cover when they are unavailable.
A local agency in London
Same timezone and a face to meet, which genuinely matters for some teams. You are also paying London market for SaaS, fintech, and AI product talent. rates for the whole team including the layers that never touch your software development, and a local shortlist is a small shortlist.
Arcode
A small senior team. The people who scope the software development write the code, you get weekly demos instead of status decks, and the engagement ends when the thing is live and handed over.
Work we have shipped
Case Management Hub
Full-stack engineer · NestJS · Next.js
HIPAA-compliant healthcare SaaS for 150+ US organizations, with dual databases, realtime collaboration, billing, and secure client portals.
Enterprise case management platform for healthcare and social-work organizations with encryption, realtime messaging, Stripe billing, Zoom, and calendar sync.
- · HIPAA-ready architecture with encryption and audit logging
- · Realtime collaboration via Socket.io + Redis
- · Client portal and role-based access control
- · Stripe billing and document workflows
Next.js · NestJS · TypeScript · MongoDB · Redis · Socket.io
Circlin Waitlist
Lead frontend · Next.js 15
Multilingual waitlist and referral product for a secondhand fashion brand, covering localization, analytics, and growth loops.
Waitlist experience with EN/DE localization, referral tiers, MDX blog, and analytics for Circlin.
- · EN/DE internationalization
- · Referral reward tiers
- · MDX blog and SEO content
- · Analytics and cookie consent
Next.js 15 · TypeScript · Tailwind · MDX · React 19
VIP Hires
Full-stack · Payments · UX
Recruitment platform with Stripe payments, workflow management, and polished motion-driven UI.
Hiring product covering job posting payments, candidate workflows, forms, and analytics.
- · Stripe payment flows
- · Recruitment workflow stages
- · Validated multi-step forms
- · Analytics charts and notifications
Next.js · Redux Toolkit · Stripe · Framer Motion · Zod
Working with teams in London
London market for SaaS, fintech, and AI product talent. We work with clients in London remotely and keep overlapping hours in GMT/BST. We usually collaborate in English.
How we work with London teams
London is on GMT/BST, which gives us an overlapping working day rather than a handful of shared hours. Standups, reviews, and demos all fit in normal business hours for both sides.
What London clients usually need
London work is heavily SaaS and fintech: dashboards over real financial data, onboarding and KYC flows, and increasingly LLM features layered onto products that already have paying users.
Contracts, data, and compliance
Procurement in London tends to ask for a DPA, evidence of where data sits, and a security questionnaire before signing. We handle those upfront, and we keep personal data in UK or EU regions by default.
