smart&rapidsoftware studio

Now booking — Q3 / Q4 2026

We make complicated product workfeel simple.

Smartandrapid is a small software studio. Companies hire us to cut through complexity and ship one clean, focused product — backend, frontend, data, and infrastructure, owned by one engineer.

Start a projectSee what we do
  • 17+years building systems in production
  • 50B+geometries processed in spatial pipelines
  • $10k/dayrecurring cost cut on one routing system
  • 4 wks → 20 minrelease cycle, end to end

§ 01 — Services

What we do, in one sentence each.

Four shapes of work. Different motions, same operating principle: one engineer across the whole stack, fewer handoffs, working software at the end.

  1. 01

    Build the v1

    Build

    Turn an idea into a working product in production. Architecture, data model, backend, frontend, infra, deploy. Real users, real load, real numbers.

  2. 02

    Cut through complexity

    Reduce

    Sprawling system, tangled product, stalled migration, data nobody can untangle. We find the real problem, narrow the scope, and ship something clean in its place.

  3. 03

    Fractional founding engineer

    Embed

    Own the technical arc with a founding team through the next milestone. A few days a week, async, no standups. Set the bar, ship the hard parts, hand off cleanly.

  4. 04

    Data & geospatial systems

    Specialize

    Postgres, PostGIS, H3, DuckDB, large spatial workloads. SQL-first, years of production scars, deep intuition for what scales and what should never have been built.

§ 02 — Engagements

Four ways to work together.

From a single working proof to a full v1, priced against scope. Rates start at$200/hour, with a 10-hour minimum to onboard and ship something real. Sprints and project builds are quoted as a fixed fee — you get a number before any call, not after.

01Fixed fee

Project build

Fixed scope, fixed end date, working software at the end. Priced as a fixed fee against the agreed scope.

02Weekly

Sprint

One to three weeks. A working proof, not a deck. Weekly rate, paid weekly.

03Monthly retainer

Embedded

A few days a week, ongoing, treated as part of the team. Monthly retainer with a defined scope per month.

04Weekly or monthly

Advisory + hands-on

System design and architecture, with us in the codebase when it matters.

§ 03 — Approach

Six things we believe, and refuse to negotiate on.

01Simple beats clever
The best code is no code. The second best is automated, reproducible, and idempotent. Most "complex" problems shrink once you look at the data and narrow the scope.
02Data first, SQL first
Most problems become clearer once you look at the data. Push work to the database where it belongs.
03POC same-day
A working proof beats a deck. We ship a real artifact fast, then sharpen it against feedback and load.
04Narrow the scope
Half the value of an engagement is deciding what not to build. We say so out loud.
05Own it end-to-end
From problem framing through production and the boring bit after. No throwing it over the wall.
06Clean handoff
Code, docs, and decisions in a state your team can run with — not a state that requires us forever.

While others talk, we ship. Direct, async-first, low coordination overhead. The best idea wins, regardless of where it comes from.

§ 04 — Start a project

Have a product to build, a system to simplify, or a data layer that needs to actually work?

Send a short note covering the problem and what "done" looks like, rough timeline and any hard deadlines, and what's already in place — stack, data, team, repos. A few sentences is enough. We'll write back with whether it's a fit, what an engagement would look like, and the next step.

Write to us
  • Response timeSame business day, usually within a few hours.
  • Minimum10-hour engagement to onboard and ship.
  • ReferencesFrom current and recent engagements, available on request.