DEV.co
Austin, TX · Custom Software + AI

Custom software for Austin — built the AI-native way.

We pair senior engineers with an AI-accelerated delivery model to ship custom software for Austin operators — startups racing for Series A, semiconductor companies digitizing operations, and B2B SaaS scaling fast — without the fragile output that gives AI a bad name.

Senior-only engineering · AI-accelerated delivery · you own 100% of the code

AI changed the economics of custom software. We rebuilt our process around it.

Austin sits at the intersection of SaaS, fintech, AI, and semiconductors — one of the fastest-growing tech metros in the country, with senior engineers concentrated around a handful of marquee employers. Hiring takes months and the pay band is closing in on coastal rates. AI changes the math, but only when senior people own the parts AI gets wrong.

On an Austin SaaS or fintech build, AI rips through the repetitive 70% — multi-tenant scaffolding, auth, billing skeletons, dashboards, first-draft CRUD. The 30% that catches teams in production is the part AI is great at confidently faking: tenant isolation, RBAC edges, the SOC 2 control map, idempotency on payment flows, and the migration paths that look fine until your second customer arrives. Raw AI output ships that without a flinch.

We build for Austin operators — pre-PMF founders shipping MVPs, mid-stage SaaS companies digging out of tech debt as they scale, fintech platforms working toward SOC 2, and operations teams at semiconductor and infrastructure companies replacing in-house scripts with real software. Our model: AI handles scaffolding and the repetitive 70%; a senior engineer owns architecture, security, and signs off on every change.

Show, don't tell

AI writes the first draft. A senior engineer signs off.

Every change runs through review for security, tests, and architecture before it ships — that review is the product.

delivery.tstypescript
const draft = await ai.generate(spec)          // minutes, not daysreview(draft, { security: true, tests: true, architecture: true })// ✗ rejected: tenant-scoped query missing the workspace_id filter → enforced + cross-tenant test added// ✓ merged: RBAC check on every internal endpoint, idempotency key on billing webhook
Every change
AI velocity + human judgment
tests + security review built in
you own 100% of the result

On an Austin SaaS or fintech build, the failure modes are cross-tenant data leaks, missing RBAC, and webhook double-processing. Senior review catches them before your second customer or your SOC 2 audit does.

What we build for Austin companies.

Product

SaaS platforms

Multi-tenant products with auth, billing, and dashboards — MVP to scale.

AI

AI applications

Copilots, RAG, search, and agents grounded in your data, with guardrails and evals.

Fintech

Fintech & payments platforms

Customer-facing apps, ledgers, and risk pipelines for regulated, data-heavy products.

MVP

MVPs & prototypes

Validate an idea with a real, deployed product in weeks, not quarters.

Internal

Internal tools & copilots

Operations tooling that replaces the spreadsheet-and-tribal-knowledge workflow.

Web

Web apps & portals

Fast, custom applications and customer portals on a modern stack.

Senior, on-shore, AI-accelerated

A senior team that moves at AI speed.

You work with senior engineers in Central Time — same hours as your East Austin, downtown, or North Austin team — who own architecture and quality. We ship into your existing repo, follow your patterns, and integrate with your PR review.

From East Austin to Pflugerville to Round Rock, senior engineers are concentrated at Tesla, Indeed, Oracle, and the funded startups — and they're three-to-six months out when you actually try to hire. An AI-native team gets you shipping this week, ramps monthly, and skips the relocation bonus.

Talk to an engineer

Traditional Austin dev shop vs. AI-native.

Traditional AgencyDEV.co (AI-native)
Time to working softwareMonthsDays to weeks
CostFull senior rates, all hoursLower — AI removes the rote work
Code qualityGood (if senior)Same bar — every change reviewed
AI riskContained by senior review + tests
You own the codeUsuallyAlways — full repo on day one
Scales with youSlow to staff upFlex up or down monthly
2–3×
faster than traditional development
1 wk
to a working prototype
100%
code ownership at handoff
30 days
post-launch support included

Common questions from Austin teams.

Do you work with Austin companies?
Yes — we serve Austin, San Antonio, and Houston companies with senior, on-shore engineers in Central Time. Most collaboration is remote-first, with on-site available for kickoffs and key milestones.
Can you ship an MVP fast enough for our raise?
Yes — AI-native delivery is exactly the model for that. A scoping call, a fixed quote, a deployed prototype in roughly a week, then iterate with you through fundraising. Every change goes through senior review; you don't ship demo code that breaks when the lead investor logs in.
Will the MVP be production-grade or throwaway?
Production-grade. The point of senior-reviewed AI-native delivery is that what we ship in week one survives week six — we don't write demo code that gets rewritten the moment you raise. The senior review on every PR is exactly what makes the difference.
Is AI-built software production-ready?
Yes — when a senior engineer reviews every output, adds tests, and hardens it. The horror stories come from shipping raw AI code unsupervised. We don't, and we support what we ship.
Will we own the code?
100%, from day one. We deliver to a repository you control — no proprietary platform, no lock-in.
How fast can we start?
Usually within days. A short scoping call defines the build, the timeline, and a fixed quote.
Can you work with our existing team?
Yes — we augment in-house teams, review their work, and set standards, or run the build end to end. We flex to how you work.

Let's build it — Austin.

Tell us what you're shipping. We'll give you a senior engineer's read, an honest timeline, a fixed quote, and tell you whether AI-native is the right fit for your build.