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// Custom software · South Africa

Custom software development, South Africa.

We're a South African custom software studio that builds the systems your business actually runs on. Retail POS that has to work at 11pm on Black Friday. Driver apps that have to function with no signal. Payment flows that have to reconcile to the cent. We work fixed-price where we can, plain-English everywhere, and we leave you with code you can hand to another team if you ever need to.

// 01 —   Capabilities

Engineering across the whole stack.

We’re a small senior team. You get the people who design the system also writing the code — not a sales team and a hand-off.

  • 01 / 06

    Web applications

    Production React, Next.js and Vue 3 apps — from internal tools to customer-facing platforms used by thousands of staff every day.

  • 02 / 06

    Mobile applications

    Cross-platform iOS and Android with Capacitor, Ionic and React Native. Native Swift where it has to be native.

  • 03 / 06

    Back-end & APIs

    Node, TypeScript and serverless on AWS. Auth, payments, multi-tenancy and the boring infrastructure that has to never fail.

  • 04 / 06

    Payments & POS

    Card-present and online payments — ecentric, Paymentus, terminal integrations, reconciliation. We've shipped this in production.

  • 05 / 06

    Cloud & DevOps

    Serverless on AWS (SST), Terraform-managed infrastructure, deploy pipelines that engineers actually trust.

  • 06 / 06

    Product engineering

    We work as an extension of your product team. Discovery, scope, prototypes, then build — without the agency-vs-client adversarial dance.

// 03 —   Selected work

Things we’ve shipped.

A selection of recent engagements. Some clients we can’t name — so we’ve described the shape of the work instead.

01 / 05Retail · Payments

A high-volume retail POS platform

Vue 3 + serverless platform powering thousands of daily transactions across a national footprint of stores. Integrated card-present payments, offline-first checkout, and a multi-app frontend monorepo serving counter, kitchen and back-office surfaces.

/> Outcome

Sub-second checkout, multi-store rollout, terminal-integrated payments across multiple acquirers.

/> Stack
  • Vue 3
  • Turborepo
  • SST
  • AWS
  • TypeScript
  • Capacitor
02 / 05Logistics · Mobile

An on-road delivery & dispatch platform

Driver mobile app, dispatcher dashboard and reporting platform for a national logistics operator. Offline-tolerant route execution, real-time tracking and proof of delivery, plus a Next.js operations console.

/> Outcome

Hundreds of active drivers, real-time visibility across the fleet, faster route closeout.

/> Stack
  • Ionic
  • Capacitor
  • Next.js
  • Node
  • PostgreSQL
03 / 05Enterprise · Global

A global asset tracking platform

Multi-tenant web platform tracking high-value equipment movement worldwide between operating companies. Continent-scale routing, complex multi-party permissioning, audit trails, and integrations into enterprise ERP and payment workflows.

/> Outcome

Deployed across continents and operating companies, with reconciliation time cut substantially.

/> Stack
  • React
  • TypeScript
  • Terraform
  • AWS
  • Global edge
04 / 05Med-Tech · Education

A clinical learning platform for healthcare professionals

Evidence-based video-lecture platform for doctors, nurses and medical students across the Nordics. Custom video pipeline, gamification and student-teacher interaction over a 7-specialty content library, with editorial workflows that map every lecture to current clinical guidelines.

/> Outcome

90,000+ active learners across Scandinavia; 700,000+ feedback responses at a 96/100 average score across 375+ lectures.

/> Stack
  • Vue
  • Node
  • PostgreSQL
  • Video pipeline
  • i18n
05 / 05Cross-border · Auto Arbitrage

A cross-border vehicle import & arbitrage calculator

A live arbitrage platform for UK → Ireland used-car imports. Ingests current UK listings, runs the full landed-cost calculation (purchase price + VRT + VAT + shipping + customs) against current Irish sale prices, applies live FX, and surfaces only the listings with positive net profit. Angular front-end over a PHP/MySQL back-end.

/> Outcome

Turned cross-border car importing from a gut-feel hunt into a sorted live list of every currently-listed vehicle scored on landed cost, sale price and net ROI.

/> Stack
  • Angular
  • PHP
  • MySQL
  • Scraping
  • FX rates
// 04 —   Discover → operate

Boring on the outside. Rigorous on the inside.

We’re not your agency. We’re your engineering team for the duration — code in your repo from day one, decisions in writing, no quarter-long surprises.

  1. 01

    Discover

    A short paid engagement to understand the problem, users, constraints and the existing technical reality. Output: a written scope you can read in 15 minutes.

    [1–2 wks]
  2. 02

    Prototype

    We build the risky part first — the integration, the workflow, the bit nobody's sure about — in working code, not slides.

    [2–4 wks]
  3. 03

    Build

    Weekly demos, code in your repo from day one, decisions in writing. No quarter-long surprises.

    [Ongoing]
  4. 04

    Operate

    We stay on as your team for ongoing development, on-call and the long tail of small improvements that compound into a great product.

    [Months+]
// 05 —   Stack we live in
Next.js
React 19
Vue 3
TypeScript
Node
Tailwind
Capacitor
Ionic
Swift
SST
AWS
Terraform
PostgreSQL
Firebase
GraphQL
REST
Next.js
React 19
Vue 3
TypeScript
Node
Tailwind
Capacitor
Ionic
Swift
SST
AWS
Terraform
PostgreSQL
Firebase
GraphQL
REST
// FAQ —   Questions, answered

Working with us, from South Africa.

Q01
Do you work across South Africa or just locally?
Both. We're based in KZN, work with clients across Joburg, Cape Town, Pretoria, and the rest of the country, and engage remote-first for most of the build cycle.
Q02
What's a 'fair' price for custom software?
Honestly, it depends on the scope — which is why we charge a small fixed-price discovery first to give you a real number, not a finger-in-the-air estimate. Most of our build engagements land between R150k and R1.5m depending on scope.
Q03
Can you take on a project mid-flight?
Yes. About a third of our work is rescuing or finishing other teams' codebases. We start with a written audit and a 30-day stabilization plan before touching production.
// 06 —   Start a project

Got a build in mind?

Tell us about it. A paragraph is enough — we’ll come back within a day with whether we’re the right fit, and a sensible next step.

info@atarasoftware.co.zaChat on WhatsApp060 531 1495
/> Based in
South Africa
/> Working
Worldwide, remote-first
/> Timezone
SAST, UTC+2 — 1–2 hours ahead of the UK year-round
/> Hours
Mon–Fri, 08:00–18:00 SAST
/> Engagements
Project · Retainer · Fractional team
/> Reply within
~1 business day