Product design & engineering studio / Bucharest, EU
Design and engineering for software that can’t afford to fail.
Banking, payments, fintech platforms, compliance and commerce. We ask what must never fail, then design, build and launch it: one senior team, production code from the first sprint, everything yours.
01 Discovery sprint
The discovery sprint.
The most expensive mistakes are made before the first line of code, so every build starts with a discovery sprint of two to four weeks.
Four questions we ask you
- Q1
Who is it for?
What they need to get done, and what they must be able to prove they did.
- Q2
What must never fail?
And what happens when it does. We design that path first.
- Q3
Which rules apply?
KYC, PSD2, GDPR, retention, disclosure: the ones your product lives under.
- Q4
What does success look like?
In numbers you already track, so the sprint is measured against them.
The sprint, in four lines
- What it costs
- Fixed feeQuoted in writing within five working days of the call. If the sprint says “don’t build this”, we say so.
- What you get
- 2–4 weeksResearch, a risk register, a clickable prototype and a costed plan. Yours, whoever builds it.
- What happens after
- Build, extend or stopMost sprints become a product build; some a team-extension brief; some end with “not yet”, and the plan still holds.
- How it starts
- A brief, then a callThirty minutes with a director, then a written proposal. Not a template.
02 Standards
What you never see, but everything stands on.
Regulated products are judged by auditors as well as customers. These are the standards we work to; the ones a contract can carry, we write in. Weekly demos and written reporting; an NDA if you need one. Ask for our standard terms.
- F1
Security by default
Least-privilege access, audit trails, dependency scanning, a secure development lifecycle.
- F2
You own everything
Code, designs and IP are yours as the work is paid for. No licences back to us.
- F3
EU-based, under GDPR
Bucharest, Romania. Contracts under EU law, inside your data-residency rules.
- F4
Ready for audit
A decision log for the project and an audit trail in the product, from the start.
- F5
Accessible by default
WCAG 2.2 AA is the target on every product, not an extra.
- F6
Quality you can inspect
Tests, review, CI, observability, documentation and a handover you can read before you sign.
Where this comes from
The patterns on this page come from work inside retail banks, a global bank’s financial-crime platform, multi-country checkout and multi-tenant fintech platforms. We also build and run a regulated product of our own, Avizis, compliance software for Romanian salons, in development.
Companies we have worked with
03 How we work
One accountable team. No hand-offs.
Strategy, design and engineering sit in one team, led by the same two directors from the first call to launch, so ideas meet reality the same day instead of at the end of a hand-off. When the work needs more hands, vetted specialists we have worked with before join around the core, and the directors stay accountable for the result.
- C1
Strategy
- C2
Design
- C3
Engineering
Construction sequence
- 01Discover 2–4 weeks
Problem framing, research, risks, a clickable prototype and a plan.
- 02Design
Journeys, interfaces and a design system, validated with users.
- 03Build
Production code from the first sprint: tested, reviewed, documented.
- 04Launch
Release behind flags, monitoring, runbooks and handover.
- 05Evolve
Measured against the numbers from Q4; scaled or stopped on the evidence.
Engagement models and how a project starts: see Working with us.
04 Capabilities
What we do.
Five things, from strategy to senior leads inside your team. Each one rests on the one below it.
- L5
Team extension
Senior design or engineering leads, embedded in your team.
- L4
Platform & delivery
Cloud on AWS, Docker and Kubernetes, CI/CD, observability, quality engineering.
- L3
Engineering
Web front-ends (React/Next.js, Angular), back-ends and APIs (Java/Spring Boot, Node.js), payments integration, search, identity and access.
- L2
Experience & interface design
Research, journeys, interfaces, design systems and accessibility, validated with real customers before build.
- L1
Product strategy & discovery
Problem framing, research, prototypes and roadmaps.
05 Design
The part your customers see.
The envelope is where structure meets people: journeys, interfaces and design systems that stay consistent across every screen, accessible from the first sketch.
- E1
Journeys & UX
The route a customer takes, mapped with real customers in research and usability sessions, then measured at every step where they can drop out.
- E2
Interface & interaction
Clear screens for decisions that involve money, data and consent.
- E3
Design systems
One module, repeated with discipline across products, brands and markets.
- E4
Accessibility
Step-free by default. WCAG 2.2 AA is the target from the first sketch.
- E5
Ship the prototype first
Release the prototype early and learn from real customers while the rest is built.
06 Industries
Same core. Different buildings.
We work in five sectors where money, data and regulation are on the line. The sector changes the rules and the journeys; the way we work does not.
Digital journeys on core systems that can’t stop.
- Problems we solve
- Applicants lost between identity checks and a decision
- Loan journeys that stall between application, offer and signature
- Savings and investment flows held back by the legacy core underneath
- Constraints we know
- KYC & AML
- Affordability checks
- Consumer-credit disclosure
- PSD2 & SCA
- DORA
- Legacy core systems
- What we deliver
- Onboarding and KYC journeys, from first screen to account open
- Loan application, offer and e-signature flows
- APIs and integration layers in front of the core
- A design system for retail and business banking
- First engagement
A discovery sprint on one journey, such as onboarding or a loan application: mapped end to end, tested with customers and costed for the build.
Every path a payment can take, including the ones that fail.
- Problems we solve
- Customers abandoning at the authentication step
- Double charges and orphaned orders when a network times out
- Orders, ledgers and PSP reports that don’t reconcile
- Constraints we know
- PSD2 & SCA
- 3-D Secure 2
- PCI DSS scope reduction
- Idempotency & retries
- Refunds & chargebacks
- Settlement & reconciliation
- What we deliver
- Checkout flows and hosted payment pages
- Wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay) and PSP integrations
- Idempotent order placement and retry handling
- Reconciliation tooling and payment-operations dashboards
- First engagement
A discovery sprint that maps every path a payment takes, failures and retries included, and ends with a risk register and the fixes in order.
One platform, many clients, no forks.
- Problems we solve
- Every new client turning into a custom build
- White-label branding that forks the codebase
- Contracts and offers still assembled by hand
- Constraints we know
- Tenant isolation
- Role-based access
- Audit trails
- Document generation
- eIDAS e-signatures
- Vendor due diligence
- What we deliver
- Multi-tenant architecture and a configuration model
- White-label theming on one shared design system
- Contract and offer generation
- Back-office and operations tools
- First engagement
A discovery sprint on the configuration model: what varies per client, what never should, and how the next client becomes a setting rather than a project.
Tools for the people who answer to the regulator.
- Problems we solve
- Investigations scattered across spreadsheets, inboxes and screenshots
- Alert queues that bury the cases that matter
- Evidence that can’t be reconstructed when the regulator asks
- Constraints we know
- AML & CTF
- Sanctions screening
- Financial-crime workflows
- Four-eyes review
- Evidence & audit trails
- Data retention (GDPR)
- What we deliver
- Case management and investigation tools
- Review and four-eyes approval workflows
- Compliance registers and regulatory reporting
- Audit trails that record every decision
- First engagement
A discovery sprint alongside your analysts: we follow real cases, map where evidence gets lost, and prototype the case view that keeps it.
Many markets and brands on one system that holds at peak.
- Problems we solve
- Storefronts that slow down when traffic peaks
- A separate fork of the site for every market
- Brands drifting apart, screen by screen
- Constraints we know
- Performance budgets
- Localisation & tax
- Feature flags per market
- European Accessibility Act
- GDPR consent
- Peak-traffic resilience
- What we deliver
- High-traffic storefronts and checkout
- A multi-brand design system
- Loyalty and customer accounts
- Market configuration and staged roll-outs
- First engagement
A discovery sprint on one market or brand: a performance and accessibility audit, then a prototype of the shared system the others will adopt.
typology: tower · levels: 8 · footprint: 16 × 16 m · core: same system, sized to the building
07 Working with us
How to work with us.
Four ways to engage us, one way of working: the same directors lead each of them, and every one can start small. What changes is how much we take on, and for how long.
- W1
Discovery sprint
Fixed fee- What it is
- A short, fixed-fee investigation of the problem before anything is built: users, risks, rules and a plan.
- Shape
- 2–4 weeks, fixed scope, led by the directors.
- You get
- Problem framing, research findings, a risk register, a clickable prototype and a costed plan.
- How it starts
- A brief from you, then a written sprint proposal within five working days.
- W2
Product build
Phases or a dedicated team- What it is
- We design, build and launch the product end to end, then help it evolve.
- Shape
- Fixed phases with agreed scope, or a dedicated team on a rolling plan.
- You get
- Production code from the first sprint, a design system, weekly demos, documentation and a clean handover.
- How it starts
- With a discovery sprint, or with yours if it already answers our four questions.
- W3
Team extension
Senior leads embedded- What it is
- A senior design or engineering lead, embedded in your team, your rituals and your tools.
- Shape
- Rolling, and reviewed with you at every milestone.
- You get
- Senior judgement where the team needs it, and the standards, reviews and habits that stay after we leave.
- How it starts
- A brief about the gap, then a named lead proposed to fill it.
- W4
Platform modernisation
Legacy to modern, in stages- What it is
- Moving a legacy platform forward without stopping the business that runs on it.
- Shape
- In stages: one slice at a time, each one releasable on its own.
- You get
- An architecture assessment and a staged migration plan, then working increments on AWS with CI/CD and observability.
- How it starts
- A discovery sprint on the current platform: its dependencies, its risks and the first slice to move.
How a project starts
- 01Brief, then a call
Send us a brief; we reply within two working days with a proposed 30-minute call with a director: what you’re building, what must never fail, and which rules it lives under. Under NDA if you need one.
- 02A discovery-sprint proposal
Within five working days: the questions the sprint will answer, who leads it, what you get and when. Not a template.
- 03Kick-off
We start inside your team, on site or remote: stakeholders, access and constraints on the table, and the first weekly demo in the diary.
08 Principles
Seven things we hold to.
What we do, and what it gets you. Each one is shown in practice on the sheet it points to.
- 1We start with the right questions.So you don’t pay to build the wrong thing.01
- 2We design for audit from day one.So the regulator’s questions have answers before they are asked.02
- 3We keep strategy, design and engineering in one team.So nothing is lost in a hand-off, and decisions take a day, not a sprint.03
- 4We add clarity before we add people.So your budget buys decisions, not meetings.07
- 5We design the failure path first.So a retry never charges your customer twice.06
- 6We ship the prototype first.So you learn from real customers while the rest is built.05
- 7We prefer configuration over releases.So your next market or client is a setting, not a project.06
09 Contact
Start a project.
What happens next
- 01You send a brief.
Four questions, short answers. Or an email, if you prefer.
- 02We reply within two working days.
With questions, not a template, and a time for a 30-minute call with a director.
- 03You get a written proposal.
Within five working days of the call: what the sprint will answer, who leads it, what you get and when.
You’ll be talking to Nicoleta Ribu, Design Director, and Alexandru Demidov, Engineering Director.