About us
We build software businesses can rely on
Irys builds custom software for businesses that have outgrown the tools they started with.
Our story
Built to do the unglamorous part properly
We started because we kept meeting companies stuck in the same place: a process that worked at ten people, held together with spreadsheets at fifty, and quietly failing at two hundred. The software they needed did not exist off the shelf, and the agencies they spoke to wanted to sell them something else entirely.
So we built a company around doing the unglamorous part properly — understanding the work before writing the code, being straight about what a project will cost, and leaving behind systems a client's own team can maintain.
Today we work across custom platforms, web products and mobile apps. The industries vary. What does not vary is the approach: scope things honestly, build them carefully, and hand them over completely.
Our mission
“To build software our clients can rely on and own — not systems that quietly depend on us forever.”
Good software outlives the team that wrote it. We measure our work by whether it still serves the business two years after we have moved on.
How we work
Four things we don't compromise on
These aren't aspirations on a wall — they're the rules we scope and price projects by.
Honest scoping
We would rather lose a project than win it on an estimate we know is wrong. Scope, cost and risks are written down before anyone commits.
Build to be maintained
Someone else will read this code. We write for that person: tested, documented, and free of clever tricks that only make sense today.
Understand the work first
Every engagement starts with the people doing the job. The edge cases they mention in passing are usually the ones that matter most.
No lock-in
You own the code, the infrastructure and the documentation. If you want to take it in-house, we make that straightforward rather than painful.
Our journey
How we got here
- 16
2016
Founded
Started as a two-person consultancy taking on projects other agencies had declined as too specific.
- 19
2019
First platform team
Grew into dedicated delivery teams so multiple long-running platform builds could run in parallel.
- 21
2021
Mobile practice
Added a cross-platform mobile capability after clients kept asking for an app alongside the web product.
- 24
2024
Cloud and DevOps
Formalised the infrastructure work we had always been doing into a standalone service line.
Our team
The people who'll build it
Small, senior, and directly involved. The people who scope your project are the people who write the code.
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Founder & Technical Director
Leads architecture and technical strategy, and stays close enough to the code to keep the advice honest.
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Head of Engineering
Runs delivery across projects, with a particular focus on making estimates that survive contact with reality.
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Lead Product Designer
Owns the design process end to end, from early discovery workshops through to the last accessibility pass.
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Principal Engineer
Specialises in the difficult parts — data modelling, performance work and untangling legacy systems.
Want to work with us?
Whether you have a detailed spec or just a problem you can't solve with the tools you have, we're happy to talk it through.