Software that fits, built right the first time: Why we are repositioning

The software industry is currently undergoing profound change due to AI, and we are presenting how we intend to deal with this change in a sensible way. We take responsibility, work reliably, and develop business-critical software because we master our craft technically. The result: software that fits, built right the first time.

Software built right the first time is not a new idea at makandra. For more than 15 years, we have been building web applications for companies where an outage would be business-critical or where strict regulatory requirements apply. We bring experience from more than 200 projects, including initiatives with many stakeholders and high complexity.

Customers often tell us how pleased they are that the makandra application delivered exactly what it was supposed to. The result was right and also passed the test of productive use. No rewrite and no fresh start were needed after others had already failed at the task. With us, every project goes live, on time and within the agreed budget. Software built right the first time, simply put.

Our team, our way of working, and our quality standards stay the way they are. What is new is that we are putting this strength front and center, because it carries more weight in an industry in transition. Also new is that we are extending this promise to local AI solutions for our customers and bringing our values into this new line of business.

Software can be developed faster, and companies expect that. At the same time, AI opens up possibilities that used to be too costly: making company knowledge searchable, automating processes, or handing routine work over to systems. Used well, it frees up time for what people do best – and builds the competitive edge that businesses will need more than ever in the years ahead.

AI takes over work, but not responsibility. A critical application must not be a black box of AI-generated code that nobody understands and nobody takes responsibility for. The more code machines produce, the more it matters that people review, understand, and take responsibility for it. We approach the change proactively and optimistically, but we also return to what has always defined us.

Our new promise is based on our proven way of working. We take responsibility for the systems we build and for their secure operation. We also rely on a focused tech stack of Rails and Next.js, which we have mastered for years, and we estimate effort carefully. Because knowledge sharing and continuing education matter to us, our team gets the time, space, and resources it needs for this.

AI-generated code also goes through a reliable review with us, and automated tests remain the foundation of every application. To make that work, we train our team in working with AI agents to the same standard we apply to our Rails and Next.js knowledge.

This also means that we continue to train new developers and do not only hire experienced ones. When AI produces code faster, we still need developers who can understand, review, and take responsibility for systems. We will keep investing in that.

We look to the coming years with confidence: AI makes good software accessible to more companies, and we want to be there when ideas become systems you can rely on. In the coming weeks, we will share here and on our channels what we are working on and what makandra stands for: about responsibility, our experience, and AI in business-critical systems and regulated industries.

We have been making software for 17 years, and we can only do so because so many people accompany us: customers who entrust us with systems their business depends on, partners who work with us, and friends who support us along the way. We say thank you for that. Without you, there would be no makandra, and we look forward to everything we will create together.