You have an app in the stores and a queue of work it is not getting through. We add mobile engineers to your team, on your release train and your review standards.
The release calendar is the tell. When the signing certificates live on one person's laptop, when the test pass is somebody tapping through screens for two days, and when a bad build cannot be pulled back quickly, teams release less often. Less often means each release is bigger, which makes it riskier, which pushes the next one further out. Adding people to a team in that state mostly produces a bigger release.
Native gives you the newest platform features, the smoothest interaction and the least friction with vendor toolkits. A shared codebase gives you one team and one backlog, which for a form heavy business app is usually the better trade. We make that call against how complex the interaction is, what hardware it has to touch, and how many people will maintain it after we go. Then we write down which way it went and why, so the next person does not have to guess.
Mobile mistakes are expensive because every fix has to go back through review. So the pipeline carries the weight. Builds, signing, version numbers and store upload are automated and reproducible from a clean checkout on any machine. Feature flags let unfinished work ship switched off. Staged rollouts with crash thresholds halt a bad build automatically. Instrumented tests run against a device cloud covering the handsets in your install base, and snapshot tests catch the layouts that fall apart at the largest text sizes and in your longest locale.
The instinct when adding people to a late project is to have them start closing tickets on day two, and it is the reason so many augmented teams go slower before they go faster. An estimate given before the code has been read is a guess wearing a number. So the first fortnight goes on three things: getting a clean build on a machine that has never seen this project, reading the code around the tickets you actually care about, and finding out which of your written processes are the real ones and which are aspirational. What comes out of it is a short document saying what we found, what worries us and what we think the first month should be. It is also the cheapest moment to discover that the thing you asked for is not the thing you need.
An arrangement you cannot end is not a partnership, it is a dependency, and the mobile version of it is particularly expensive because the store accounts and signing keys are involved. So the exit is designed at the start rather than negotiated at the end. Code lives in your repository. Tickets live on your board. Certificates and store credentials sit in your vault and your company name. Our engineers raise pull requests your team reviews, which is slower than letting us merge our own work and is the entire point: it is what stops the knowledge pooling on our side. The measure of a good engagement here is not how much we shipped. It is whether your team can ship the release after us without phoning anybody.
The tickets already sitting in your tracker, picked up in Swift, Kotlin or whichever shared framework you are on. No parallel board and no separate roadmap.
Builds, signing, versioning and store upload made reproducible from a clean checkout. This is usually the highest-value first month, because it is what lets everything else go faster.
Coverage added around the code about to change rather than a doomed attempt to cover everything. It turns an unknowable codebase into a knowable one at the pace of the work you wanted anyway.
Both platforms ship a major version every year and each one breaks something: a permission that now needs justifying, a deprecated API, a screen size nobody planned for. Handled before your users find it.
Screen reader paths, the largest text sizes and your longest language checked before submission. These are the defects that reach a store review rather than a bug tracker.
Inheriting an app from an agency that is leaving. The handover list matters more than the code: repository, certificates, store access, backend credentials, and whatever documentation exists.
Before anything else, the app has to compile from a fresh checkout on a machine that has never seen it. What that exposes sets the tone for everything after it.
The code around the tickets you care about, and which of your documented processes are real. Ends in a short written view of what we found and what the first month should be.
Small, visible work through your review process, so both teams learn how the other works while the stakes are low rather than during a release.
Automated signing, feature flags, staged rollouts with crash thresholds. Teams release rarely because releasing hurts; fix that and the cadence fixes itself.
Everything in your accounts, reviewed by your engineers, documented as we go. Not an exit process at the end, a property maintained throughout.
Not because there is nothing to ship, but because releasing hurts. Big releases are risky, risky releases get delayed, and the gap grows on its own.
If the certificates live with one person, you have a release process with a single point of failure and a holiday-shaped hole in it.
You do not need a rebuild, you need throughput on work that is already specified and already agreed.
It builds on nobody's machine, has no tests, and the person who understood it has gone. That is the normal starting position and it is workable.
That is what this is for. We pick up the codebase you have, in Swift, Kotlin or a shared framework, and work the tickets already in your backlog. The first week is spent getting a clean build on our machines and reading what is there, because an estimate given before that is a guess. Rebuilds get recommended when the code genuinely cannot be worked in, and that recommendation comes with the reasons.
In your tools, on your board, in your review process. Our engineers raise pull requests that your team reviews and vice versa, so knowledge moves both ways rather than pooling with us. The measure of this going well is that your own developers can maintain what we wrote after we stop, which is why we do not keep a private branch or a separate tracker.
That is the normal starting position and it is workable. We add tests around the part we are about to change rather than attempting to cover the whole app first, which turns an unknowable codebase into a knowable one at the pace of the work you actually want done. What we learn gets written down as we go, because the person who needs it most is the developer you hire next year.
Yes, and the handover list matters more than the code. We want the repository, the signing certificates, the store account access, the backend credentials and whatever documentation exists. Where pieces are missing we can usually reconstruct them, but it is cheaper to ask for them while the relationship is still cordial than after it has ended.
Faster than the work becomes useful, which is the more honest framing. Someone can be on your board in days, but the first fortnight of any mobile engagement goes on getting a clean build, reading the code around the tickets you care about, and finding out which of your documented processes are the real ones. Teams that skip that phase get velocity in week two and rework in week six. We would rather tell you the second number.
You should be able to end it without a crisis, and that is a property you have to build in from the start rather than negotiate at the end. Everything lives in your repository, your tracker and your accounts. There is no private branch and no separate board. The work is reviewed by your engineers as it lands, so knowledge moves both ways instead of pooling with us. The test of whether this was done properly is simple: your own team can ship the next release without calling us.
Yes, and for some companies it is the right answer and we will say so. Augmentation makes sense when the work is bursty, when you need a skill for one phase, or when you are covering a gap while you recruit. It stops making sense when mobile is permanently central to your product, at which point you want that knowledge on your payroll. We are happy to run the engagement as a deliberate bridge to that, including sitting in on technical interviews and onboarding the people you hire.
There is overlap every working day, and the amount of it is something we agree at the start rather than leave to chance. What matters more than total overlap is where it sits: a few hours that reliably cover your stand-up and your review window are worth more than a longer window that lands while your team is asleep. Anything genuinely blocking gets raised inside that overlap rather than at the end of a day you are not in.
We are happy to answer any questions you have and help you work out which of our services fit your needs.
