Software Architecture Consulting
We are software architecture consultants. We design new platforms, review existing ones and plan the way out of systems that have become hard to change, and the architects who write the plan are the ones who build it. Based in Maynooth, working across Ireland and beyond.
Not “consulting”. Six artefacts, and the reasoning behind them.
Architecture is the set of decisions that determine how a system is structured, how its parts communicate, and how it copes with growth, change and failure — the decisions that are cheap at the beginning and costly to revisit once the system is live. An engagement ends with those decisions written down, in a form your team can build from after we have gone.
All of it is yours in editable formats, whether or not you engage us to implement any of it.
Three ways in, depending on where you are.
Architectural design and planning
For new systems and major rebuilds: we design the structure, define the components and their interactions, choose the integration patterns, and document the decisions and the reasoning behind them — so the rationale survives staff changes.
Architecture review and consulting
For systems that already exist: an independent assessment of what is genuinely wrong, what is merely unfashionable, and a prioritised path to improvement. Not every system needs rewriting, and we will tell you when yours does not.
Architecture reviewTechnology selection and integration
Choosing frameworks, platforms and services that fit the problem, your team’s capabilities and your long-term support position — then integrating them cleanly.
Integration servicesWhere the hard part usually is.
Enterprise application architecture
Large-scale systems where integration, security and data management across multiple business functions are the hard part — often platforms carrying years of accumulated customisation.
Application developmentMicroservices architecture
Breaking large applications into independently deployable services where that genuinely helps. We are equally willing to advise that a well-structured monolith is the better answer.
Our research on microservicesCloud-native architecture
Systems designed for AWS, Azure or Google Cloud from the outset, using managed services and automated deployment rather than servers relocated into someone else’s data centre.
Cloud architectureSystem modernisation and migration
Moving legacy systems forward incrementally — strangling the old system rather than attempting a single high-risk replacement.
Migration and modernisationPerformance optimisation
Finding where time is actually spent, and restructuring the parts that matter. Measurement before optimisation, every time.
Stability and optimisationSecurity architecture
Designing systems so that sensitive data is protected structurally and regulatory obligations can be demonstrated rather than asserted.
Standards and ISO readinessThe caller is changing, and that is an architecture problem.
Most of what is written about AI is about models. The part that decides whether any of it works in your estate is architectural: what a capability is, where its boundary sits, what it is allowed to do, and how you prove what it did. Our R&D wing publishes that work in the open through The Software Lens, and it informs every design we hand over.
Software as a Capability
The pattern we design to: a described interface, rules enforced at the boundary, and a record of every call — first published on our own channel.
Read SaaCIntegration in the agentic era
Which of the integration canon survives when the caller reasons, which changes job, and which does not make it. Two parts, with the third reporting findings.
Read Part 1Why microservices strain
What breaks when agents call services designed for human-written clients, and the interface model we use instead.
Read AIMFind out where you actually stand — and only pay if the report tells you something.
Four to six weeks. An independent evaluation of your process, your technology, your AI readiness, your security posture and the distance between the strategy at the top and the work being done. Delivered as a written report with the evidence and the reasoning attached.
- Process, documentation and productivity gaps
- AI readiness, and how AI tools are really being used
- How competitive your tech stack actually is
- Security posture and how far you are from ISO certification
- CEO vision drift — strategy at the top versus work on the ground
- Silos, flywheel, Big Rocks, OKRs, PMO and micro-management
- Architecture advice, with the reasoning shown
- We audit our own delivery work on the same terms
Architects who still build.
Grounded in delivery
Our architecture work comes out of shipping systems. A design that cannot be implemented by a real team on a real budget is not a design.
Integration depth
Much of architecture is deciding how systems talk to each other. Our integration experience spans enterprise platforms, education systems and modern SaaS.
Software integrationProportionate recommendations
The right architecture for a fifty-person business is not a scaled-down version of an enterprise one. We design for the organisation in front of us.
Ireland-based, international delivery
Maynooth, Co. Kildare, working with clients across Ireland, the UK and the United States. Workshops on site where that is the better way to do them.
Questions we get asked about architecture work
What does a software architect actually deliver?▼
The six artefacts above: a context map, a boundary map, decision records, a non-functional budget, a migration path and a handover pack. Everything else in an engagement exists to produce those, and they are yours in editable formats whichever way the engagement ends.
How long does an architecture engagement take?▼
A review of an existing system is typically two to four weeks. A design for a new platform is usually four to eight, depending on how many systems it has to live alongside. We would rather scope it honestly after the free hour than quote a number before understanding the estate.
Do we have to rewrite our system?▼
Usually not, and we will say so. Most systems that feel unworkable have two or three structural problems rather than a hundred; fixing those is cheaper and far less risky than a rewrite. Where a rewrite genuinely is the answer, we will show you the reasoning and the incremental path rather than proposing a big bang.
Can you work with our existing development team?▼
That is the usual arrangement. We work in your repositories, in review with your engineers, and the handover is written for them. If a design can only be maintained by us, it is the wrong design.
Microservices or a monolith?▼
Whichever the organisation can actually operate. Microservices trade build-time simplicity for run-time complexity, and that trade only pays off past a certain size of team and deployment cadence. We have recommended well-structured monoliths more often than not, and we publish our reasoning on The Software Lens.
Do you cover cloud architecture as well?▼
Yes — landing zones, identity, networking and data services on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, designed as part of the system rather than bolted underneath it. The cloud services page covers that side in more detail.
What about security and compliance?▼
Security is a structural property: boundaries, identity, data handling and audit trails designed in from the start. For organisations working towards ISO 27001 or facing client audits, we align the architecture and the evidence so they hold up together.
How do you handle AI in an architecture?▼
As an architectural question rather than a model question: what a capability is, where its boundary sits, what it may do without a person, and how its actions are recorded. That work is published in the open through The Software Lens, so you can judge how we think before hiring us.
What does the free hour cover?▼
An hour with a practising architect on the problem you bring — a design you are about to commit to, a system that has become hard to change, a decision between two approaches. You leave with a candid read and a short written summary, whether or not you work with us.
One free hour. No pitch, no obligation.
Bring the problem you are stuck on — an integration that keeps breaking, a cloud bill nobody can explain, an AI project that is all demo and no product, or a platform you are about to invest in. You will leave with a straight answer and a written summary, whether or not you ever work with us.
- Architecture and integration review
- AI feasibility — what will actually work, and what will not
- AWS, Azure and Google Cloud cost and design
- Business process audit and ISO readiness
- Technical due diligence before you invest or acquire