Full-Stack Software Development for UK SMEs

Full-stack software development means one team builds the whole thing: the front end you see (web pages, buttons, dashboards), the back end you do not (servers, business logic, data processing), the database that stores it all, and the cloud infrastructure it runs on. We build all four — from our offices in Glasgow and Livingston — for businesses across the UK and the USA.

That is the short version. Here is what it actually looks like in practice.

What we build

We do not build brochure websites here — that lives over at website development. Full-stack work is software with logins, data, and business logic. The shapes we see most often:

Internal business apps. The system that runs the operation. Order management, job tracking, scheduling, internal CRMs, manufacturing dashboards, inventory control. Replaces the spreadsheet sprawl described in our drowning in spreadsheets page. Example: a distribution company we built for had eight interconnected Excel files; we replaced them with one web app and clawed back fifteen hours a week.

Customer-facing portals. Where your clients log in to see their data — quotes, statements, bookings, support tickets, account history. A property firm we worked with now lets landlords see live rent payments and maintenance jobs through their own portal rather than emailing the office.

Marketplaces and two-sided platforms. Buyers on one side, sellers on the other, payments and listings in the middle. Stripe (the payment processor), proper search, vetting workflows, payouts.

SaaS MVPs. First versions of subscription products. Multi-tenant (each customer gets their own isolated data), billing, user management, the basics that let you charge money on day one. We get founders to a paying-customer-ready product in twelve to sixteen weeks.

Cross-cutting all of these: API integrations to whatever you already use — Xero, Sage, HubSpot, Salesforce, Companies House, your warehouse system. See API integrations for the detail.

The stack we use

We are not religious about tooling. We pick what fits the problem. But the defaults — the boring, proven choices we reach for unless there is a reason not to — are these:

Python (Django or FastAPI) for the back end. Python is readable, mature, and has libraries for everything. Django (a batteries-included framework) when you need admin tools, auth, and forms out of the box. FastAPI when the project is API-first and speed matters. We have dedicated Python developers on every build.

React or Vue for the front end. React (the front-end library most modern web apps use, originally from Facebook) for component-heavy interfaces. Vue when the team prefers a gentler learning curve. Both render to plain HTML and CSS for users.

PostgreSQL for the database. Open-source, rock solid, handles JSON when you need flexibility and relational data when you need structure. MySQL when a client already has it.

AWS for hosting. Dataface is an AWS Advanced Partner — that means Amazon has audited our work. We use S3 for storage, RDS for managed databases, Lambda for serverless functions, and CloudFront for global delivery. ISO 27001 and GDPR compliant, encrypted everywhere.

Microservices when the system warrants it, monolith when it does not. See microservices — most SMEs do not need them on day one.

Why a small focused team beats a 50-person agency

Every engineer on the Dataface team is senior. No graduate rotation programmes, no eight-week onboarding, no juniors learning on your project. When you talk to us, you are talking to the person who is going to write the code.

Founder Steven Sharp spent more than a decade building systems for Standard Life, Scottish Life, and Royal London — the kind of financial-services platforms that process real money for real customers and cannot afford to be wrong. That bias toward reliability, auditability, and clean failure modes is baked into how we build everything, whether it is a pension administration engine or a haulage scheduling app.

A fifty-person agency has account managers, project managers, scrum masters, business analysts, and three layers of approval before a decision gets made. You pay for that overhead. You also lose information through it — your problem gets paraphrased twice before it reaches the engineer. We cut it out. You brief the builder directly.

Across 50+ delivered projects we hold a 99.5% client satisfaction rate and clients average £45,000 a year in operational savings. Not because we are heroic, but because removing layers makes software cheaper to build and easier to get right.

Common Questions

Q: Do I own the code? A: Yes. Full source code, full intellectual property, full repository access — yours from day one. We hand over the GitHub or Bitbucket repo at the end of every project. You can take it to another developer tomorrow if you want to. No vendor lock-in, no "platform fees", no hostage situations.

Q: What if I need changes after launch? A: We stick around. Most clients keep us on a small monthly retainer for tweaks, new features, and the occasional emergency. If you would rather take it in-house or move to another developer, the code is clean, documented, and easy to hand over. No drama either way.

Q: Can you take over a project from another developer? A: Often, yes. We audit the codebase first — honest report on what is salvageable and what is not. Sometimes the right answer is "keep going from here", sometimes it is "rewrite this one module", and occasionally it is "start over". We will tell you which before quoting.

Q: Do you do hosting? A: Yes, on AWS. We set up the infrastructure, monitor it, patch it, and back it up. You get a monthly bill for actual AWS costs plus a managed-hosting fee. Or we hand the AWS account over to you and you run it yourself. Your call.

Q: What about security? A: ISO 27001 compliant, GDPR compliant, AWS Advanced Partner. Encryption at rest and in transit, role-based access control, audit logging, penetration testing for systems that need it. Steven's financial-services background means we treat security as a default, not a feature.

Q: Will it scale? A: Yes — within reason. We design for ten times your current load by default, which covers most growth paths. If you are heading for millions of users, we will architect for it from day one (usually with microservices and managed AWS services). Scaling is rarely the bottleneck we see; bad data models are.

Q: Can I integrate with my existing systems? A: Almost always. Xero, Sage, QuickBooks, HubSpot, Salesforce, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Companies House, Stripe, GoCardless, MailChimp, Slack — all standard. Older or weirder systems (that Access database Steve maintains, an FTP feed from a supplier) usually have a way in too. Full detail on the API integrations page.

Q: What is your delivery process? A: Two-week sprints. You see working software at the end of every fortnight, give feedback, and we adjust. No six-month black box. Fixed price agreed up front based on a written scope. If you want to change scope mid-project, we re-quote the affected work — no surprise invoices.

Q: How do I get started? A: Free 30-minute call. Bring the problem, not a spec. We will tell you whether custom software is the right answer (sometimes it is not — off-the-shelf is occasionally cheaper). If it is, we will sketch an approach and quote it within a week.