Software Product Modernization

After you submit a project inquiry, we walk you through what we call our free Pre-Project Consulting process. In the first 30-60-minute conversation with a Managing Partner, we seek to learn about your vision, understand your business objectives, and navigate your challenges. If we can find you a way to achieve your goals with off-the-shelf software, we’ll make that recommendation.

If building a custom product is the right step, then we schedule a new call to dive deeper. We’ll discuss your budget, technical requirements, and timeline. We’ll also talk about what the engagement might look like: Do you have an internal team we’d be working with? Who would be responsible for which decisions?

Then, using a blend of budgeting techniques, your pre-project consulting team will create an engagement model for your project. The model will help us consider different budgets, schedules, and plans. This can take a few weeks to put together.

The cost and duration of a new product’s development varies significantly based on the project's complexity and scope. While smaller projects might take a few months and cost as little as $50 thousand, larger endeavors could extend over a year with investments that exceed $1 million. Our iterative, agile approach allows for flexibility and adjustments as the project progresses, making it difficult to pinpoint an exact timeframe and investment without knowing the specific details of the project.

That said, we provide thorough budget and duration estimates to our clients at no cost to them during Pre-Project Consulting. For a transparent view into historical project costs, we share the investment clients have made with us over the last 5 years in this interactive tool.

While it's true that hiring an offshore or nearshore team might seem like a simple way to cut costs, we’ve put together a guide to help you understand the nuanced benefits and risks of teams located in a variety of geographies.

Though they cost more, U.S.-based firms provide the benefit of high throughput, high-quality deliverables, cultural alignment, and ease of communication. You can expect a high probability of project success, driven by top-quality deliverables and innovation.

Leaders that opt to work with nearshore teams will benefit from closer cultural and time zone alignment compared to offshore options and cost-effective solutions. However, it's important to note that the cost advantage for securing top nearshore talent compared to onshore talent is diminishing and is expected to continue to decline. Working with nearshore firms invites the potential for issues with quality, communication, and culture trade-offs that may increase cost, extend timelines and reduce cost advantages. They deliver a medium to high level of project success, balancing cost and quality, though they cannot match the innovation level of U.S. firms.

Offshore firms offer the lowest hourly rates, but face challenges like significant time zone and cultural differences, which complicate communication and collaboration, and necessitate extensive specification documentation. Geopolitical and legal resolutions also pose potential issues.

The cost savings are significant, but challenges in communication and time zone will impact project timelines and quality. For this reason, they result in a low to medium level of project success.

One of the major levers that changes the budget of a project is the location of the team that will deliver the project. From U.S.-based expertise to lower-cost offshore talent, each option has its pros and cons. We’ve put together a guide to help you understand the potential benefits and risks of teams located in a variety of geographies.

Once you’ve decided on the right location of your team, if you’re still seeing a gamut of estimates, remember that cheaper doesn’t always mean less expensive. We advise you to consider the potential vendor’s ability to optimize throughput, as opposed to selecting the lowest quoted cost—especially in the first six to 12 months of development.

Using this strategy, you can de-risk your enhancement project by avoiding the following common pitfalls of software development projects:

• Delayed delivery to market and revenue.
• Extended timeline driving higher cost and opportunity cost from your leadership team's time.
• Lower customer conversion and/or retention once the product gets to market
• Quality issues that are so bad, a rewrite is necessary.
• Data loss, financial loss, etc. that comes from bugs or security issues.
• Continued time loss and opportunity cost due to the inevitable debate about throwing good money after bad on a different low-cost provider or finding and selecting a high-throughput provider.

This question comes down to a trade-off between the value of niche expertise versus management and coordination overhead.

If you have the interest and skill to manage consultancies to each aspect of your innovation project, then you may find some benefit. But if you have competing priorities, hiring a full-project team gives you one team to hold accountable, reduces interdisciplinary friction, and keeps everyone focused on the same business outcomes.

Yes. We are a true one-stop shop for product, design, development, and support software consulting needs. We specialize in particularly complex, multi-domain projects.

We’re not a good fit to create a marketing site. Over the last 10 years, clients have invested more than $70 million building new software products with our teams, and they’ve offered us a perfect 5.0 referral rating on Clutch.

Since Atomic Object deploys teams of full-time employees on projects, our start date for projects depends on their availability. This means you won’t get stuck with an outsourced team, and when a project team is assigned to you, your needs become our priority.

Completing the form above will get you in touch with a Managing Partner who will work with you to understand your schedule constraints and do their best to meet them.

Atomic’s position as a mid-size company strikes the perfect balance. In the U.S., there are many small companies and relatively few large ones in our industry.

We find that employing more than 100 people allows us to fully meet your needs, while keeping our team smaller than those of 1,000+ employee consultancies ensures we offer personalized attention and flexibility.

Layer on the benefits of a fully on-shore team that works from in-person offices, and you’ll gain additional personalized attention from our mid-sized team.

We strongly believe that our teams can deliver great work for clients located across the country. But we also believe that the best teams must work in physical proximity with one another to maximize their success.

While many consultancies have opted to save resources with a remote-first approach, we’ve continued to invest in project success through our four offices where in-person teams collaborate on client projects every day. Our project work goes through collaborative cycles of generative activities, synthesis, and execution. The cycle repeats during the course of a project.

Our deliberate choice for a co-located team structure stems from a deep commitment to delivering unparalleled value to our clients and nurturing a vibrant company culture of learning and excellence.

Access to talent is essential, and Atomic Object’s offices are strategically located in regions with rich access to top talent. Our Career Accelerator, an accelerated professional development program for newly graduated computer science majors, helps us build our team of world-class software developers. Fair pay, strong benefits, continuous learning, ownership opportunities, and a sense of belonging help recruit top senior practitioners and help us grow an amazing team. Our retention of employees outperforms the market because of the added benefits of team cohesion and social bonds.

Managing Partners are your guide through the sales process. Each of them is a former software practitioner, and each owns P&L responsibility for the success of your project.

Other firms set you up with a detached salesforce that is paid on commission to close the sale, and then they pass you off to the project team.

Atomic’s Managing Partners are responsible for finding the best in-person teams to work from their office, and they talk to the practitioners on your project every day. Because of their practitioner background, they understand how to sell projects that have the best possible chance to succeed.

Managing Partners oversee both clients like you and the project team assigned to your project, so their priorities are aligned with yours.

At Atomic, we invest in an in-house technical recruiter who finds us the best U.S. talent. Our interview process, honed over more than two decades, helps us bring on not only exceptionally talented technical practitioners but also team members whose values align well with ours. These practitioners are adept at navigating consulting relationships and finding win-win situations for both clients and teams.

Atomic is carefully run by leaders who make decisions that prioritize the long-term. This means not only are your projects staffed by full-time employees for success, but the employment offering is designed to retain smart, talented consultants. Our turnover rate is only 8.8%, well below industry standards, which reflects our employees' high engagement and satisfaction.

This dedicated and engaged set of team members translates to proven client value; over the last decade, 38% of our revenue has come from satisfied clients coming back to Atomic for additional projects.

Absolutely, we're experienced at integrating new software with existing systems. Our goal is to ensure your new software works seamlessly with your current tools for maximum efficiency and seamless workflows.

We believe in an open, transparent communication approach throughout the modernization process.

Every project at Atomic has a team lead known as a Delivery Lead. This person is your consistent point of contact. Delivery Leads are tasked with three big responsibilities:

1. Equipping the team with everything they need to make forward progress,
2. Making sure that your priorities are our priorities, and
3. Keeping you informed about the project’s status.

Regular updates will be provided by your Delivery Lead, keeping you informed about every step and decision throughout the project.

The best technology stack for your project depends on your needs, goals, and resources. At Atomic Object, we are technology-agnostic and select the appropriate tools to ensure your software is robust, maintainable, and nimble.

Here’s a list of tools we’re used to working with, and we will adjust our recommendations based on what we observe about your existing stack, expertise, integrations, and industry.

Certainly. At Atomic Object, once the project is complete, you fully own the rights, including the source code and related documents, to the developed software.

We’ve provided some guidance about writing smart custom software development contracts with any vendor that helps you protect what’s yours (see “Intellectual Property Rights”).

We ensure software quality via rigorous practices: test-driven development, continuous integration, and regular code reviews.

Our multi-layered testing and steadfast focus on design and security make quality integral to our process.

In addition to each software developer receiving training and mentorship on coding with quality in mind, we employ full-time Quality Analysts who are deployed across projects as needed.

With any custom software project, it’s tempting to hit the ground running and try to figure things out along the way. This is especially true when revenue is at stake, speed-to-market is a concern, or business opportunities are waiting. However, the Research, Design, & Planning phase is a critical investment in time and energy that enables Atomic’s clients and teams to work quickly, have confidence, and ensure things go smoothly throughout the project.

We find that investment in this project phase yields value down the road in the form of:

• better alignment within and between the Atomic team and your team;
• product validation via user testing;
• technical validation for projects that include risky or innovative projects; and
• the development of a phased implementation plan.

We follow an agile approach, allowing us to embrace changes even during ongoing development. Our processes are geared to adapt, ensuring the final product suits your evolving needs.

Every project at Atomic has a team lead known as a Delivery Lead. This person is our client’s consistent point of contact. Delivery Leads are tasked with three big responsibilities:

1. Make sure that the team has everything they need to make forward progress,
2. Make sure that your priorities are our priorities, and
3. Keep you informed about the project’s status. Your delivery lead will be your point of contact to work through any changes to requirements and mid-project adjustments.

If you want your project to be around for years and years, don’t forget about it. Be sure to take a regular look at it to ensure that software stays secure and available, and ensure your team can quickly adapt to changing business and technology needs. It doesn’t need to be a big investment, but if you don’t make that investment regularly, you might be in for a big surprise instead.

You’ve made a big investment in creating a custom software package, but just because you’ve finished the feature work doesn’t mean the work is “done.” You want it to last for years to come. That means software project maintenance.

Post-launch, we provide flexible options for support and maintenance, including troubleshooting and updates, to ensure your software remains efficient and aligns with your evolving business needs.

Atomic takes clients’ security concerns seriously and we employ a host of best practices, published by organizations like NIST and OWASP, to ensure that all of our web apps are safe and secure. For apps that are at a high risk of being hacked, we work with customers to help them understand what level of investment in privacy and security makes sense for their project.

While a point of contact from your side can facilitate communication, no additional resources are required from you. Our team is fully equipped, but your involvement and feedback throughout the process remain invaluable.

With large investments, it’s common for organizations to create committees to manage them. The thinking is fairly straightforward; if there are more smart people in the know, the product will be the best version it can be. While this is somewhat true, it’s important to identify one directly responsible individual on your team to be the project’s leader.

A directly responsible individual owns one project or product. They can and should take input from other stakeholders, but the buck stops with them and they have the ultimate product decision-making authority.

One of the biggest benefits of this approach is the speed of decision-making. Hiring a team to build custom software is expensive. The last thing we want is for a team to sit idle waiting for product decisions to be made. If one person is responsible for decision-making, it speeds the entire process up.

If future growth necessitates scaling your software, we've got you covered. We build with growth in mind, employing practices and technologies for easy expansion. Our ongoing support ensures your software adapts alongside your business.

Since Atomic Object deploys teams of full-time employees on projects, our start date for projects depends on their availability. This means you won’t get stuck with an outsourced team, and when a project team is assigned to you, your needs become our priority.

Completing the form above will get you in touch with a Managing Partner who will work with you to understand your schedule constraints and do their best to meet them.

Yes. We are a true one-stop shop for product, design, development, and support software consulting needs. We specialize in particularly complex, multi-domain projects.

We’re not a good fit to create a marketing site. Over the last 10 years, clients have invested more than $70 million building new software products with our teams, and they’ve offered us a perfect 5.0 referral rating on Clutch.

The best technology stack for your project depends on your needs, goals, and resources. At Atomic, we’ve invested in poly-skilled, full-stack developers who are technology agnostic and trained to select the appropriate tools to ensure your software is robust, maintainable, and nimble.

These practitioners walk you through a brief Research, Design, & Planning phase to help you define and address any compatibility requirements upfront.

Here’s a list of tools we’re used to working with, and we will adjust our recommendations based on what we observe about your existing stack, expertise, integrations, and industry.

This question comes down to a trade-off between the value of niche expertise versus management and coordination overhead.

If you have the interest and skill to manage consultancies to each aspect of your innovation project, then you may find some benefit. But if you have competing priorities, hiring a full-project team gives you one team to hold accountable, reduces interdisciplinary friction, and keeps everyone focused on the same business outcomes.

We believe in an open, transparent communication approach throughout the modernization process.

Every project at Atomic has a team lead known as a Delivery Lead. This person is your consistent point of contact. Delivery Leads are tasked with three big responsibilities:

1. Equipping the team with everything they need to make forward progress,
2. Making sure that your priorities are our priorities, and
3. Keeping you informed about the project’s status.

Regular updates will be provided by your Delivery Lead, keeping you informed about every step and decision throughout the project.

In today’s custom software services space, there are a few levers that affect project cost, which can lead to different budget estimates for your project.

Whether you’re hiring an internal team or external partner, it’s unwise to shop for the lowest cost. Instead, work with teams optimized for maximum throughput while also making sure you are paying on-market for that type of engagement.

Using this strategy, you can de-risk your enhancement project by avoiding the following common pitfalls of software development projects:

• Delayed market delivery impacting revenue
• Extended timelines increasing costs and consuming significant leadership time
• Lower customer conversion or retention post-launch
• Severe quality issues requiring costly rewrites
• Data or financial losses due to bugs or security issues
• Wasted time and resources debating whether to continue investing in a low-cost provider or switch to a more efficient, albeit pricier, option

This approach helps prevent these pitfalls, safeguarding your project's success and long-term value.

While it's true that hiring an offshore or nearshore team might seem like a simple way to cut costs, we’ve put together a guide to help you understand the nuanced benefits and risks of teams located in a variety of geographies.

Though they cost more, U.S.-based firms provide the benefit of high throughput, high-quality deliverables, cultural alignment, and ease of communication. You can expect a high probability of project success, driven by top-quality deliverables and innovation.

Leaders that opt to work with nearshore teams will benefit from closer cultural and time zone alignment compared to offshore options and cost-effective solutions. However, it's important to note that the cost advantage for securing top nearshore talent compared to onshore talent is diminishing and is expected to continue to decline. Working with nearshore firms invites the potential for issues with quality, communication, and culture trade-offs that may increase cost, extend timelines and reduce cost advantages. They deliver a medium to high level of project success, balancing cost and quality, though they cannot match the innovation level of U.S. firms.

Offshore firms offer the lowest hourly rates, but face challenges like significant time zone and cultural differences, which complicate communication and collaboration, and necessitate extensive specification documentation. Geopolitical and legal resolutions also pose potential issues.

The cost savings are significant, but challenges in communication and time zone will impact project timelines and quality. For this reason, they result in a low to medium level of project success.

Atomic’s position as a mid-size company strikes the perfect balance. In the U.S., there are many small companies and relatively few large ones in our industry.

We find that employing more than 100 people allows us to fully meet your needs, while keeping our team smaller than those of 1,000+ employee consultancies ensures we offer personalized attention and flexibility.

Layer on the benefits of a fully on-shore team that works from in-person offices, and you’ll gain additional personalized attention from our mid-sized team.

Managing Partners are your guide through the sales process. Each of them is a former software practitioner, and each owns P&L responsibility for the success of your project.

Other firms set you up with a detached salesforce that is paid on commission to close the sale, and then they pass you off to the project team.

Atomic’s Managing Partners are responsible for finding the best in-person teams to work from their office, and they talk to the practitioners on your project every day. Because of their practitioner background, they understand how to sell projects that have the best possible chance to succeed.

Managing Partners oversee both clients like you and the project team assigned to your project, so their priorities are aligned with yours.

We strongly believe that our teams can deliver great work for clients located across the country. But we also believe that the best teams must work in physical proximity with one another to maximize their success.

While many consultancies have opted to save resources with a remote-first approach, we’ve continued to invest in project success through our four offices where in-person teams collaborate on client projects every day. Our project work goes through collaborative cycles of generative activities, synthesis, and execution. The cycle repeats during the course of a project.

Our deliberate choice for a co-located team structure stems from a deep commitment to delivering unparalleled value to our clients and nurturing a vibrant company culture of learning and excellence.

Access to talent is essential, and Atomic Object’s offices are strategically located in regions with rich access to top talent. Our Career Accelerator, an accelerated professional development program for newly graduated computer science majors, helps us build our team of world-class software developers. Fair pay, strong benefits, continuous learning, ownership opportunities, and a sense of belonging help recruit top senior practitioners and help us grow an amazing team. Our retention of employees outperforms the market because of the added benefits of team cohesion and social bonds.

At Atomic, we invest in an in-house technical recruiter who finds us the best U.S. talent. Our interview process, honed over more than two decades, helps us bring on not only exceptionally talented technical practitioners but also team members whose values align well with ours. These practitioners are adept at navigating consulting relationships and finding win-win situations for both clients and teams.

Atomic is carefully run by leaders who make decisions that prioritize the long-term. This means not only are your projects staffed by full-time employees for success, but the employment offering is designed to retain smart, talented consultants. Our turnover rate is only 8.8%, well below industry standards, which reflects our employees' high engagement and satisfaction.

This dedicated and engaged set of team members translates to proven client value; over the last decade, 38% of our revenue has come from satisfied clients coming back to Atomic for additional projects.

We are experienced in making enhancements without disturbing ongoing operations. This is achieved through phased implementations and careful scheduling, minimizing impact on your day-to-day operations.

Our Delivery Leads excel at keeping clients and key stakeholders well-informed throughout the enhancement process.

They ensure all stakeholders are aligned by clearly communicating what to expect and managing potential disruptions during the Research, Design, & Planning Phase.

Atomic takes clients’ security concerns seriously and we employ a host of best practices, published by organizations like NIST and OWASP, to ensure that all of our web apps are safe and secure. For apps that are at a high risk of being hacked, we work with customers to help them understand what level of investment in privacy and security makes sense for their project.

We invest heavily in our developers’ professional development to ensure they have a solid and up-to-date understanding of common vulnerabilities, security strategies, and modern tools to support security before they engage your project.

Our quality assurance process involves multi-stage, rigorous testing, including unit testing, integration testing, randomized testing, system testing, and user acceptance testing.

This robust approach assures the highest quality standards for all changes or enhancements before their deployment.

Atomic is dedicated to producing high-quality, well-maintained software products. By building a strong foundation that supports scalability, adaptability, and future iterations, clients can avoid costly overhauls as their user base expands.

When confronted with numerous potential features and requirements, we prioritize and identify key areas for future opportunities and flexibility. Instead of incorporating every conceivable feature, your team will emphasize designing a flexible architecture to accommodate future enhancements. This forward-thinking approach enables scalability, adaptability, and the ability to respond to changing market dynamics.

As part of the enhancement process, we offer training and support to your staff. Our aim is to ensure a seamless transition for your team, promoting a smooth adoption of the enhanced software functionalities.

If you’re looking for additional support after the engagement’s end, we also offer Continuous Improvement Engagements that allow you to reserve a developer’s time on a regular cadence, typically one full day each week (or month). This model proactively helps you sustain the performance and overall health of your enhanced software.

In Continuous Improvement Engagements, developers will typically perform performance monitoring, error triage, infrastructure tuning, basic updates, keeping the test suite healthy, and maintaining documentation.