about ›

Built the way we build.

CoreBackend is a deliberately small, Los Angeles-based backend engineering firm, working remote-first — founder-led, with senior engineers engaged per workstream; the engineer you talk to leads and builds the work. This page is how the firm itself is engineered: the decisions we run on, what each one costs us, and who you'll actually work with.

core@backend — about

$ core about

teamfounder-led · senior engineers per workstream · same engineers start to finish

baseLos Angeles, CA · remote-first

stackgo · postgres · redis · aws · kubernetes · terraform · c#/.net · sql server · azure · language-agnostic

billing$0 upfront · starter: one invoice, after you accept the work · larger work: milestone by milestone

principles ›

Decisions We Run On

Five decisions about how the firm works, written as diffs against the industry default. The red line is what we replaced. Each decision carries its cost — a principle that costs nothing isn't a principle.

decisions/01–founder-led-staffing.md proof › how we work →

-Sell the architect in the pitch, then hand the build to someone else.

+Founder-led, with senior engineers engaged per workstream; the engineer you talk to leads and builds the work.

#cost › at capacity we turn down work rather than hand it on

decisions/02–boring-technology.md proof › built with › on all three systems →

-Résumé-driven architecture — five microservices before product-market fit.

+Go, PostgreSQL, Redis, Kubernetes, Terraform, proven queues — chosen for the team that operates the system, not the deck that sells it.

#cost › we lose the bids that want a buzzword inventory

decisions/03–labeled-claims.md proof › “modeled, benchmark-gated” →

-“10× faster” — no baseline, no denominator.

+Every figure is measured, or labeled modeled and gated by benchmarks before we treat it as real.

#cost › our numbers sometimes look smaller than competitors' — they're also checkable

decisions/04–nothing-upfront.md proof › the gates →

-A deposit before the first line of code.

+The Review is free, the blueprint is approved before build. Starter engagements are one invoice, after you accept the work. Larger work is billed milestone by milestone, at prices fixed in the blueprint you approve.

#cost › we carry the early risk on every engagement

decisions/05–replaceable-by-design.md proof › the exit gate →

-Lock-in dressed up as partnership — proprietary glue, a maintenance contract you can't leave.

+Everything we build for you is yours under your contract's terms. Our pre-existing tools are licensed to you perpetually at no cost; open-source components stay under their own licenses. Runbooks and knowledge transfer are deliverables, and the blueprint is yours to build with anyone.

#cost › no lock-in revenue — you stay because it works, or leave with the keys

people ›

Who You'll Work With

The engineer you talk to leads and builds the work. You meet them at the Architecture Review; they stay through launch.

# nothing you send us disappears — it comes back as working software

overlap › US hours + a daily window for European teams

Names and records appear here per engagement — you're introduced to your architect at the Review, not to a wall of headshots.