about ›

Built the way we build.

CoreBackend is a deliberately small backend engineering firm — led by its founder, with senior engineers engaged per project and sized to each engagement — based in Los Angeles, working remote-first. 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 project · no juniors

baseLos Angeles, CA · remote-first

stackgo · postgres · redis · aws · kubernetes · terraform

billing$0 upfront · first invoice at ~50–70% delivered

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–senior-only-staffing.md proof › a named architect on every project →

-Sell the architect in the pitch, staff the project with juniors at blended rates.

+Every engineer has 10+ years in production. The person who designs your system builds it.

#cost › at capacity we turn down work — we don't scale by hiring down

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 — and the first invoice comes only after roughly 50–70% of the agreed scope is delivered and working.

#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.

+100% of the IP is yours. Runbooks and knowledge transfer are deliverables, and the blueprint is yours to build with anyone.

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

people ›

Who You'll Work With

One architect, accountable by name, from whiteboard to production. You meet them at the Architecture Review; they stay through launch. Behind them, senior engineers — and nobody else.

# 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.