The app your junior developer built worked at the time. Now it's holding your business back.
Apps built by junior developers under time pressure have specific failure modes: fragile architecture, no test coverage, security gaps, and technical debt that makes every new feature 3x harder than it should be. We audit and rebuild them properly — fixed scope, fixed price.
Your app works — mostly. But your dev is afraid to touch certain parts of the codebase. New features take longer than expected because everything is entangled. Users report bugs that are impossible to reproduce. And you're not entirely sure it's secure.
Junior developers build what they know how to build — and what junior developers know how to build is often technically functional but architecturally problematic. The application works at small scale because at small scale, architectural decisions that will cause problems later don't show their consequences yet. A monolith with no separation of concerns, authentication middleware that can be bypassed with a crafted request, database queries that do full table scans, N+1 query patterns that are invisible with 1,000 records but catastrophic with 100,000 — none of these problems are visible on the day the app ships.
The tell-tale signs are consistent: the development velocity starts high and gradually slows as the technical debt accumulates. Bug fixes introduce new bugs because the codebase isn't modular enough to change one thing without affecting another. Features that should take a day take a week because the data model doesn't support them cleanly. Security vulnerabilities get reported and fixed reactively rather than designed out proactively. Test coverage is zero or near-zero, so the team is afraid to refactor.
The hardest conversation in this situation is with the developer who built the app — either a junior hire or a freelancer — who is defensive about the code quality because the application is running and (mostly) functional. "It works" is the answer to every architectural concern, even when the correct answer is "it works until it doesn't."
A rebuilt or significantly refactored application with proper architecture, test coverage, security hardening, and a codebase where new features can be added without fear — delivered by a developer who's done this before.
Security audit first
Authentication gaps, authorisation holes, injection vulnerabilities, exposed secrets, missing rate limiting, and CSRF protection. We fix critical security issues as the first deliverable, before any architectural work.
Architecture assessment
Data model analysis, API structure review, authentication and authorisation implementation, query performance analysis, and test coverage assessment. The audit produces a specific list of problems ranked by severity and impact.
Refactoring plan vs. rebuild recommendation
Some apps are worth refactoring in place — the data model is sound, the business logic is correct, but the implementation has specific problems that can be corrected incrementally. Others are better rebuilt from scratch because the foundational decisions are wrong. We make this recommendation honestly based on the audit.
Test coverage implementation
Unit tests for business logic, integration tests for API endpoints, end-to-end tests for critical user flows. The test infrastructure that makes future development safe.
Performance optimisation
Query analysis and optimisation. Index additions for frequently queried columns. N+1 query elimination. Caching for expensive operations. Built on or refactored to Next.js, TypeScript, Postgres, Clerk — depending on what's worth preserving from the current stack.
One honest number to start.
Fixed-scope, fixed-price. The number below is the starting point — final scope is built from your brief.
A rebuilt or significantly refactored application with proper architecture, test coverage, security hardening, and a codebase where new features can be added without fear — delivered by a developer who's done this before.
Three steps, every time.
The same repeatable engagement on every project. No surprises, no mystery, no billable ambiguity.
Brief & discovery.
We send you questions, then get on a call. Output: a written scope with every step, feature, and integration listed.
Build & ship.
Fixed schedule, weekly reviews. No scope creep unless you change the scope — and if you do, we reprice it transparently.
Warranty & retainer.
30-day warranty on every launch. Most clients stay on a monthly retainer for ongoing features and maintenance.
Why Fixed-Price Matters Here
Technical debt projects are notorious for scope creep — the further you dig into a bad codebase, the more problems you find. Fixed scope, fixed price requires us to define the audit scope and remediation scope explicitly before starting. We don't charge by the problem we find; we scope the remediation based on what the audit reveals and price it before starting the work.
Related engagements.
Questions, answered.
Normal technical debt accumulates in every codebase — the question is whether the architecture is sound and the debt is manageable, or whether the foundational decisions are wrong and the debt is structural. Signs of structural problems: authentication or authorisation that could be bypassed, a data model that doesn't model the actual domain correctly, or an API structure where every endpoint requires significant change when business requirements change.
An independent code audit by a senior developer produces a specific, documented assessment of the codebase's architecture, security, performance, and maintainability. This is the same audit we do before every rescue engagement. An audit can be scoped as a standalone deliverable — the findings speak for themselves.
If the developer who built the app is willing to learn and address the specific issues, and the issues are remediable without a rebuild, a structured remediation plan with clear deliverables and developer coaching can work. This requires the developer to have the capability and the humility to accept the assessment. It doesn't work if the developer is defensive about fundamental architectural problems.
Audit + security hardening + refactoring or rebuild typically runs $25k–$65k. The audit cost is credited against the total if you proceed with the remediation work. Fixed-price.
8 to 14 weeks for a full audit and remediation or rebuild.
Tell Ryel about your project.
Describe what you’re building and what outcome you need. You’ll have a written, fixed-price scope within the week.