Our story

From a two-person studio to a 42-person partner shop.

Plutonic Tech started in 2014 as two engineers and a designer in a 12-square-meter office in downtown San Francisco. Our first client was a fintech startup that couldn't get an MVP off the ground after six months with two other agencies. We shipped it in eleven weeks. They're still our client today.

Twelve years later, we're still the same shop in spirit: senior people, small teams, end-to-end ownership, and an obsession with the boring details that make software work. We've grown carefully — turning down more work than we accept — because we believe that craft is what compounds.

Today we work with founders, scaling startups, and select enterprise teams who want senior product partners, not vendor relationships. We've shipped 540+ projects, retained 98% of our clients, and never missed a launch date.

Founded 2014

Twelve years of shipping in production

3 studios, 1 culture

San Francisco · London · Singapore

42 people

Senior engineers, designers, and PMs

540+ projects

Across fintech, health, SaaS, retail

Our values

Six things we don't compromise on.

These aren't posters on the wall — they're how we hire, fire, scope, and ship. If we miss on one of these, we own it publicly.

01

Senior people only

Every person on your engagement has shipped real product before. No juniors hidden in the org chart, no learning on your dime.

02

Transparent by default

You see our planning docs, our Friday demo recordings, and our internal Slack channel for your project. The same view we have.

03

Outcomes over outputs

We measure success in user activation, revenue, and retention — not in tickets closed or screens shipped. Roadmaps are working hypotheses.

04

Code you can hire for

Boring, well-tested, well-documented stacks that your future team can join in their first week. No proprietary frameworks, no lock-in.

05

Honest scoping

If we don't think we should take the work, we'll tell you. If we think you should hire in-house, we'll tell you that too. Trust beats revenue.

06

One team, one bill

Strategy, design, and engineering under one roof and one rate card. No agency-of-record handoffs, no integration overhead.

Our journey

Twelve years, one bet at a time.

A short, honest history. We've intentionally kept the team small and grown by reputation — these are the milestones that mattered.

2014

Founded in a 12sqm office

Two engineers and a designer take on a fintech MVP that two other agencies had abandoned. Ship in eleven weeks. Get our first referral.

2016

First 10-person milestone

Move into a proper studio in the Financial District. Hire our first three senior engineers and our first product manager. Cross 50 shipped projects.

2018

Launched the Squad model

Stop selling time-and-materials. Introduce embedded squads with weekly working demos and 3-month minimum engagements. Client retention jumps from 71% to 94%.

2020

Remote-first, permanently

Closed the office for three months, never went back to required attendance. Opened studios in London and Singapore to follow the senior talent we'd been quietly recruiting.

2022

The 500th launch

Shipped our 500th production project — a logistics platform for Northwind. Started publishing our internal playbooks as the Field Notes series.

2024

42 people, holding steady

Made an intentional decision to cap headcount at 50 senior people and grow project depth instead of breadth. Launched the Studio engagement tier for long-term partners.

2026

Still picking up the phone

Twelve years in, 98% client retention, no outside investment. Same studio, same standards, same Friday demos.

Our team

The people you'll actually work with.

No bait-and-switch. The names below are the people who'll show up to your kickoff, send your Friday demo, and answer your 11pm Slack message.

AR

Aisha Rahman

Co-founder · Engineering Lead

DC

Diego Costa

Co-founder · Design Director

PV

Priya Venkatesan

Head of Product

MO

Marcus Okafor

Head of Cloud & DevOps

LH

Lena Hartmann

Principal Engineer

NK

Noah Kim

Lead Product Designer

SI

Sara Ibarra

Head of Growth

TB

Theo Bramwell

Engineering Manager · London

How we work

A studio designed for senior people.

No standups for the sake of standups, no perf reviews you don't see coming. Just clear ownership, real autonomy, and meaningful work.

Async-first

Two meetings a day, max. Everything else lives in writing — searchable, scannable, and not stuck in someone's calendar. Deep work is the default mode, not the exception.

Work from anywhere

We have studios in three cities and team members in twelve countries. Work the hours that suit your life — we care about outcomes, not chairs in seats.

Learning budget

Every team member gets $3,000/year for books, courses, and conferences — and four paid Fridays a year for deep-dive learning sprints on whatever you want.

Profit sharing, real equity

15% of annual profit is shared with the team. Senior staff get meaningful equity grants. We've never raised outside capital — what we build, we own together.

In good company

Teams that trust us with the hard problems.

A small sample of the founders, product teams, and engineering organizations we've worked with over the last decade.

Want to work with us — or work for us?

Whether you have a project to scope or a CV to send, we read every message that comes in.