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PilakaTech
AI-first software development services

We build software at AI speed, with one senior engineer accountable for every line.

Pilaka Tech is a software studio built around AI from the ground up. We design, build and operate production systems — a principal engineer leading the work end to end, AI doing the mechanical heavy lifting, and vetted specialists joining when the scope genuinely needs them.

  • You talk to the engineer who builds it
  • Weekly working software
  • You own the code
  • Two engagements at a time
Services

Service lines that cover the whole product lifecycle

Engage us for a single capability or for the entire path from idea to a system running in production.

AI product engineering

End-to-end product delivery where AI is part of both the product and the way we build it — from problem framing to a released, instrumented product.

LLM & agent systems

Retrieval, agents and copilots built with evaluation and guardrails from day one, so quality is measured rather than assumed.

Custom software & platform engineering

The dependable core: APIs, services, integrations and internal platforms designed to stay changeable as your business shifts.

Data & AI infrastructure

Your models are only as good as the data behind them. We build the pipelines, stores and contracts that make AI features trustworthy.

Cloud, DevOps & reliability

Automated delivery and operations so shipping is routine — infrastructure as code, continuous deployment and observability by default.

Legacy modernization

AI-assisted analysis of legacy code and data makes migration paths concrete, so modernization happens incrementally instead of as a risky rewrite.

Quality & test automation

Automated test suites, AI-generated coverage for gaps and pipelines that block regressions before review.

AI enablement & advisory

For teams that want to build in-house: an honest assessment of where AI helps, a prioritised roadmap and hands-on enablement for your engineers.

Explore all services
Work

What we have shipped

Live products we can talk about. The list is short on purpose — we add a case when the client is comfortable being named.

LiveChennai, India

Adiyogi Training

Website, trainee portal and admin console

A marketing website, trainee portal and admin console for a Chennai training centre that runs practical soft-skills, behavioural and career-readiness programs for schools, colleges, corporates and individual learners.

Read the case
See all work
Why Pilaka Tech

A studio small enough to care, with the leverage to deliver

Generated code is easy. Systems that stay correct, secure and maintainable are not. These are the principles that keep both, and the reason we stay deliberately small.

  • AI-first, human-accountable

    AI accelerates research, code, tests and documentation. A principal engineer still owns every design decision and reviews every line that ships.

  • One owner, no handoffs

    The person who scopes the work is the person who builds it. Nothing is lost between a salesperson, an account manager and a delivery team you never meet.

  • Small on purpose

    We run a deliberately small number of engagements at once. When scope needs more range, we add vetted specialists to the work rather than padding a team.

  • Weekly working software

    Progress is demonstrated on a deployed environment every week, not reported in a status document.

  • Transparent commercials

    Clear rates, clear scope and a written engagement model. No surprise change requests for work that was always implied.

  • Yours to own and to leave with

    Code, infrastructure, credentials and documentation live in your accounts from day one, documented well enough for another team to take over without a discovery phase.

How we work

A delivery process designed for AI-assisted engineering

Five phases, weekly demos, and a human review gate on every change that reaches your codebase.

  1. 01

    Align

    We agree on the business outcome before writing code, and name the metric that tells us the work succeeded.

  2. 02

    Architect

    A thin vertical slice proves the risky parts of the architecture early, while decisions are still cheap to change.

  3. 03

    Build

    Weekly increments to a real environment. Every change is read by a human and gated by automated checks.

  4. 04

    Harden

    Performance, security, accessibility and cost are treated as release criteria rather than post-launch cleanup.

  5. 05

    Operate & scale

    We run the system, watch how it is used, and feed real usage back into the roadmap — or hand it over cleanly.

See the full process
Engagement models

Work with us the way your project actually needs

Fixed scope, principal-led pod, embedded engineers or advisory — the commercial model follows the problem, not a template.

Discovery & prototype sprint

Prove the idea before funding the build

Commitment
2–4 weeks, fixed fee
Commercials
Fixed price per sprint
Most popular

AI product pod

Principal-led delivery, sized to the work

Commitment
Monthly, 3-month minimum
Commercials
Flat monthly fee, scoped to the pod shape

Fixed-scope build

Defined outcome, milestone billing

Commitment
6–20 weeks, milestone-based
Commercials
Fixed price per milestone

Embedded engineers

Senior capacity inside your team

Commitment
Monthly rolling, 30-day notice
Commercials
Monthly rate per engineer

Managed support & reliability

Keep what you shipped healthy

Commitment
Monthly rolling
Commercials
Retainer by support tier

Fractional CTO & AI advisory

Senior technical judgement, part-time

Commitment
Monthly, days-based
Commercials
Day-rate block per month
Compare models side by side
FAQ

Questions we get before the first call

If yours is not here, ask us directly — we answer every enquiry ourselves.

What does “AI-first” actually mean in your delivery?

It means AI is used in the day-to-day mechanics of engineering — requirement analysis, code generation, test writing, migration analysis, documentation and operational triage — and it also means we know how to build AI features into your product. What it does not mean is unreviewed generated code: every change is read, reasoned about and signed off by the principal engineer, and gated by automated checks.

You are a small studio. How do you deliver work of real scale?

Three ways. AI removes most of the mechanical effort that used to require extra hands, so one experienced engineer covers ground that recently needed several. We keep only two engagements active at a time, so your work gets genuine attention rather than a slice of a shared team. And when a project needs range we do not have in-house — specialist mobile, design, security or data work — we bring in vetted specialists from our network under the same standards and the same accountability. If a project genuinely needs a twenty-person team, we will tell you that in the first call.

What happens if the principal engineer is unavailable?

Continuity is designed in rather than promised. Everything runs in your accounts and repositories, decisions are documented as we go, and infrastructure is reproducible from code. For longer engagements we name a backup engineer from our network up front, so there is always someone briefed on your system.

How quickly can an engagement start?

A discovery sprint can usually begin within one to two weeks of the first conversation, subject to current capacity. Larger builds depend on the skill mix required, and we will always give you an honest start date rather than an optimistic one.

Who owns the code and the intellectual property?

You do, in full. We work in your repositories and cloud accounts wherever possible, and IP assignment is part of the contract from the start.

Can we change engagement model later?

Yes, and most clients do. A typical path is a discovery sprint, then a pod for the initial build, then a support retainer once the product is live and stable.

How do you handle data privacy and security?

We scope data access to the minimum required, keep client data out of model training, prefer providers with zero-retention terms for sensitive workloads, and can work entirely within your own cloud and tooling when your policies require it.

Do you work with existing in-house teams?

Often. We can lead delivery, embed alongside your engineers, or act purely as an advisor and reviewer — the engagement model is chosen to fit how your team already works.

Why choose a studio over an agency of the same price?

You get the senior engineer instead of the sales team. There is no bench to keep busy, no margin on junior hours and no incentive to stretch scope, so the advice you get is the advice we would follow ourselves. The trade-off is capacity: we cannot start five projects next month, and we will say so rather than take the work.

Let's scope your next build

Discovery calls open shortly. Send us the outcome you need in the meantime and we will reply personally, with an honest view of when we could start.