ZovraLabs
Our approach

How we build

Senior squads, short feedback loops and production software from the first sprint. It's how Zovra Labs turns an idea into a tailor-made system your teams rely on, in weeks rather than years.

Start a projectSee our work
  1. Discover
  2. Design
  3. Build
  4. Launch
  5. Run
Principles

Six things we won't compromise on

They shape every decision, from the first workshop to the thousandth deploy. They're why our systems get adopted, and why clients keep building with us.

Your processYour dataYour customersYour rules
01

Build around the business

We start from how your teams actually work and what makes you different, then shape the software to fit. Never the other way round.

02

Senior people only

Every squad is led and staffed by engineers who've shipped at scale. No bait-and-switch, no juniors learning on your budget.

03

Ship early and often

Production deploys from sprint one and a demo every week. Feedback arrives while it's still cheap to act on.

04

You own everything

Source code, infrastructure-as-code, models, prompts and docs: all in your repositories and cloud accounts from day one.

05

AI where it earns its place

We use Claude, Gemini, GPT or open-weight models when they measurably beat simpler code, and we prove it with evals.

06

Security by design

Threat modelling in Design, secure SDLC in Build, least-privilege access and audit trails everywhere. Compliance evidence is produced as we go, not scrambled for at the end.

  • SOC 2
  • ISO 27001
  • HIPAA
  • GDPR
  • PCI DSS
  • EU AI Act
  • OWASP ASVS
  • NIST AI RMF
Delivery lifecycle

Discover. Design. Build. Launch. Run.

Five stages, one senior team throughout. Each stage ends with something tangible you can see, use and sign off, so there are no surprises.

  1. 01

    Discover

    2–3 weeks

    Understand the business before touching the code.

    What happens

    • Workshops with leaders and the people who'll use the system
    • Shadowing real workflows, mapping data and systems of record
    • Technical audit of the estate you already run

    What you get

    • Workflow and data maps
    • Prioritised roadmap
    • Fixed-price first release
  2. 02

    Design

    2–4 weeks

    Make it real enough to test, before it's expensive to change.

    What happens

    • Clickable prototypes tested with end users
    • Target architecture, security model and AI approach
    • Delivery plan with milestones and acceptance criteria

    What you get

    • Tested prototype
    • Architecture decision records
    • Signed-off release scope
  3. 03

    Build

    6–16 weeks

    Two-week sprints, production from sprint one.

    What happens

    • Cross-functional squad shipping in two-week sprints
    • Integrations, migration and AI features built alongside
    • Weekly demos on a live environment

    What you get

    • Working software every week
    • Code in your repositories
    • Automated test suites
  4. 04

    Launch

    2–6 weeks

    Go live calmly, and make sure people actually use it.

    What happens

    • Load, security and failover testing
    • Phased roll-out, parallel runs and data cut-over
    • Role-based training and in-app onboarding

    What you get

    • Production release
    • Runbooks and documentation
    • Adoption dashboard
  5. 05

    Run

    Ongoing

    Operate, improve and extend what we built.

    What happens

    • SRE, monitoring and on-call under an agreed SLA
    • A continuous roadmap driven by usage data
    • Or a structured hand-over to your own team

    What you get

    • SLA-backed operations
    • Quarterly roadmap reviews
    • A system that keeps its edge
Engagement models

Four ways to work with us

Most clients start with a sprint or a fixed-scope build, then move to a dedicated squad or run & evolve once the first release is live.

014 weeks

Product sprint

Validate an idea or de-risk a decision with a working, deployable prototype and a costed plan.

Best for
New products, AI use-cases, build-vs-buy calls
Team
3–4 people
Commercials
Fixed price
023–12 months

Dedicated squad

A cross-functional, senior squad that ships your system end to end and blends with your team.

Best for
Platforms, CRMs and programs with an evolving roadmap
Team
5–8 people
Commercials
Monthly, per squad
038–20 weeks

Fixed-scope build

A clearly defined system or release, delivered against agreed acceptance criteria.

Best for
Portals, integrations, migrations, well-bounded agents
Team
4–6 people
Commercials
Fixed price, milestone billing
04Ongoing

Run & evolve

We operate, secure and improve what we built, with a roadmap driven by real usage.

Best for
Systems in production that need to keep their edge
Team
Flexible capacity
Commercials
Monthly, SLA-backed
What a squad looks like

Small, senior and cross-functional

A typical Zovra Labs squad is five to eight people who stay with your system from the first workshop to go-live. Most squads blend with your own engineers, so the knowledge stays with you.

5–8

people per squad, one team with yours

Meet the company
  • Engagement LeadThroughout

    Your single point of accountability for scope, budget and outcomes.

  • Solution ArchitectThroughout

    Owns the architecture, security model and the technical decisions behind them.

  • Software Engineers2–4 full-time

    Full-stack, data and platform engineers who ship production code every sprint.

  • Product DesignerDiscover to Launch

    Research, prototypes and a design system your users actually enjoy.

  • AI EngineerAs needed

    Retrieval, agents, evals and guardrails, wired into the product.

  • QA & DevOpsThroughout

    Test automation, CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code and observability.

  • Plus your people. A product owner and domain experts from your side keep the squad pointed at what matters.

Engineering standards

Quality isn't a phase. It's the pipeline.

The same standards apply to every system we build, whatever its size. They're automated wherever possible, so they never get skipped under deadline pressure.

feat: partner payouts #482READY
Review: 2 approvalspassed
Unit & integration tests · 1,284passed
Coverage 91%passed
SAST & dependency scanpassed
Accessibility (axe) · 0 violationspassed
Terraform plan · 3 changespassed
Deploy previewrunning

Definition of done · enforced in CI

  • Code review

    Every change reviewed by a second senior engineer before it merges.

  • Automated tests

    Unit, integration and end-to-end suites run on every commit.

  • CI/CD

    Trunk-based delivery with preview environments and one-click rollback.

  • Infrastructure as code

    Terraform and policy-as-code. No hand-built environments, ever.

  • Observability

    Logs, traces, metrics and alerting in place before go-live.

  • Documentation

    Architecture decisions, runbooks and API docs kept next to the code.

  • Accessibility

    WCAG 2.2 AA as a baseline, checked automatically and by hand.

Communication cadence

You'll always know where things stand

No black boxes and no status theatre. Just a steady rhythm of working software, honest numbers and fast decisions.

Release 1 · burn-up

68 / 76 points

ScopeDone
S1S2S3S4S5S6S7S8S9S10

On track

Release date

94%

Budget vs plan

2

Open decisions

  • Every week

    Live demos

    Working software on a real environment, with time for your feedback.

  • Every day

    Shared Slack or Teams channel

    Direct access to the engineers building your system. No ticket queues.

  • Every two weeks

    Steering meeting

    Scope, risks, budget and decisions with your sponsors, in 45 minutes.

  • Always on

    Transparent burn-up

    Scope, progress and spend in a live dashboard you can open any time.

Let's build your edge.

Bring us a goal, a problem or a half-finished system. Within a week you'll have a scoped plan, an architecture and a fixed-price first release.

Start a projectSee our work