Custom software development, from first design to production.

Backend systems, cloud infrastructure, web front ends, AI integrations, Mac apps and mobile apps. A small team of highly experienced engineers designs and builds your software, with a background in systems that serve hundreds of millions of users and in products this studio runs today.

ran@lemonberrylabs.com
WRITING AND RUNNING PRODUCTION SOFTWARE
25+ years
THE SCALE WE HAVE BUILT PRODUCTION SYSTEMS FOR
100M+ users
UNDER THE PROTOBUF STANDARDS OUR FOUNDER SET AT COINBASE
700+ repos
DESIGNED, BUILT AND RUN BY THIS STUDIO
6 products
01 / WHO THIS IS FORIF THIS IS YOU, WE SHOULD TALK.

When a senior
engineer is the fix.

Most projects reach us in one of four states. We work on our own or alongside your team in all of them.

01

You have a product to build and no senior engineer to build it.

We take it from a description to a running product: architecture, code, infrastructure and launch. You get working software to react to every week.

02

Your team has a hard part nobody has time for.

A migration, a new service, a performance problem, a platform your other engineers depend on. We take ownership of it and hand it back documented.

03

A system is slow, fragile or expensive to run.

We find out why with measurements, fix the causes in order of impact, and leave monitoring behind so you can see it stay fixed.

04

You need an AI feature that works in production.

A demo is easy to build. We build the version that handles bad input, has tests for model behavior, and has a known cost per request.

02 / WHAT YOU GETSOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

One small team.
Every layer.

We work across the whole stack, so there is no handoff between the people who design the system and the people who build it.

01 /

Backend systems

APIs in REST, GraphQL and gRPC, data models, queues, and durable workflows that resume after a crash. Written in Go, TypeScript or Rust on Postgres.

BACKEND DEVELOPMENT
02 /

Cloud infrastructure

AWS, Google Cloud, Vercel and Cloudflare, defined as code with Pulumi or Terraform. CI/CD pipelines, monitoring, alerting and cost control included.

INFRASTRUCTURE & DEVOPS
03 /

Web front ends

Fast, accessible interfaces in React, Next.js and TypeScript, from marketing sites to full product applications with payments and accounts.

FRONT-END DEVELOPMENT
04 /

AI integrations

Language-model features inside your product: retrieval over your data, tool use, MCP servers that let AI assistants operate your product, and evaluations that catch regressions.

APPLIED AI
05 /

Mac applications

Native macOS apps with global shortcuts, keyboard-first interfaces and a downloadable installer. Mindthreads, on the studio homepage, is one of ours.

macOS DEVELOPMENT
06 /

Mobile applications

iOS and Android apps built with React Native and Expo, together with the backend, authentication, payments and notifications they need.

iOS & ANDROID
03 / WHO LEADS THE WORK RAN MAGEN · FOUNDER

25 years of experience,
on your project.

I’m Ran Magen, the founder, and I lead every project we take on. This is where I learned to build systems that keep working as they grow.

Altys

CO-FOUNDER

An AI learning app for kids. I run the technical side of the company: the Go backend, the cloud infrastructure, and how we ship.

Lemonberry Labs

FOUNDER & CEO

I build, launch and support products with paying customers, Lemonvite among them, and I lead every client project. It taught me what engineering work a business needs.

Coinbase

TECH LEAD, BACKEND PRODUCTIVITY

I was the technical lead for backend engineering productivity. I led the migration to GraphQL Federation, set Protobuf standards across more than 700 repositories, and founded the Server Foundations Guild.

Apollo GraphQL

ENGINEER, FEDERATION & INFRASTRUCTURE

I worked on backend infrastructure and Federation, and wrote the next-generation Federation gateway in Rust.

Amazon Web Services

ENGINEER, MEDIACONNECT

I built AWS Elemental MediaConnect, a live video transport service, from its first line of code.

Twitter

TECH LEAD, TIMELINES INFRASTRUCTURE

I was the tech lead for Timelines infrastructure: Home, Profile and Notifications. I owned tweet fanout, the system that writes each new tweet into its followers’ timelines, for hundreds of millions of users.

Startups

ENGINEER

I built distributed systems at Dapper (acquired by Yahoo), my6sense, and Worklight (acquired by IBM), after eight years building for the web.

More about the studio
04 / PROOFBUILT, SHIPPED, OUT IN THE WORLD.

Shipped, and
still running.

We build and operate our own products, so we pay for our own technical decisions. A few you can open right now.

01

Lemonvite

WEB PRODUCT · PAYMENTS · AI INTEGRATION

Digital invitations with RSVP tracking, payments, and delivery by email and text. AI assistants can run it through its own MCP server.

02

Pathstone

REALTIME MULTIPLAYER

A two-player strategy game in the browser, with realtime play and game state stored in Postgres.

03

Mindthreads

NATIVE MAC APP

A keyboard-first macOS app for tracking the parallel threads of work you are holding in your head.

04

BitPulse

INFRASTRUCTURE & ADVISORY

Designed and codified the company’s cloud infrastructure and CI/CD as its technical advisor.

05

Open source

GO LIBRARIES · DEVELOPER TOOLS

duro for durable dataflow pipelines, lemonfig for hot-reloadable configuration, and a local emulator for Google Cloud Workflows.

05 / HOW IT WORKSFROM FIRST EMAIL TO DONE.

Working software,
every week.

  1. 01 /

    Scoping call

    You describe the product or the problem. We ask about users, constraints, deadlines and what already exists, and tell you if we are the wrong fit.

  2. 02 /

    Written proposal

    Scope, architecture, milestones and price in a document you can share. You know what you are buying before you commit.

  3. 03 /

    Build in your repository

    The code lives in your repository from the first day. You get a demo of working software every week and can change priorities as you learn.

  4. 04 /

    Launch and handoff

    Deployment, monitoring, documentation and runbooks. We can keep maintaining it, or hand it to your team with a walkthrough.

06 / QUESTIONSASKED BEFORE MOST FIRST CALLS.

Questions,
answered.

Something else? Write to ran@lemonberrylabs.com.

Who works on my project?

A small team of senior engineers, led hands-on by our founder, Ran Magen. The people on your first call are the people who build your software. When a project needs a specialist, such as a designer, we bring in someone we have worked with before and tell you first.

Which languages and platforms do you work with?

Go, TypeScript and Rust on the backend; React and Next.js on the web; React Native and Expo for iOS and Android; native apps for macOS; Postgres for data; and AWS, Google Cloud, Vercel and Cloudflare for infrastructure. We can also work in the stack your team already has.

Can you work with our existing team and codebase?

Yes. Much of our background is platform work for other engineers, so we are used to joining an existing codebase, following its conventions, and leaving it in better shape than we found it.

Who owns the code?

You do. The code is written in your repository under your accounts, and the intellectual property is assigned to you in the contract.

How do you price a project?

After the scoping call we send a written proposal with scope, milestones and a price. Well-defined projects get a fixed price per milestone. Open-ended work is billed weekly.

Do you use AI coding tools?

Yes, every day. They let a small team cover more ground. We read, test and take responsibility for every line that ships, and we tell you where your code and data go.

What size of project do you take on?

From a two-week fix or prototype to a product built over several months. For work that needs a large team for a long time, we are better used as the architects and technical leads alongside your engineers.

ALSO FROM THE STUDIO

AI workflows & automation

AI workflows that take over the repetitive work in your business, with a person approving what needs judgment.

ALSO FROM THE STUDIO

Coaching

Technical leadership coaching and interview preparation for senior, staff and principal engineers.

07 / NEXT STEP

Tell us what
you need built.

A paragraph is enough to start: what it is, who it is for, and when you need it.
Or write to ran@lemonberrylabs.com.