Product Development Teams That Ship, From Portugal
Senior engineers taking a product from idea to something your users actually open.
The whole path, not a slice of it. A small team — usually four to six people, senior engineers plus design — starts with discovery, then builds in short cycles. Front end, back end, the plumbing, and the unglamorous DevOps that keeps it online.
If you already have some of that in house, we slot in next to it rather than around it. No islands, no parallel roadmap, no integration phase at the end where two half-products meet for the first time.
Most builds run three to nine months depending on scope and how clean the requirements are. The first couple of weeks are discovery and a rough plan. After that: biweekly demos, working software, and honest status. We try hard to keep it boring in the good way.
What you get
Design and engineering in one team
Not a design agency handing static files to a separate build team. The people making interface decisions are in the same standup as the people implementing them.
Demos, not status reports
Biweekly working software. If something is off track you will see it in a demo rather than read it in a RAG status three weeks later.
An exit that is not a cliff
Keep a squad on retainer, or take it in house with a proper handover. Documentation is written for someone new reading it cold, because that is usually the case.
Included
- Discovery and product definition
- UI/UX design
- Full-stack engineering
- API and data architecture
- Cloud infrastructure and CI/CD
- Biweekly demos and written status
- Handover documentation and onboarding
Selected work
A few projects where this was the job.
Didimo
Application designed and created to support creation of 3D avatars from a picture. All the 3D rendering was built with Unity and the mobile applications were developed natively in Swift (iOS) and Kotlin (Android).
oneFit
Fitness mobile application design featuring personalized workout plans, weekly progress tracking, and video-guided exercises. Clean, modern interface with workout categories (warmup, cardio, cool-down), gym challenges, and an integrated timer for active sessions. Designed for seamless user experience from onboarding to workout completion.
Manifest
Immigration and visa services platform helping individuals navigate their visa journey with confidence. Features three core tools: sponsored job finder for O-1 and H-1B opportunities, visa timeline and cost estimator, and visa type comparison. Serves both individuals and businesses with lawyer network access.
Common questions
What does product development at Alongside actually cover?
Pretty much the whole path. A small team of senior engineers plus design, usually four to six people, kicks off with discovery, then builds in short cycles. We do the front end, the back end, the plumbing, the boring DevOps that keeps it online. If you already have some of that in house, we slot in next to it. No islands.
How does an engagement usually run and how long is it?
Most builds sit somewhere between three and nine months, depending on scope and how clean the requirements are. First couple of weeks is discovery and a rough plan. Then biweekly demos, working software, and honest status. We try hard to keep it boring in the good way. No Friday night heroics.
What happens after launch? Do we lose the team?
You pick. Some clients keep a small squad on a retainer to keep shipping. Others want a proper handover so their own people take it over. We write the README like someone new has to read it on a Monday, because that is usually the case. No hidden knowledge, no hostage code.
Do you work in regulated or hardware-adjacent domains?
Yes. A good part of our work has involved industrial and regulated contexts — manufacturing control systems integrating with physical equipment, energy and electrical certification, healthcare, and financial workflows. Those projects tend to be less about novel technology and more about getting the domain model right and being disciplined where correctness genuinely matters.
Can you work with our existing engineering team?
That is the common case, not the exception. Shared repository, shared review process, agreed boundaries on who owns what. The failure mode to avoid is two teams building in parallel and integrating at the end, so we would rather split by capability than run a separate track.
