Our Process
A structured 10-step development lifecycle — from initial discovery through production deployment and beyond.
How We Work
Every project follows a consistent process that reduces risk, maintains quality, and keeps all stakeholders aligned. Each step has defined inputs, outputs, and participants — so you always know what to expect and when.
Inquire
Initial consultation to understand your business objectives, technical constraints, and project scope.
Every engagement begins with a structured discovery call. We identify your business objectives, technical constraints, timeline expectations, and key stakeholders. This is not a sales pitch — it is a working session where we assess whether the project is a good mutual fit and gather the information needed to produce a meaningful proposal.
Deliverables
If proprietary information will be shared, we execute an NDA before the technical discussion begins. The output of this phase is a documented understanding of your goals, an initial assessment of complexity, and a clear next step — typically a more detailed research phase or a direct proposal if scope is well-defined.
Who Is Involved
Your project sponsor or decision-maker, our business analyst or solutions architect, and a technical lead who can assess feasibility in real-time.
Research
Technical feasibility analysis, competitive benchmarking, and architecture evaluation.
Before committing to an architecture or timeline, we invest time in understanding the landscape. This includes analyzing your existing systems (if any), reviewing competitor implementations, evaluating third-party APIs and integration points, and assessing technical risks that could impact delivery.
Deliverables
The research phase produces a technical feasibility document covering recommended architecture, identified risks with mitigation strategies, third-party dependency assessment, and a preliminary effort estimate. For complex projects, this may include a proof-of-concept for high-risk components.
Who Is Involved
Our solutions architect and senior engineers conduct the analysis. Your technical team participates in existing system walkthroughs and provides access to documentation, APIs, and infrastructure details.
Discuss
Collaborative requirements refinement, user-story mapping, and sprint planning.
With research complete, we move into collaborative requirements definition. This phase uses structured workshops — user story mapping sessions, acceptance criteria definition, and scope boundary discussions. The goal is a shared understanding of what will be built, how it will behave, and what constitutes "done" for each feature.
Deliverables
A prioritized product backlog with user stories, acceptance criteria, and effort estimates. A scope agreement document that defines what is included in the engagement, what is explicitly excluded, and how change requests will be handled. Sprint structure and communication cadence are finalized.
Who Is Involved
Your product owner, key stakeholders, and end-user representatives. Our team includes a business analyst, technical lead, and the engineers who will execute the work.
Design
Wireframing, prototyping, UI/UX design, and system architecture documentation.
Design at Stripe Systems covers both user experience and system architecture. UX design follows a research-informed process: wireframes establish layout and task flows, interactive prototypes validate usability with stakeholders, and visual design applies branding and interaction details. System design runs in parallel — database schemas, API contracts, service boundaries, and infrastructure topology are documented before development begins.
Deliverables
Figma wireframes and visual mockups with responsive breakpoints. System architecture diagrams (C4 model or equivalent). Database schema documentation. API contract definitions (OpenAPI 3.0). Infrastructure-as-code templates for target environments.
Who Is Involved
UI/UX designers, system architects, and database engineers. Your team reviews and approves designs through structured feedback rounds.
TDD Develop
Test-driven development with automated tests written before feature implementation.
Development follows the red-green-refactor cycle: write a failing test that defines expected behavior, write the minimum code to make it pass, then refactor for clarity and performance. This is not aspirational — it is enforced through CI pipeline gates that reject merge requests with insufficient test coverage.
Deliverables
Working software delivered in 2-week sprints with demo sessions at the end of each sprint. Each sprint produces tested, reviewed, deployable code. CI pipelines run on every push: linting, static analysis, unit tests, integration tests, and security scans. Sprint velocity data is tracked and shared for planning accuracy.
Who Is Involved
Full development team — engineers, QA, and a scrum master. Daily standups, sprint planning, and retrospectives follow standard Scrum ceremonies. Your product owner participates in sprint reviews and backlog grooming.
Test
Manual exploratory testing, automated regression suites, performance and security validation.
Testing is not a phase that happens after development — it is integrated into every sprint. QA engineers participate from sprint planning onward, writing test cases from acceptance criteria before development begins. This means test execution can begin as soon as features are code-complete.
Deliverables
Comprehensive test execution across multiple layers: manual exploratory testing for UX and edge cases, automated regression suites (Playwright or Cypress for E2E, Jest for unit/integration), performance testing with defined load profiles (JMeter or k6), and security scanning (OWASP ZAP, dependency auditing). UAT is coordinated with your team before any production deployment.
Who Is Involved
QA engineers lead execution. Developers provide support for bug investigation. Your team participates in UAT with structured test scripts and defect tracking.
Go Live
Staged deployment with rollback procedures, smoke testing, and production monitoring setup.
Production deployment follows a structured checklist, not a "push and pray" approach. We validate the application in a staging environment that mirrors production configuration. Deployment is automated through CI/CD pipelines with rollback procedures tested before go-live.
Deliverables
Staging environment validation report. Production deployment with blue-green or canary strategy. DNS cutover and SSL certificate verification. Smoke test execution confirming all critical paths work in production. Monitoring alerts configured for error rates, response times, and infrastructure health. Post-deployment observation period with the team on standby.
Who Is Involved
DevOps engineers manage the deployment. QA executes smoke tests. Your team verifies business-critical workflows. A rollback decision point is defined with clear criteria.
Marketing
Launch support including SEO optimization, analytics integration, and go-to-market coordination.
For products that need user acquisition, we provide technical support for marketing launch activities. This is not a marketing agency service — it is the technical implementation of SEO, analytics, and store presence that development teams typically handle.
Deliverables
SEO technical setup: meta tags, structured data (JSON-LD), sitemap generation, robots.txt configuration. Analytics integration: Google Analytics 4, event tracking for key user actions, conversion funnel setup. For mobile apps: App Store and Play Store listing optimization, screenshot generation, and metadata preparation. Launch coordination timeline with your marketing team.
Who Is Involved
Our development team handles technical implementation. Your marketing team provides content, brand assets, and campaign coordination.
Support
SLA-backed maintenance with defined response times, bug fixes, and feature enhancements.
Post-launch support is delivered under a defined SLA with response time commitments based on issue severity. This is structured maintenance, not ad-hoc troubleshooting. We monitor application health, address bugs within agreed timeframes, apply security patches, and provide regular health reports.
Deliverables
SLA document defining severity levels and response times (e.g., Critical: 4-hour response, Major: 24-hour response, Minor: 72-hour response). Monthly health reports covering uptime metrics, error trends, performance data, and dependency update status. Bug fixes, security patches, and minor enhancements delivered within the support scope.
Who Is Involved
A dedicated support engineer serves as your primary contact. Escalation paths to senior engineers and architects are defined for complex issues.
Scale Up
Performance optimization, infrastructure scaling, and iterative feature development as usage grows.
As your product gains users, the system needs to scale accordingly. This phase focuses on identifying bottlenecks through performance profiling, implementing infrastructure scaling strategies, and planning the feature roadmap for the next growth phase.
Deliverables
Performance profiling reports identifying bottlenecks (database queries, API response times, memory usage). Infrastructure scaling recommendations — horizontal scaling, caching strategies, CDN configuration, database read replicas. Capacity planning models based on projected usage growth. Feature roadmap for the next 2-3 quarters based on user feedback and business priorities.
Who Is Involved
Senior engineers and architects lead the analysis. Your product team provides usage data, business growth projections, and feature priorities.
Ready to Start?
Step 1 is a conversation. Tell us about your project and we'll outline the path forward.
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