Essays on mobile engineering, infrastructure, product design, and the quiet business of running a studio — from the senior team at Origen Software, Cape Town.https://origen.software/en-gbhttps://origen.software/journal/developer-handover-checklist/https://origen.software/journal/developer-handover-checklist/The last invoice is the only real leverage you will ever have over a handover. Fifteen things to have in your possession before you pay it — and the three that people discover are missing six months later, when getting them has become somebody else's decision.Sun, 26 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTStudiohttps://origen.software/journal/developer-went-quiet/https://origen.software/journal/developer-went-quiet/The replies got slower, then stopped. Nobody is answering and you are holding a half-built product you cannot read. Here is the order to do things in — what to secure first, what to stop doing, and how to work out whether the thing is recoverable before you spend anything else on it.Sun, 26 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTEngineeringhttps://origen.software/journal/how-to-write-a-software-brief/https://origen.software/journal/how-to-write-a-software-brief/A good brief isn't a specification — it's the document that lets someone experienced tell you something you don't want to hear, early, while it's still cheap. What to put in one, what to leave out, and why the section everyone skips is the one that saves the project.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTStudiohttps://origen.software/journal/signs-your-agency-is-failing/https://origen.software/journal/signs-your-agency-is-failing/Development relationships rarely collapse with a bang. They degrade, quietly, while the status reports stay green. Seven signals we see in almost every build we're called in to rescue — and what to do about each one.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTOpinionhttps://origen.software/journal/keep-fix-or-cut/https://origen.software/journal/keep-fix-or-cut/What we actually look at in the first two weeks of taking over someone else's codebase — and how we decide what survives. Notes from the rescues we've run.Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTEngineeringhttps://origen.software/journal/the-expensive-window/https://origen.software/journal/the-expensive-window/The months between the raise and the product are the most expensive of a company's life, and most of the expense is invisible. Notes on spending the window rather than losing it.Tue, 09 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTStudiohttps://origen.software/journal/the-second-job/https://origen.software/journal/the-second-job/Nobody hires a founder to run standups. How delivery quietly becomes the CEO's second job, what it actually costs, and what ownership looks like when somebody else carries it.Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTOpinion