Technology Selection
Choosing the wrong technology for a critical system is one of the most expensive mistakes a team can make, and it is usually made in a two-hour meeting based on who gave the most impressive demo. We run structured evaluations that match candidates to actual requirements, surface the hidden costs and constraints each option carries, and produce a documented recommendation that leadership can act on and engineering can execute.
Capabilities
What technology selection consulting covers
Make or procure
Build vs. Buy Analysis
Structured analysis of whether to build a capability in-house or purchase a third-party solution. We evaluate the true total cost of building (development time, maintenance, staffing) against the true total cost of buying (license, integration, vendor dependency, data portability) and produce a recommendation with explicit assumptions.
Technology stack decisions
Framework and Language Selection
Evaluating competing technical frameworks or languages for a new project against specific criteria: team familiarity, ecosystem maturity, performance requirements, long-term support trajectory, and hiring market depth. We do not recommend frameworks on industry trend grounds alone.
AWS vs. GCP vs. Azure
Cloud Platform Comparison
Comparing cloud provider capabilities, pricing models, and service availability against your specific workload requirements. Cloud platform decisions have long lock-in consequences; we evaluate them carefully against what you actually need to run, not against marketing claims about which platform is the most capable.
Relational, document, or time-series
Database Technology Selection
Selecting the appropriate database technology — PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, DynamoDB, TimescaleDB, ClickHouse — based on the access patterns, scale requirements, consistency needs, and operational complexity your team can support. Database selection mistakes are among the most expensive to undo.
CRM, ERP, and operational tools
SaaS Vendor Evaluation
Evaluating competing SaaS platforms for operational systems — CRM, ERP, project management, communication, or data infrastructure — against a structured criteria matrix. We interview vendors, test API capabilities, review pricing and contract terms, and produce a comparison that goes beyond the standard feature checklist.
How to decide
Evaluation Framework Design
For organizations that need to make recurring technology decisions (a platform team evaluating internal tools, a product organization selecting third-party integrations), we design a repeatable evaluation framework with defined criteria, scoring methodology, and decision documentation templates.
Our approach
Requirements before candidates
A technology evaluation that starts with the candidates rather than the requirements is an exercise in confirmation bias. We begin by documenting the functional requirements, performance requirements, operational constraints, and team capability constraints — then identify candidates that could meet them. This prevents the common pattern of falling in love with a product before establishing whether it actually fits.
Total cost of ownership includes the hidden parts
The license fee is the visible cost of a SaaS tool. The hidden costs are: integration engineering time, data migration effort, training and adoption overhead, vendor lock-in cost if you ever need to leave, and the negotiating leverage you lose once you are dependent on the platform. We surface these as part of any vendor evaluation.
We document the rationale, not just the conclusion
A recommendation without documented rationale is not transferable. If the person who received the recommendation leaves, or if circumstances change and the decision needs to be revisited, the reasoning behind the original choice needs to be available. We document the evaluation criteria, the scoring, and the reasoning so that the decision can be understood and revisited later.
Our recommendation is independent
We do not take referral fees from software vendors and we do not have preferred partner relationships that influence our recommendations. Our only interest is in identifying what is actually best for your situation. If no available option meets the requirements adequately, we say so rather than recommending the least-bad option without qualification.
All engineering work is done by US-based engineers. We do not offshore any development or architecture work.
Part of our Consulting practice
FAQ
Common questions
Virginia · United States
Facing a major technology decision?
If your team is about to commit to a platform, framework, or vendor and wants independent validation before signing, reach out and we will structure the evaluation.