01
Custom backends
Typed, tested services in Node, Python, Go, or Rust. Auth, billing, search, queues, AI pipelines - written to fit your domain, not a template.
§ 00 - A technology studio · est. 2026
off the leash · burst of creativity
Engineering
with wings.
We make
magnificent things.
Monarch TCH builds software that balances engineering discipline with the lightness of craft. Three strands - Technology, Creating, History - woven into every product we ship.
A flock of engineers, designers, and strays who fell in love with the tinker. We build weird software on purpose - and ship it anyway.
§ 01 - The three strands
three strands
Three letters. One flight path.
T / 00
T
Technology
Technology, broadly. From Postgres queues and typed services to embedded firmware on microcontrollers, desktop and mobile apps, AI-powered systems. Whatever the problem needs - that's what we ship.
We touch metal. We poke microcontrollers. We make AI hallucinate on purpose. The bench is loud and almost always smells like solder.
C / 01
C
Creating
The workshop. Prototyping as a habit, not a phase. We sketch in code, test with users on day three, and ship small weekly increments.
Sketch on day zero. Demo on day three. Throwaway prototypes that secretly become the product. The throwaway is the point.
H / 02
H
History
The long view. Every decision is documented, reversible, and told as a story - so the team that inherits this code can read it like a letter.
Every project leaves a scar. Every commit gets remembered. Someone will read this at 2am - we want them to smile.
§ 02 - On request
You ask if we can.
We ask when.
Possibility isn't the bottleneck. Time and scope are. Tell us the brief, the deadline, and the budget - we'll come back with a plan, not a maybe.
Tell us when →§ 03 - Below the surface
Simple on the surface.
Serious underneath.
We build the backbone and the front door - APIs, ERPs, schedulers, integrations, and the marketing sites, mobile apps, and dashboards that sit on top of them. Both halves matter. Most clients hire us for the half no one sees.
02
APIs, integrations & data
REST, GraphQL, tidy RPC. Stripe, CRMs, AI providers, legacy systems. ETL, schemas, scheduled pipelines - with retries, observability, and migrations you can actually run.
03
Web apps & ERPs
The bespoke admin dashboards, multi-tenant SaaS, and internal systems companies actually run on. Where the real money lives, even if no one screenshots it.
04
Marketing sites & CMS
Public-facing sites, headless CMS (Sanity, Payload, custom), landing pages, blogs. The part marketing fights about; the part engineering keeps alive.
05
Mobile apps
iOS, Android, or cross-platform with React Native. Offline sync, native integrations, the lot. We pick native vs cross-platform based on what the product actually needs.
06
Load-bearing
The work that keeps a product up at 3am. Schedulers, queues, migrations, monitoring - the bits no customer ever sees. Less photogenic than a landing page. Far more load-bearing.
§ 03·b - The tools on the bench
Programming is the skill. The language is just a tool.
We pick what fits the problem - not what's trendy, not what's familiar. Below, a snapshot of what tends to live on our bench.
Languages
TypeScript most frontends, most backends
Python data, ML, quick APIs
Rust when it has to be fast and right
Go lean services, CLIs, glue
Kotlin Android, JVM services
Swift iOS, macOS, native Apple
PHP pragmatic, still excellent
C++ performance-critical internals
C embedded, the metal layer
Frameworks
Next.js production web, SSR, edge
React UI, prototypes, apps
NestJS structured Node backends
Svelte lighter, sharper UIs
Flutter one codebase, two stores
FastAPI Python services, typed
Axum Rust web services
Gin fast Go HTTP
Laravel PHP at full velocity
Data
PostgreSQL the default. always.
MongoDB when documents fit better
MariaDB classic SQL when it makes sense
Redis caches, queues, locks
Elasticsearch real search, real logs
GraphQL typed APIs at scale
Tools & Infra
Docker everything ships in a container
Git the only version control
Linux where code actually runs
Cloudflare edge, DNS, caching, sanity
Vercel Next.js, painlessly
Nginx reverse proxy, no drama
Kubernetes when one box isn't enough
Terraform infra as code, reviewable
Hardware
ESP32 wifi-connected microcontroller fun
Arduino prototypes, sensors, weird ideas
…and whatever else a project quietly needs. The list shifts every year - that's the point.
§ 04 - Partners & clients
The people we build with.
Most of our work is the backbone of someone else's product - APIs, schedulers, internal tools, the things that don't make good marketing screenshots but quietly run the business. So instead of case studies, here are the teams we currently ship for, in plain text.
00 Partificial AI AI · Automotive Industry · ongoing 2026– ↗01 Lepidoptera Labs Research · data pipelines 2026– ↗02 Moments Forever Memorial · sharing platform 2026– ↗03 Paketomat Logistics · last-mile delivery SaaS 2026– ·04 Preventa ERP · fire-safety industry 2026– ↗05 Two more under NDA Backend for a logistics platform & a health tool 2026 ·
§ 05 - How we work
Metamorphosis, not magic. A four-stage cycle we run for every engagement.
Egg
Brief, research, and a written hypothesis. Two weeks, fixed fee.
Larva
Prototypes in the hands of users. We argue with the evidence, not each other.
Pupa
Production build in small, shippable slices. Weekly demos, monthly retros.
Imago
Handover with a runbook, a story, and a future self-maintainable system.