Nairobi, Kenya

Engineer-led · Nairobi, Kenya

Software that fits how your business actually works.

Auto Dev Labs designs, builds and runs business technology — web and mobile applications, automated workflows, cloud infrastructure and management systems. Every engagement starts with a written scope and a price, so nothing is a surprise.

3+ years

Hands-on engineering experience per engineer

13 services

From web builds to automation and cloud

3 working days

From your brief to a written, fixed-price proposal

Technologies our engineers work with

TypeScriptReactNode.jsPythonPostgreSQLn8nDockerAWSAzureCloudflare

Chosen per project against your existing systems — never a fixed stack we push on everyone.

01What we do

13 services, one accountable team

Design and build, automation and AI, cloud operations, and advisory. Each service page sets out the exact deliverables and the technologies involved.

Custom Software Development

Software built around how your business actually works.

  • A written scope: user roles, workflows, and what is in and out of the first release
  • Working software delivered in increments, deployed where you can use it
  • Role-based access control and an audit trail on sensitive actions
Read more

Web Development

Corporate websites, e-commerce and web applications that hold up under real traffic.

  • Design and build of the pages agreed in scope, responsive from mobile up
  • A content management setup so your team can edit copy without a developer
  • Technical SEO groundwork: titles, metadata, sitemap, structured data, clean URLs
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Mobile App Development

Android and iOS applications, built once where a shared codebase makes sense.

  • Screen-by-screen design agreed before development starts
  • A cross-platform or native build, depending on what the requirements justify
  • Backend API and data layer, or integration with a system you already run
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Workflow Automation with n8n

Automating the copy-paste work between the tools you already pay for.

  • A map of the current process, with the manual steps and the time they cost
  • Automated workflows covering the steps agreed as in scope
  • A self-hosted n8n instance on your infrastructure, where data residency matters
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AI Integration & Data Solutions

Applied AI on your own data, with the limits stated up front.

  • A defined use case with a success measure agreed before we build
  • Document question-answering over your own content, with cited sources
  • Extraction and classification pipelines for invoices, forms and records
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Cloud Services & DevOps

Infrastructure that can be rebuilt from code, and deployments that are boring.

  • A migration or setup plan with a rollback path, agreed before any cutover
  • Infrastructure defined as code, versioned in your repository
  • CI/CD pipelines so a release is a reviewed merge, not a manual upload
Read more

02Who we build for

The sectors these systems are built for

We list these because they are the problems our engineers understand and have built for — not because we can name a client in each. If your sector is not here, the underlying work is usually the same; ask us.

SACCOs & microfinance

Member portals, loan and contribution tracking, M-Pesa reconciliation and the reporting a regulator will ask for.

Logistics & transport

Fleet and consignment tracking, driver applications that work on poor connections, and delivery-proof capture.

Healthcare & clinics

Patient records, appointment and billing systems, and integrations with insurers — built around confidentiality rules.

Education & training

Student information systems, fee tracking, results portals and course delivery platforms for schools and colleges.

Agribusiness

Producer and outgrower registries, collection and weighbridge records, payments to farmers and traceability data.

Retail & e-commerce

Storefronts, stock and multi-branch inventory, local payment and delivery integrations, and back-office automation.

Professional services

Client and matter management, quoting and invoicing, document workflows and the internal tools that replace spreadsheets.

NGOs & public sector

Beneficiary and programme data, field data collection that works offline, and donor or county reporting.

03How we work

You always know what happens next

  1. 01

    Discovery call

    A free 30-minute conversation about the problem, the constraints and the budget range. If we are not the right fit, we say so on this call.

  2. 02

    Scope & written quote

    We define what the first release includes and excludes, then quote it as a fixed price in a statement of work you can take to procurement.

  3. 03

    Design & architecture

    Screens and data model agreed before the build. Changing a diagram is cheaper than changing a shipped feature.

  4. 04

    Build in increments

    Short cycles with something reviewable at the end of each. You see progress in a working environment, not in a status report.

  5. 05

    Test & launch

    Functional, performance and security checks, a staged rollout with a rollback path, and a launch date agreed rather than announced.

  6. 06

    Handover & support

    Documentation, training and code in a repository you own — followed by a support retainer if you want us to keep it running.

04Ways to work with us

Four ways to buy the work

How settled your requirements are decides the contract shape. A fixed-price project is the usual starting point, with a retainer added once the system is live.

Fixed-price project

A defined scope, a fixed price and milestone invoicing. Best when the requirements are clear enough to write down.

Websites, defined systems, integrations

Monthly retainer

An agreed pool of hours each month for maintenance, support and continuous improvement, with a written response commitment.

Live systems, ongoing improvement

Dedicated engineers

Engineers embedded in your team at a monthly rate, taking direction from your leads and working in your repository.

Existing product teams needing capacity

Advisory

A fixed-fee review with a written recommendation, or ongoing technical advice without a build attached.

Build-versus-buy and audit decisions

06About Auto Dev Labs

A new company, built by engineers who are not new to this.

We are a Nairobi-based software engineering company with a dedicated team of experienced engineers — each with 3+ years of hands-on delivery across web, mobile, cloud and automation work, most of it taken on individually and as contractors before this.

Every engagement runs on the same terms: a written scope, a fixed price agreed before any code is written, working software you can review as it is built, and a documented handover into accounts you own.

Read the full story

Registered in Kenya

Operating from Nairobi, remote-first, invoicing in KES or USD.

Direct to engineers

You talk to the people writing the code, not to an account manager.

You own everything

Repositories, cloud accounts and credentials stay in your name from day one.

Data protection built in

Encryption, role-based access and retention windows implemented, not just asserted.

07What we put in writing

Guarantees you can hold us to

Every item below is a contractual term in the statement of work you sign — not a sentiment on a website.

A fixed price, signed first

The statement of work lists deliverables, exclusions, milestones and the price. We do not start building against a verbal brief.

Your accounts, your repository

We work inside your own source-control and cloud accounts. Nothing has to be migrated away from us at the end, because it was never ours.

IP yours on payment

All intellectual property in the work transfers to you outright. No licence-back, no per-seat fee, no dependency on a component only we can maintain.

NDAs signed individually

We will sign yours or ours, both as a company and by each engineer personally. Access is granted per person and revoked when they leave the project.

Working software every week

A weekly demo of something you can open and click, on a URL you can reach. Progress you can verify rather than a percentage in a report.

Handover as a deliverable

Documentation, credentials and a training session are line items in the scope, not favours at the end. You can hire someone else to take over.

We decline work we should not take

If a project needs deeper specialist experience than we can field, or does not need custom software at all, you hear that on the first call.

You can leave cleanly

Give notice and we invoice only delivered milestones, then hand over the code and credentials as they stand. Being easy to leave keeps us honest.

08Questions

What people ask before they call

Straight answers on cost, ownership, timelines and support.
How do we know our project is in safe hands?

Because the terms are written to put that control on your side rather than ours. The price is fixed and signed before any code is written, the repository and cloud accounts are in your name from day one, and you see working software every week rather than a status report. If we stop being useful, you keep everything built so far and can hand it to any other team.

How much will my project cost?

Every service we offer has a published band in Kenyan shillings, so you can tell before you call whether we are in your range. Your own number comes after a 30-minute call and a written scope — usually within three working days — and it is a fixed price, not an hourly estimate that drifts. If your budget cannot cover what you are describing, we say so on the first call instead of quoting anyway.

How long does a project take?

A corporate website is typically three to four weeks. A first usable release of a management system or a mobile application is usually six to twelve weeks depending on how many integrations it needs. Automation work is often live within two weeks. Every scope we send carries dated milestones rather than a single delivery date.

Who owns the code, the designs and the accounts?

You do, from the first commit. We work inside your own source-control and cloud accounts wherever possible, so there is nothing to migrate at handover and no leverage held over you. On payment, all intellectual property in the work is yours outright.

Can you work with the systems we already run?

That is usually the job. Most of our work connects to something already in place — an accounting package, a payment provider, a spreadsheet that has become load-bearing, an existing database. We scope the integration explicitly rather than assuming access, and we tell you early if a vendor's API cannot do what the plan needs.

Do you offer support after launch?

Yes, as an optional monthly retainer covering patching, monitoring, backups and small improvements, with a written response commitment. Support hours and escalation paths are defined in the agreement, so the cover you are paying for is unambiguous. If your operation needs round-the-clock cover, we will scope it deliberately rather than attach a blanket SLA to the contract.

Do we have to meet in Nairobi?

No. We are based in Nairobi and are happy to meet in person, but most projects run remotely with a scheduled weekly call. We have worked this way for years as contractors, and it is why clients outside Nairobi are no harder for us to serve than clients down the road.

What happens if we need to stop the project?

You give notice, we invoice only for milestones already delivered, and we hand over the code, credentials and documentation as they stand. Our Refund and Cancellation Policy sets out the detail. Being able to leave cleanly is a feature, not a loophole.

Ready to modernize your business technology?

Book a free 30-minute consultation with the engineers who would do the work. We'll assess your requirements and share a fixed-price proposal within three working days.