Tobias Davis

Designing better software systems.

Free resources for building better systems, get on the email list, or use RSS.

Site logo image

Hey there! 👋 My name is Tobias Davis. I’m a solo software designer: I help companies build custom software that fits their specific needs.

Software is written by people and for people, and I believe that the bigger problems in software systems aren’t technical–they come about because of things like poor communication, unclear vision, and poor work culture.

Understanding the human element of software systems has opened my eyes to things like the importance and complexity of knowledge sharing within teams, and the importance of having a long term vision for any software service.

Currently I’m working as a solo software consultant for businesses that are too small to hire their own team, but big enough where custom software will give them a strong leverage instead of be a liability.

In the past I worked with From Now On as the system architect and engineering lead, designing a backend architecture that handled over 80 mobile apps, with each app having as many as tens of thousands of sport fans getting real-time stat updates and game notifications.

While at From Now On, I was the lead architect and engineer for a large migration of system architecture, which dramatically decreased server load, allowing the company to drastically reduce costs while also scaling up the number of clients they could support.

I also planned and executed a large ~2 year migration project, taking a backend+frontend CMS from Jade (now called Pug) to Svelte. This migration, along with many architectural changes, allowed them to significantly lower the cost of feature development and ongoing maintenance.


Some personal things about me:


Here are some things I’ve done for other clients in the past:


Bullet point overview of my career in software: