Independent studio · Moray, Scotland

Websites.Software.Automation.

A founder-led practice in Moray, with nearly twenty years of software engineering behind it. We take on straightforward business websites, and the bespoke systems, integrations and automation that a company needs when the usual tools stop fitting.

Let's talk about your project See selected work

What we do

A proper website, or the harder engineering.

Some clients need a site they are happy to send to customers. Others need software that joins up their people, data and tools. We do both, and we talk about the work in plain language.

  1. 01 Website Design & Development

    A clear, well-made website for a business that wants to look credible and be easy to contact.

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  2. 02 Bespoke Business Software

    A system built around your process, when the tools on the shelf force the business to work their way.

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  3. 03 AI & Workflow Automation

    Repetitive steps taken out of the day, and language tools used where they earn their place.

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  4. 04 APIs & Integrations

    Your website, software and third-party tools passing data between them without someone in the middle.

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  5. 05 Software Support & Modernisation

    An existing system kept safe, or brought forward so it can be changed without holding your breath.

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Selected work

Problems you may recognise.

A short set of projects, labelled honestly. Some are client engagements. Some are earlier employment. One is an independent product that shows how we approach larger systems.

CompareIT homepage offering search and monitoring of managed IT service providers.

SaaS · AI

CompareIT

A SaaS platform for finding and comparing managed service providers, with the search, data model and later AI-assisted matching built as the backend.

The problem Information from several sources had to become one model that could be searched and ranked, including a sentence turned into parameters the existing search already understood.

  • Laravel
  • PHP
  • MySQL
  • OpenAI API
  • AWS
  • Docker
  • PHPUnit
Read the case study
Verifire dashboard summarising fire-door inspections, schedules and results by building.

Business software · Field work

Verifire

A fire-door inspection system for engineers in the field, extended and turned into a progressive web app that still works when the building has no signal.

The problem Inspections happen where the signal often fails. The Laravel system already in use had to record a visit offline and synchronise later, without being replaced.

  • Laravel
  • PHP
  • MySQL
  • JavaScript
  • Progressive Web App
Read the case study
Bowen by Ania website, with the practice navigation and a calm coastal photograph.

Website

Bowen By Ania

A WordPress website for a Bowen therapy practice, with the theme adjusted for the practice and the hosting looked after directly.

The problem A practice site needed to explain the work, look considered, and stay online without turning into a project of its own.

  • WordPress
  • HTML
  • CSS
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The OnBuy.com marketplace homepage, with search, offers and household products.

Marketplace · Integrations

OnBuy

Seller product-import tooling for a UK online marketplace, built as part of the early engineering team in 2013 and 2014.

The problem Seller catalogues arrived in many shapes and had to become listings a customer could buy, inside a marketplace that was already live.

  • PHP
  • JavaScript
  • MySQL
  • HTML
  • CSS
Read the case study

See all projects

Why Digital Smiddy

A founder you can speak to, and work built to be used.

Digital Smiddy is a small practice. The name comes from the Scots word for a blacksmith’s workshop: a place for making useful things, carefully, with tools that earn their keep. The work is modern software. The standard is the same.

  • Experience Karol Padiasek has spent nearly twenty years building websites, business systems and the plumbing between them, from early commercial web work to lead engineering on larger products.
  • Range A five-page website and a system with APIs, background jobs and several services are different jobs. We are set up for both, and we will say when the smaller option is the right one.
  • Direct You deal with the person doing the work. There is no account-management layer, and we will not imply a large in-house team that is not there.
  • Practical The aim is software people can rely on: understandable, maintainable, and fitted to the business rather than to a trend.

How we work

Understand, plan, build, support.

  1. 01 Understand We start with the work itself: who uses it, what gets in the way, and what a good outcome looks like. A brochure site and an internal system do not start from the same conversation.
  2. 02 Plan You get a clear recommendation and a sensible sequence, including the parts that can wait. If a simpler approach will do, we will say so.
  3. 03 Build Design and engineering proceed with something you can look at and react to, rather than a long silence followed by a surprise.
  4. 04 Support Launch, fixes and the next improvement. We can stay involved after go-live, or hand the work over cleanly if you would rather run it yourselves.

Not sure of the shape yet? That is a fine place to start.

Bring the problem, even if you do not yet know whether you need a website, a piece of software, or something that joins the tools you already pay for.

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