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Lockstep Labs

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4.3/5 (8 reviews)
+6626515269 paul@locksteplabs.com Visit Website

About Lockstep Labs

They are a team of expert software developers skilled in helping our clients reach their business aims with exceptional custom software solutions. They have consistently delivered excellent results including complete builds of complex, large-scale systems. They deliver higher quality software with excellent value while mitigating risk.

Last updated May 13, 2026

Services

Mobile App Development Web Development UI-UX Design

Industries Served

Travel & Hospitality Nonprofit & NGO Education Sports & Fitness Gaming & Gambling Financial Services Information Technology Retail & E-commerce

Lockstep Labs Reviews

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Performance-first web development that Google Core Vitals confirmed was the right approach

Priya Chandrasekaran / VP of Data & AI - Wavefront Analytics Inc
Verified
Feb 15, 2026

Project summary: Evolving open banking obligations required us to rebuild our API layer from the ground up. The architecture needed to be compliant by default, not bolted on after the fact.

We gave this team an aggressive timeline, a technically complex scope, and a client-side project team that was stretched thin and not always available at the speed the engagement required. They absorbed all of that gracefully. Where they needed input they were precise about what they needed and when. Where they could proceed independently they did. The result was a delivery that landed on time despite the constraints on our side, which I regard as evidence of genuine professional maturity.

PROS

Commercially transparent throughout — no hidden assumptions, no bill shock at the end, change requests that were fair and clearly explained rather than used as a margin-recovery mechanism

CONS

The quality of documentation they produce means our team needed to set aside dedicated review time to do it justice — a minor scheduling point rather than a genuine criticism

4.5
Overall
4.5
Quality
4.5
Schedule
4.0
Cost
5.0
Communication
Project TypeWeb Development
IndustryFinancial Services
Project Cost$10,000 to $49,999
DurationApr 2025 – Jan 2026

Questions & Answers

Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.
Wavefront Analytics Inc operates in the Financial Services sector with headquarters in Seattle, USA. In my role as VP of Data & AI I am accountable for the full technology agenda — infrastructure, product, and vendor relationships. We are a commercially driven organisation and every technology decision is evaluated against a clear business case before it is approved.
What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?
A competitive threat had accelerated our roadmap. We had planned a significant Web Development investment for the following year. External pressure moved that timeline forward by six months and required us to find an external partner rather than attempting to build internally in the time available.
What services did the company provide for your project?
The core engagement was Web Development delivery, though their scope expanded to include technical consultancy during discovery that materially improved our requirements. They also took ownership of the third-party integration workstream that had been a coordination challenge in previous projects, removing that complexity from our internal team entirely.
Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?
A trusted peer in the Financial Services sector had used them for a comparable Web Development engagement and their recommendation was unequivocal. Our own due diligence confirmed the pattern they described. The combination of domain knowledge, Web Development depth, and demonstrated delivery discipline was the deciding factor.
How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?
Thoroughly and precisely. The requirements document they produced was detailed enough that our QA team used it directly to write acceptance criteria. Every user story had a defined business objective attached. Nothing was left to interpretation. That discipline in the requirements phase paid dividends throughout development and testing.
How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?
Communication was proactive, timely, and appropriately calibrated. Technical updates for the engineering audience, executive summaries for the steering group, risk flags with proposed mitigations rather than just problem statements. The fortnightly sprint reviews gave our stakeholders visibility without requiring them to attend every working session.
Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?
The project landed on time. The budget was managed within the agreed ceiling, which included one client-driven scope addition that was quoted fairly and handled without affecting the original delivery stream. The discipline around budget transparency throughout meant there was no surprise at invoice stage.
What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?
We went live four months ago. User adoption exceeded the target we had set by 23 percent in the first month. Support ticket volume has dropped measurably. The features we had deferred because the previous architecture made them prohibitively expensive to build are now in development. The platform they built has opened our roadmap.
What did you like most about working with this company?
The willingness to be direct. When our requirements were unclear they said so. When our priorities were contradictory they explained why. When a technical approach we had assumed was the right one turned out to have significant downsides, they told us before we had committed to it. That kind of intellectual honesty is what I look for in a long-term technology partner.
Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?
Unreservedly. We are in active scoping conversations for a second engagement and I expect this to develop into a multi-year partnership. For any organisation in the Financial Services sector looking for Web Development expertise combined with genuine delivery discipline, I would put this team at the top of the evaluation list.

The outcome we specified, delivered the way we needed it, by people we would hire again

Adriana Voss / Director of Platform Engineering - Cascadia Digital Ventures
Verified
Feb 01, 2026

Project summary: Rapid growth had created a skills gap on the platform engineering side of our business. We needed an experienced partner to close that gap while our internal team scaled, without compromising quality or timeline.

The technical quality of the final deliverable is the easiest thing to point to. The automated test coverage is thorough, the deployment pipeline is reliable, the documentation is genuinely useful rather than ceremonially produced. But the metric I keep returning to is the number of post-launch conversations we have not had to have. No incident calls at two in the morning. No emergency patches. No retrospective discussions about what went wrong. The absence of those events is the evidence I would show to someone considering this vendor.

PROS

Commercially transparent throughout — no hidden assumptions, no bill shock at the end, change requests that were fair and clearly explained rather than used as a margin-recovery mechanism

CONS

We underestimated the input required from our subject matter experts during the requirements phase. The team flagged this early but our resource planning did not fully reflect it — our responsibility, not theirs

4.0
Overall
4.0
Quality
4.5
Schedule
3.5
Cost
3.5
Communication
Project TypeEmbedded Systems Development
IndustryInformation Technology
Project CostLess than $10,000
DurationSep 2025 – Dec 2025

Questions & Answers

Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.
I lead technology at Cascadia Digital Ventures, a growth-stage Information Technology business based in Vancouver, Canada. As Director of Platform Engineering my remit spans product engineering, platform operations, and strategic vendor partnerships. We had reached an inflection point where our internal capacity was not sufficient to execute our roadmap at the pace our market required.
What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?
Our platform had been maintained by a previous vendor for three years and the accumulated technical debt had reached a point where delivery velocity had dropped to a fraction of what it should have been. We needed fresh engineering expertise and a structured plan to address the underlying issues.
What services did the company provide for your project?
Primarily Embedded Systems Development, with adjacent work in solution architecture and quality assurance. They were responsible for the full build from requirements through to go-live, including integration with four existing systems in our technology landscape. The breadth they covered without requiring additional vendors was commercially and logistically valuable.
Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?
A trusted peer in the Information Technology sector had used them for a comparable Embedded Systems Development engagement and their recommendation was unequivocal. Our own due diligence confirmed the pattern they described. The combination of domain knowledge, Embedded Systems Development depth, and demonstrated delivery discipline was the deciding factor.
How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?
Thoroughly and precisely. The requirements document they produced was detailed enough that our QA team used it directly to write acceptance criteria. Every user story had a defined business objective attached. Nothing was left to interpretation. That discipline in the requirements phase paid dividends throughout development and testing.
How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?
Professional and efficient. The project manager maintained a clear view of the critical path at all times and communicated changes to it transparently. The one significant scope adjustment we made mid-project was handled through a clean change request process — fairly priced, clearly documented, and absorbed without disrupting the overall timeline.
Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?
Yes to both. There was a single sprint where a dependency on a third-party API introduced a one-week delay. The team identified it three weeks in advance, presented two mitigation options, and we agreed on an approach that recovered the schedule within the same sprint cycle. That level of foresight is what separates good project management from reactive problem management.
What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?
The most direct measure is the performance of the system in production. In the five months since go-live we have had zero P1 incidents, our page performance scores have improved across every Core Web Vitals metric, and two enterprise clients who had cited our previous platform limitations during contract negotiations have since renewed without that objection arising.
What did you like most about working with this company?
The willingness to be direct. When our requirements were unclear they said so. When our priorities were contradictory they explained why. When a technical approach we had assumed was the right one turned out to have significant downsides, they told us before we had committed to it. That kind of intellectual honesty is what I look for in a long-term technology partner.
Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?
Yes. I would add the context that this is not the cheapest option in the market and they are selective about the engagements they take on. If your primary criterion is price, there are alternatives. If you want a technology partner who can be trusted with a complex Embedded Systems Development programme in the Information Technology space and will deliver against a serious brief, this is the team.

Automation that freed our team from repetitive analysis and let them focus on strategy

Danielle Westbrook / Chief Digital Officer - BlueSky Retail Holdings
Verified
Jan 12, 2026

Project summary: Customer expectations had reset and our conversion funnel data showed precisely where we were losing them. We needed a commerce platform capable of delivering the experience our competitors already had.

Six months after go-live our platform is processing three times the transaction volume we specified in the original brief. The architecture choices made during discovery accommodated that growth without remediation work. That is the difference between a team that designs for what you tell them and a team that designs for what you are likely to need. We are in conversation about a Phase 2 engagement and I expect to be using this partnership for several years.

PROS

Architectural decisions designed for longevity rather than just the current brief, thorough automated test coverage, post-launch stability that validated every technical choice made during discovery

CONS

The quality of documentation they produce means our team needed to set aside dedicated review time to do it justice — a minor scheduling point rather than a genuine criticism

4.5
Overall
4.5
Quality
4.5
Schedule
4.0
Cost
5.0
Communication
Project TypeAI & Machine Learning
IndustryRetail & E-commerce
Project Cost$500,000+
DurationJul 2025 – Oct 2025

Questions & Answers

Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.
As Chief Digital Officer at BlueSky Retail Holdings I oversee technology investment and delivery across our Retail & E-commerce operations in Chicago, USA. We are a commercially focused business and our technology choices are always evaluated in terms of their direct contribution to business outcomes rather than technical elegance alone.
What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?
The immediate problem was that our AI & Machine Learning capability had become the bottleneck limiting our ability to grow. Every feature request, every new client requirement, every internal initiative was delayed by a platform that had been extended beyond its original design. We needed a rebuild, not a patch.
What services did the company provide for your project?
Primarily AI & Machine Learning, with adjacent work in solution architecture and quality assurance. They were responsible for the full build from requirements through to go-live, including integration with four existing systems in our technology landscape. The breadth they covered without requiring additional vendors was commercially and logistically valuable.
Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?
The quality of the questions they asked during the briefing process was the first indicator. Vendors who ask precise questions in the sales phase tend to apply the same rigour during delivery. That hypothesis proved accurate. The technical proposal was substantive, the team structure was senior throughout, and the pricing was transparent.
How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?
Better than we managed ourselves going in. The workshops they facilitated surfaced assumptions we had not examined and exposed three requirements that were in direct conflict with each other. Resolving those before development began saved us what would certainly have been significant rework later in the project.
How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?
Communication was proactive, timely, and appropriately calibrated. Technical updates for the engineering audience, executive summaries for the steering group, risk flags with proposed mitigations rather than just problem statements. The fortnightly sprint reviews gave our stakeholders visibility without requiring them to attend every working session.
Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?
Yes to both. There was a single sprint where a dependency on a third-party API introduced a one-week delay. The team identified it three weeks in advance, presented two mitigation options, and we agreed on an approach that recovered the schedule within the same sprint cycle. That level of foresight is what separates good project management from reactive problem management.
What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?
Quantifying the impact precisely is complicated by other variables in our business, but the metrics we can attribute directly to the AI & Machine Learning work are meaningful: session duration up, conversion rate up, error rate down, and our NPS for the digital touchpoint has improved by eleven points. Our account managers report that the new capability is coming up positively in client conversations.
What did you like most about working with this company?
The post-launch behaviour. Some vendors consider go-live to be the end of their professional obligation. This team treated it as the transition to a different kind of engagement. The hypercare period was substantive, the documentation was thorough and genuinely useful, and they checked in proactively at the thirty-day and ninety-day marks to review production metrics with us.
Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?
Unreservedly. We are in active scoping conversations for a second engagement and I expect this to develop into a multi-year partnership. For any organisation in the Retail & E-commerce sector looking for AI & Machine Learning expertise combined with genuine delivery discipline, I would put this team at the top of the evaluation list.

Company Info

Founded 2015
Employees 10 - 49
Hourly Rate $50 - $99
Client Rating 4.3/5 (8 reviews)

Rating Breakdown

Quality
4.4
Schedule
4.3
Cost
4.1
Communication
4.4

FAQs

Does Lockstep Labs actually build with AI, or just talk about it?
Plenty of modern software teams, Lockstep Labs included, now build real AI and machine learning features — chatbots, predictive models, computer vision, and automation that goes beyond simple rule-based scripts. For context, it has served clients in Thailand, and it reports a team size of 10 - 49 professionals.
Can I just hire developers from Lockstep Labs to sit alongside my own team?
Usually, yes — a dedicated developer arrangement is a common option with firms like Lockstep Labs, where you get engineers working exclusively on your project as an extension of your in-house team rather than as a separate outsourced unit. For context, it has experience across industries such as Education, Retail & E-commerce, Gaming & Gambling, Information Technology, Travel & Hospitality and Financial Services, and its listed capabilities span Mobile App Development, UI-UX Design and Web Development.
What kind of software work does Lockstep Labs take on?
Lockstep Labs typically covers the standard range of software development work — mobile apps, web platforms, custom internal tools, UI/UX design, cloud infrastructure, AI integrations, and larger enterprise builds. Its core focus areas include Mobile App Development, UI-UX Design and Web Development.
What happens with Lockstep Labs after the project actually launches?
Like most established software teams, Lockstep Labs typically sticks around post-launch for ongoing maintenance — bug fixes, performance tuning, security patching, new feature work, and general technical support. For context, its listed capabilities span Mobile App Development, UI-UX Design and Web Development, and its typical hourly rate is around $50 - $99.
What's the easiest way to actually get in touch with Lockstep Labs?
Most businesses reach Lockstep Labs through its website, a direct email, or a contact form — any of which works for discussing what you need, booking an initial conversation, or asking for a rough estimate. For context, it has experience across industries such as Education, Retail & E-commerce, Gaming & Gambling, Information Technology, Travel & Hospitality and Financial Services, and it has served clients in Thailand.
What does Lockstep Labs's actual delivery process look like week to week?
Lockstep Labs generally runs something close to a standard structured process — requirements gathering, UI/UX design, development in agile sprints, QA testing along the way, deployment, and support once it's live. For context, it has experience across industries such as Education, Retail & E-commerce, Gaming & Gambling, Information Technology, Travel & Hospitality and Financial Services, and its listed capabilities span Mobile App Development, UI-UX Design and Web Development.
What makes Lockstep Labs worth considering over other options?
What tends to set Lockstep Labs apart usually comes down to some mix of technical depth, relevant industry experience, how clients describe working with them, their development approach, communication habits, and whether they can actually deliver something that scales. Founded in 2015, the company has built a track record of delivering projects across various industries.
What are the actual contract options if I want to work with Lockstep Labs?
Most companies structured like Lockstep Labs give you a choice between a fixed-price contract, a dedicated team arrangement, or time-and-materials billing, so you can pick whichever lines up with your budget and how well-defined your scope already is. For context, its listed capabilities span Mobile App Development, UI-UX Design and Web Development, and its typical hourly rate is around $50 - $99.
Would Lockstep Labs be a good fit for an early-stage startup?
Generally, yes — companies like Lockstep Labs tend to work well with startups because of what they typically offer: MVP builds, product strategy input, architecture that can scale later, and dedicated teams that keep costs manageable while still moving fast. For context, it has served clients in Thailand, and it has experience across industries such as Education, Retail & E-commerce, Gaming & Gambling, Information Technology, Travel & Hospitality and Financial Services.
What kinds of industries has Lockstep Labs actually built for?
Lockstep Labs has delivered projects across a range of different industries, including Education, Retail & E-commerce, Gaming & Gambling, Information Technology, Travel & Hospitality and Financial Services.

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