Custom in SF Bay Area.
Bay Area operators have access to deep engineering talent — and rising costs that make in-house builds increasingly hard to justify for non-core work. We ship custom software for SF, Oakland, San Jose, and North Bay teams that need senior-grade engineering without scaling permanent headcount.
Where this fits the region.
These are the engagements we ship most often when custom software development meets SF Bay Area operations. The patterns are consistent; the right first project is yours alone.
AI SaaS infrastructure for SF startups
Auth, billing, observability, eval pipelines — the production-grade infrastructure every AI startup needs and none of them differentiate on. We ship it so the founders can stay on what does.
Internal tools for North Bay operators
Wine country operations, hospitality, agricultural businesses — custom dashboards and operational tools that replace 6 disconnected SaaS tabs with one observable surface.
Modernizations for established Bay Area firms
Legacy case management, ERP modernizations, custom CRM implementations — built incrementally with the team in the room, not delivered as a binary cutover.
Marketplace and platform builds
Two-sided marketplace platforms, multi-vendor SaaS, regional service-area platforms. Bay Area's platform-business expertise raises the bar; we ship to it.
Sonoma County Connections
A community platform built for a North Bay nonprofit. Multi-stakeholder UX, real-time data, and operational tooling for a small admin team. Public-facing portion at sococonnections.org.
Shane Spencer in SF Bay Area
Shane founded Ideas Realized in 2019 and has been a North Bay resident his entire career. He leads Bay Area engagements personally and is available for in-person meetings across Sonoma, Marin, Napa, SF, and the East Bay.
Things SF Bay Area teams always ask.
Short, honest answers. If your question is not here, send it over — we will write you back inside 24 hours.
Do you build custom software end-to-end or just front-end / just back-end?
End-to-end. We ship full stacks — front-end, API, database, integrations, deployment, observability, the operational runbook. Single-layer engagements are available for teams that want to own everything else, but the default is full-stack.
What stacks do you typically work in?
Next.js + TypeScript on the front end; Postgres (often Supabase) on the back end; Vercel, Netlify, or Cloudflare for hosting. Detailed reasoning is in our blog post "Next.js for Business Apps". We deviate from this default when project requirements warrant.
Do you work with our existing engineering team?
Yes. About 40% of our engagements are extensions of existing engineering teams — we ship a slice of the roadmap that the team does not have bandwidth or specialization for. We integrate with your existing tooling, conventions, and code review practices.
How does this compare to hiring senior engineers in SF?
A senior engineer in SF costs $180-280k base plus equity, plus loaded benefits, plus management overhead, plus a 3-6 month hiring cycle. A focused 8-12 week studio engagement is $40-150k all-in, ships immediately, and produces working software you own. We are usually the right call for non-core work that does not justify permanent headcount.
Can you handle compliance requirements (SOC 2, HIPAA, financial)?
Yes — we have shipped under SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, and various financial-services compliance regimes. We will scope the compliance overhead explicitly during discovery so it is not a surprise mid-build.
Ready to ship custom software development in SF Bay Area?
Tell us what you are building. We will reply within 24 hours with next steps — discovery call, written scope, or referral to a better fit.