Chicago custom software since 1999
Engineering services for web, enterprise, and platform work
What you read below is what we actually build. Each service covers the work involved, when it makes sense, and what it usually needs from your side.
What this page covers
The service list below describes what Caxy Interactive actually builds, not a menu of everything a software company could theoretically do. If your project type isn't here, that's useful information too. Each section covers what the work involves, when it makes sense, and what it usually requires from your side.
Most engagements start with a first release that real people use, then grow from what that release teaches everyone. The sections are short on purpose, so you can skim for your project type and stop where the description stops matching.
Typical engagement
A working first release, then expansion
Where we build
Chicago, working with U.S. teams
Also useful
If a project type is missing, say so. Knowing early saves a build nobody needed.
The service list
Custom web applications
A custom web application is software that lives in a browser and does something a business needs: booking, ordering, tracking, approving, reporting. We build the front end, the back end, and the database, and we design the interface with the people who'll use it.
This is different from a marketing website. It's an operational tool, and it usually has logins, roles, and data that has to be correct. Most engagements start with a working first release and then expand based on real usage.
What it usually requires from you
Access to the people who run the process today, decisions on scope, and a named person who can say yes.
Interfaces
Designed with the people who will use them every day, not handed over as a mockup.
Data
Roles, permissions, and the record of who changed what, built in from the first release.
Where it goes next
Rules written by the people who answer the phone when something is wrong.
Enterprise constraints
Enterprise software and internal systems
Large organizations run on software that supports operations, finance, scheduling, and reporting, often across departments with different priorities. We build and replace internal systems where off-the-shelf tools don't fit the way the business actually works.
That means handling user permissions, audit trails, and the reporting a finance or operations team depends on. Enterprise work is less about novelty and more about reliability, and it tends to come with more stakeholders and more constraints. We plan for both: the migration path gets written down before anyone starts moving modules.
If your organization already has a change-control process, we work inside it. Where reporting has to reconcile with a general ledger or a scheduler, that reconciliation is part of the design, not a later patch.
Reliability before novelty
Access
Who can see and change which records.
History
Audit trails your finance team can follow.
Reporting
Numbers that tie out against the source system.
Multi-tenant by design
Digital platforms and product builds
Some clients are building a product, not an internal tool. A digital platform serving many customers needs multi-tenant architecture, subscription billing, user roles, and integrations that hold up as the customer base grows.
Decisions that come early
We've built platforms in this shape, and the discipline is different: you're designing for customers you haven't met yet. The SaaS model works well when the product needs to scale, but it also demands decisions early about data isolation, billing logic, and how features roll out. We make those decisions with you rather than after launch.
First decision
Data isolation
Whether each customer's records live in their own store or share one with strict separation. It shapes billing, reporting, and what a support engineer can see.
Second decision
Billing logic
Plans, trials, proration, and what happens when a payment fails mid-month. Retro-fitting this after customers arrive is the expensive version.
Third decision
Feature rollout
How new capabilities reach some customers before others, and how you turn one off without breaking the rest.
Phased, not heroic
Legacy modernization
Old systems rarely fail all at once. They accumulate workarounds, undocumented logic, and one person who understands them. Modernization is the work of replacing or wrapping that system without shutting down operations.
Stabilize
Keep operations running
Find what breaks first, patch the immediate failure points, and stop the bleeding before anyone plans a replacement. Nothing moves until the current system holds.
Document
Write down what matters
Capture the undocumented rules, the manual steps, and the workarounds, in the order they actually fire. This is the step most teams skip and later pay for twice.
Move
Transfer in a sequence the business can absorb
It's rarely a single rewrite. More often it's a phased approach: move functionality across one piece at a time, keeping the old system reachable until the new one is trusted. The goal is a system you can change, not just one that still runs.
Where projects get complicated
System integration
Custom software almost always has to talk to something that already exists: a CRM, an ERP, a payment processor, a database, an internal tool, a third-party API. Integration work is where projects get complicated, because every system has its own rules.
We plan the integration layer early, define what data moves where, and build the connections so they can be maintained. When an integration involves a regulated system, we document how data is handled and who can see it.
Plan first
The connection layer is designed before the first endpoint is called.
Define movement
Which fields travel, in which direction, and what happens when one side is unavailable.
Document handling
For regulated systems, how data is handled and who is allowed to see it.
How we ship
Cloud-native architecture and DevOps
Where a system runs matters as much as what it does. We build with cloud-native patterns so systems can scale, deploy, and recover without manual intervention.
That includes the pipelines that move code from development to production, the monitoring that catches problems early, and the ability to roll back a bad release. DevOps isn't a separate phase, it's how we ship. For clients with strict change-control processes, we adapt rather than impose.
Pipelines
Code moves from a developer's machine to production through the same path every time.
Monitoring
Problems surface where the team can see them, not in a customer email three days later.
Rollback
A bad release gets reverted by the people who shipped it, without a war room.
Not every project starts with a full build
MVP development
Not every project needs a full build on day one. An MVP is the smallest version of a product that answers a real question: does this work, will people use it, does the economics make sense.
We scope MVPs to be genuinely useful rather than demo-thin, because a prototype that can't handle real data teaches you very little. MVPs are common for startups and for internal teams testing a new workflow before committing to a larger build.
If it can't survive a week of real users, it isn't an MVP yet.
AI consulting and practical automation
AI is useful in specific places and expensive noise everywhere else. We help clients figure out which is which. That might mean automating a document-heavy process, adding a search or recommendation layer, or just deciding that a rule-based system is cheaper and more predictable.
There's a lot of hype around this. We'd rather find the two or three places where it actually saves time than pitch it as a general solution. If it doesn't fit, we'll say so.
Working together
What we need from you
Good projects come from engaged clients. You know your business, your users, and your constraints better than we ever will.
What helps most is access to the people who understand the current process, clear decision-making on scope, and honesty about deadlines that aren't negotiable. We'll handle the technical tradeoffs and explain them in your terms. The clients who get the best results are the ones who stay involved.
Access
The people who run the process today, in the room early.
Decisions
One person who can settle scope without a committee.
Deadlines
Honesty about the dates that can't move and why.
Where to go next
Tell us the project type and we'll say whether it fits
A short conversation is enough to know if your project matches one of the services above. Bring the current pain, the people involved, and the deadline pressure. If we're not the right team, saying so early is the useful answer.
Caxy Interactive
212 W Van Buren St #1000
Chicago, IL 60607, United States
Hours
Monday–Friday, 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM CT
Direct