Code Audits & Technical Assessments

Understand Your System.
Decide What Comes Next.

Get an independent diagnosis of your frontend, backend and architecture. Understand the root causes, technical risks and where to invest next.

When an assessment helps

Before the Next
Big Commitment.

Get an independent view before committing more time and budget.

Delivery Keeps Slowing

Delivery Keeps Slowing

Understand why small changes take too long—and which problems are worth fixing first.

You're Taking Over a Product

You're Taking Over a Product

Know the system's strengths, risks and maintenance needs before setting the roadmap.

A Rewrite Is on the Table

A Rewrite Is on the Table

Find out what to preserve, what to change and whether a rebuild is justified.

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Choosing the right path

Improve, Modernize
or Rebuild?

We compare the options against your goals, budget and the evidence from your system.

Improve. Can focused changes resolve the main problems?

Modernize. Which parts need replacing, and what can you retain?

Rebuild. Would a fresh start justify the migration cost and disruption?

The recommendation may be to keep the system as it is.

What we review

Frontend to Backend.
The Whole Picture.

We connect the symptoms you see to their technical causes, across the systems that matter to your product.

  • Code & architecture. Maintainability, service boundaries and the cost of change.

  • APIs & data. Integrations, databases and critical business workflows.

  • Reliability & delivery. Performance, tests, releases and recovery.

React and Next.js frontends. Java, Kotlin, TypeScript, Go and Python backends.

We agree the scope upfront and make gaps in the evidence clear.

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What you receive

A Clear Diagnosis.
A Practical Plan.

A standalone assessment: a diagnosis, recommendation and prioritized roadmap. Walk through the evidence with your technical leaders and engineers.

System Health

System Health

What is sound, what is fragile and what causes the problems you see. Supported by evidence from your system.

Recommended Direction

Recommended Direction

A clear recommendation with viable alternatives, trade-offs and risks. Grounded in your roadmap and constraints.

Prioritized Roadmap

Prioritized Roadmap

What to do first, what can wait and what to preserve. With dependencies and indicative effort where the evidence supports it.

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How the assessment works

Clear Scope.
Useful Answers.

1. Frame the decision. Agree your goals, systems, access and deliverables.

2. Review together. Trace key workflows with your engineers through code, architecture and operations.

3. Compare the options. Test assumptions, identify root causes and weigh realistic paths forward.

4. Plan the next steps. Walk through the recommendation, priorities and open questions.

After the assessment

A Plan Your Team
Can Use.

Take the findings to your own engineers or another partner. No further engagement with Makers’ Den is required.

If the recommendation calls for staged upgrades or replacements, our Software Modernization service can deliver them.

For focused implementation, explore ReactJS development or Backend Development .

Need a narrower review? See Web Performance & Growth Engineering or our Mobile Architecture Assessment .

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Practical review guides

Know What
To Look For.

Practical guides to React code audits, external reviews and maintaining JavaScript applications.

Code audit FAQs

Before You
Open the Repository.

Which codebases can you assess?

React and Next.js frontends, plus backends in Java, Kotlin, TypeScript, Go and Python.

  • Java & Kotlin: Spring Boot, Spring Cloud and Ktor.

  • TypeScript: Node.js, NestJS, Fastify and Express.

  • Python: FastAPI and Django.

We agree the systems and expertise needed for your assessment.

Can you assess just our backend or an integration between systems?

Yes. We can assess a single backend service, API, database or integration—or follow a problem across the full application.

What access do you need?

Start with your goals and an architecture walkthrough. We then agree confidentiality and the repository, documentation and environment access needed. Production data or write access is considered only when required.

How long does a code audit take, and what does it cost?

It depends on the systems and questions in scope. We agree the scope, schedule and fee before starting.

Will the assessment tell us whether to rewrite?

Yes, if that is your key decision. We compare improvements, staged modernization and rebuilding against migration effort, business continuity and your goals. Keeping the current system may be the right answer.

Is this a security audit or penetration test?

This engineering assessment may uncover security issues. It is not a penetration test or compliance certification, and cannot guarantee every vulnerability is found. Specialist security testing needs a separate scope.

Can our own team implement the recommendations?

Yes. You receive the findings, reasoning and roadmap. Your team or another partner can implement them; further work with us is optional.

Do you use automated tools or AI agents?

Where useful and agreed with you. Senior engineers review the evidence and own the recommendations. We agree tooling and code handling before starting.

I want to keep my idea confidential. Will you sign an NDA with me?

Yes, we sign an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) always when a client wants it. We can do it at the very beginning before we discuss your project's details, or at another stage of the process - it's up to you.

Do I own the intellectual property rights of my application?

Yes, you are the owner of Intellectual Property rights at all times.

Where is your development team located?

We are fully remote. So while we were founded and are still based in Berlin, most developers will be remote from a central European location.

What is the pricing model?

You work with us on a Time & Materials basis. The total cost depends on the actual time the team spends on the development. You are in charge of the project’s scope and set priorities for the development team.

Time & Materials allows flexibility for you to set the direction of development depending on the users’ feedback, market situation, or opportunities that arise during the development.

For more about how we create estimates read how to estimate software projects .

What would my development team look like?

We adjust the team depending on your needs. Our speciality is low overhead teams, where every member is contributing concretely towards customer facing features. That means everyone is either doing development or design.

Roles like Project Manager, Business Analyst and QA are responsibilities which are shouldered by our business oriented developers or designers.

You may take the role of a Product Owner, making decisions on priority and scope.

Can you work as an amendment to our in-house team?

Yes. We can adapt to your tools and processes. I.e. fully integrate into your existing team.

How does the company ensure code quality and maintainability?

We follow best practices, perform code reviews, implement automated testing and continuous integration to ensure code quality and maintainability. All projects are not equal though and the level of automated QA will be determined on your need for quick feedback from the market.

Can you hand the code over to another team?

Yes. We create easily understandable and maintainable code using well known frameworks which don’t require niche knowledge.

The runtime environments we can set up in your ownership from the get-go.

What is the experience level of my team?

Every team has a partner involved in the project. Our developers have a proven track record of outsized throughput. Our culture is one of delivering features every day. That's why we prefer senior developers, but not seniors that are from slow moving enterprise environments.

How am I kept up-to-date of development?

We have fixed length iterations (usually 1 week), at the end of which you will be demoed the current progress. You will have access to team members through Slack, email and video calls and our regular meetings. In addition to this you will have access to our project management tools (Jira or Asana), which we update daily.

Why hire us?

We love what we do and only employ people with a similar mindset. You ship faster by working with a small team where each developer is a focused on your business goals. With us you get direct access to everyone. This keeps overhead low and output high.

You are in control. We offer full transparency of progress and potential problems. We keep you informed and present options, but you make the decisions.

We value our client relationships and their product visions. Meet with us to see if we share the same conviction. We might be a good fit.

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Bring the Question.
Leave with a Plan.

Discuss your codebase