A small studio.
A real builder.
SOFT-MAN Development Garage is a one-person, one-bench operation run by Andrei Manaila out of Romania. The work happens with the bay door open and the client standing inside it: no proxies, no layers between you and the engineer writing the code.
Why the garage.
A lot of the technology companies you know started in a garage. A couple of people, no office, no payroll, just the work. It stopped being a coincidence a long time ago.
What makes a garage useful is not the building. It is what the building lets you skip: approval chains, account managers, the floor of meetings between the client and the engineer who actually writes the code.
SOFT-MAN Development Garage runs on the same idea. Small enough that one engineer touches every line that ships, focused enough to take the work seriously, and stubborn enough to keep it that way.
Four ideas that shape every project.
One owner per project.
You always know who is responsible. There is no hand-off chain to lose context across.
Diagnose before prescribing.
Most software problems are not what they look like on the surface. We probe before we propose.
Bring the right tool, not the new one.
Boring, proven tech outperforms shiny tech on most timelines. We pick the tool that fits the work.
Show up after the launch too.
Most of what software does happens after day one. We stay around for the long maintenance arc.
Where the studio has been.
- 2022 Garage opens. First clients in Romania and the United States.
- 2023 Move into long-term Rails maintenance and modernization contracts.
- 2024 First React Native engagements. Studio reaches steady cadence.
- 2025 Start building in-house: oseli enters internal alpha.
- 2026 Public app launch on iOS and Android in autumn 2026.
Want to talk about a project?
Email is the fastest way. Tell us what you are building, what stage it is at, and we will get back within two business days.
contact@smdevgarage.ro