SERVICE · SOFTWARE RESCUE
Senior engineers only. No blame games. Fixed-scope rescue quotes. 100% Australian team.
You did not hire a bad developer on purpose. Most rescue jobs start with a developer who was competent on small projects and out of their depth on this one. Or a freelancer who started well and could not handle the scale. Or an offshore team where nobody told you the senior engineer left three months ago.
Whatever happened, you are now in a position where you have spent money, missed deadlines, and have software that does not do what was promised. The natural next step is to bin the project and start again. That is almost always the wrong decision.
Most “broken” projects we look at can be rescued. The code is usually 40% to 70% of the way there. The architecture is salvageable. The missing pieces are known, even if the previous team could not deliver them. The reason rescues feel impossible from the inside is that the people who built the problem are still trying to solve it. A fresh set of senior eyes changes the picture entirely.
What is needed is a rescue audit. A blunt assessment of what is recoverable and what is not. A fixed-scope plan to finish what was started. If the project is genuinely unrecoverable, we will tell you on day five. Not at month six.
The honest moment most rescue agencies skip: about one in five rescues we audit, we recommend a rebuild instead. Sometimes the codebase is in a state where the cost of stabilising and finishing it exceeds the cost of starting over with the lessons learned. We will tell you that directly. The rescue audit is the work, not a foot in the door for an upsell.
If this is the position you are in, call 0431 000 062 today. The first conversation is confidential and there is no obligation.
Rescue cases have a signature. If you are reading this, you probably already know. The list below is the pattern most clients describe in the first five minutes of the call.
DIAGNOSTIC
If three or more apply, you do not have a project running late. You have a rescue case. The longer you wait, the more expensive the recovery.
Software rescue follows a different pattern to greenfield development. The order matters. Doing these in the wrong sequence is how a rescue becomes a second failure.
Step one is always the same. Get full access to the code, the infrastructure, the database, and any third-party accounts. No rescue can start until everything is in your name. We will walk you through exactly how to do this, including the awkward conversations. We have done it many times. The legal and practical path is usually clearer than it feels from inside the situation.
We read the code, run it, test it, and document what works and what does not. The audit is the work, not a sales tool. You get a written assessment within five working days of getting access. The assessment includes what is recoverable, what is not, the technical debt that will need addressing, and a fixed-scope quote to finish. You can take the audit and execute with another team. About three in ten clients do exactly that.
We do not add features to a broken codebase. The first phase of any rescue is stabilisation. Fix the crashes. Get the deployment working. Lock down the security holes. Document what the code actually does. Only after the code is stable do we start delivering the features that were originally promised. Trying to ship features on top of an unstable foundation is what got the project into trouble in the first place.
Once stable, we finish the feature set on a fixed-scope, fixed-price basis. No surprises. No “discovery” of work that should have been in the original quote. The audit gave you the number. We deliver to it. If the scope changes mid-engagement (and sometimes it does, because requirements were never properly captured the first time), we agree the variation in writing before any work starts.
The final phase is documentation and handover. Source code in a repository under your name, infrastructure documented, deployment runbooks written, business rules captured. You should be able to take the project to any competent dev team after handover and have them maintain it. Vendor lock-in is what got most rescues into trouble. We do not repeat that pattern.
We structure rescues one of three ways. All three start with the audit.
Call 02 8964 5333 if you are not sure which fits. Most rescues start with the audit alone.
Three rescues. Two confidential, one named. Most rescue clients prefer not to publish the failure that preceded the recovery, which we respect. We will arrange reference calls under NDA on request.
Rescue work is the wrong place for a junior developer. The decisions are too consequential and the context is too sensitive. You work directly with the senior engineer who runs the audit and the rescue. The person who reads your codebase is the same person who quotes the rescue, runs it, and hands it back to you.
Nicolas Wendell
MANAGING DIRECTOR
Nicolas has been building custom software since leaving school, bringing a lifelong passion for development to every project. Before founding Paladine Systems, he ran his own video game studio and earned multiple accolades in network engineering. Known as a driving force in the custom software world, Nicolas combines deep technical expertise with visionary leadership – guiding Paladine in delivering innovative, enterprise-grade solutions.
Mark Morcom
SENIOR SYSTEMS ENGINEER
Mark is a young prodigy in software development, bringing 5 years of experience to Paladine. Equally at home on the front end and back end, he crafts clean, scalable solutions that power complex applications. Mark’s sharp problem-solving skills and passion for innovation make him a driving force behind Paladine’s most advanced projects.
Five named stages. Each one is fixed scope and fixed price. You can stop after any stage and walk away with the work to date.
ACCESS TRANSFER
2 to 5 days. We get full access. You retain ownership.
AUDIT
5 working days. Written assessment, fixed-scope rescue quote.
STABILISE
2 to 6 weeks. Bug fixes, deployment, security, documentation.
COMPLETE
4 to 16 weeks. Remaining feature set on a fixed-scope basis.
HANDOVER
1 week. Documentation, training, ongoing support plan.
Most rescues run six to 20 weeks end to end. Some are faster. None are slower than the original developer was about to be.
Rescue audits typically start within five working days. Urgent cases (live system failures, security incidents) we can start the same day. The first conversation is free, confidential, and run by the engineer who would do the audit.
No. The audit can be run discreetly while your current arrangement continues. Many of our rescue audits inform a conversation with the current developer, not a replacement of them. Sometimes the right outcome is for the existing team to keep going with our recommendations. We are paid for the audit, not for the rescue that follows.
This is more common than you would expect. There are legal and practical paths through it. The first conversation is free and we will walk you through your options. In some cases we have helped clients regain access without a single legal letter. In others, a single letter has been enough.
No. The audit is an engineering assessment. It documents what is there, what works, and what does not. It does not assign blame. That is not useful to anyone. If you want to pursue your previous developer commercially, the audit can be used as evidence, but the report itself is technical not adversarial.
Sometimes that is the answer. About one in five rescue audits ends with our recommendation to rebuild rather than rescue. We will tell you that on day five, not at month six. If we recommend a rebuild, we will quote both options so you can compare honestly.
Yes. Same as any Paladine engagement. Source code, infrastructure, IP, all in your control. No lock-in. The handover is part of the engagement, not an extra. Any competent dev team can maintain what we deliver.
The audit is $3,000 to $8,000 depending on scope. The full rescue is highly variable. Most rescues we deliver are between $20,000 and $80,000 for the recovery, plus optional ongoing support. The audit will give you the number.
Call 02 8964 5333 or use the form below. The first conversation is confidential and there is no obligation. We will tell you whether a rescue audit is the right next step. Sometimes a 20-minute conversation is enough to resolve the situation without an audit at all.
