01 / 05 2 to 4 weeks
Discovery & strategy
A short, fixed-fee engagement to map the real problem before anyone writes a line of code.
Open for transmission
Modern software for work that matters
Radar Blue is a custom software studio for organizations where the software has to be right: government, nonprofits, healthcare, climate, civic tech, and the founders building what comes next. We design, build, modernize, and scale the systems your team depends on. No bloat. No lock-in. No jargon.
- Founded
- 2003
- Focus
- High-stakes work
- Engagements
- Now booking Q3
radar-blue · status
$ ping mission
→ uplink stable · accepting transmissions
What we keep seeing
Four problems that show up again and again.
We've spent a decade watching enterprise SaaS, "AI transformation," and bottomless modernization contracts move through agencies, hospitals, nonprofits, and growth-stage companies. The same patterns show up every time.
- 01
Procurement-shaped software
Off-the-shelf tools that fit the RFP, not the work. The team ends up bending its workflow to match the software, instead of the other way around.
- 02
Legacy systems nobody can touch
Critical apps on legacy stacks. Nobody on the team can change them without fear, and nobody can replace them without budget.
- 03
AI promises with no guardrails
Vendor demos that look great on stage. Then they leak PII, hallucinate decisions, or fall apart the moment they hit real production data.
- 04
Architecture that worked at the wrong size
Codebases that shipped fine at ten thousand users and melt at a hundred thousand. Schemas from a three-week sprint that became the company's bottleneck. Performance debt that compounds the moment marketing works.
What we do
Five ways we plug in.
Most engagements start with a discovery sprint or a second opinion. From there we either keep going, hand the plan to your team, or recommend a partner who's a better fit. No lock-in, no retainers you can't end.
02 / 05 8 to 24 weeks
Custom application development
Modern web applications built around your team's workflows. Designed for the load you'll have in three years, not just the load you have today.
03 / 05 Ongoing
Legacy modernization & scaling
Replacing legacy stacks like ColdFusion, classic ASP, and Access piece by piece, not in one risky cutover. Reshaping architectures that worked at one size and broke at the next. We add complexity only where it earns its place.
04 / 05 4 to 12 weeks
Pragmatic AI integration
Targeted AI features with the evals, guardrails, and human review the work demands.
05 / 05
New
1 to 3 weeks Second opinion
Independent review of vendor proposals, technical plans, and build-vs-buy decisions. From someone who has no stake in selling you the answer.
Curious whether one of these fits your situation?
Book a 30-minute call Who we work with
Different sectors, the same standard for the work.
We focus on organizations where the software has consequences: eligibility, care, safety, science, money, the public record. The verticals vary; the discipline doesn't.
- Government
State, local, federal
- Nonprofits
Foundations, advocacy, service
- Healthcare
Providers, payors, public health
- Climate & energy
Grids, mitigation, adaptation
- Civic tech
18F-style, Code for America
- Public safety
Transparency, accountability, community engagement
- Research & science
Labs, universities, instruments
- Mission-driven startups
Founders we'd build alongside
How we work
Predictable, paper-trailed, easy to audit.
Procurement teams have been burned. So have program leads. Our process holds up to scrutiny from both.
- 01
Signal
A 30-minute call to make sure we're a fit. If we're not, we'll tell you who is.
No NDAs, no slide decks, no obligation.
- 02
Discovery
Two to four weeks, fixed fee. We embed with your team, learn the work, and produce a written plan.
You own the artifacts. If you take them to another vendor, that's fine.
- 03
Build
Iterative delivery in two-week increments. Working software in your environment from week one.
Your team is in the codebase from day one. We don't build in a black box.
- 04
Handoff
Documentation, runbooks, and working sessions until your team is comfortable owning it.
We'd rather you not need us in two years than be locked in for ten.
Why us
A studio, not an agency. Run by someone who's shipped this kind of work across three decades.
Fluent in the legacy stacks you inherited and the modern systems you'll need next.
Adam Safran
Founder & principal engineer
"I've spent three decades shipping software in two very different worlds: public agencies and nonprofits, then Silicon Valley. With Radar Blue, I'm bringing both sides to the same problem: software people count on, built around getting it right."
- Then
-
Ran an engineering consultancy doing records, content management, crime mapping, and grant administration for public agencies, foundations, and data-driven companies. Multi-year engagements with LAPD, the Jewish Community Foundation of LA, and Levelwing. Shipped in ColdFusion, classic ASP, PHP, and early Rails, back when those were the modern stack.
2000 to 2017
- Then again
-
A decade in Silicon Valley at Life360, Turo, and Middesk. Brought in when an architecture that got a company through product-market fit was melting under what came next. The work: untangling monoliths, growing engineering teams, fixing the slow paths, and building platforms at billions-of-events scale the org could trust.
2016 to 2025
- Now
-
Radar Blue is back, applying modern product engineering and pragmatic AI to organizations where the software has to be right: public agencies, mission-driven nonprofits, regulated industries, and the founders building what comes next. Same name. New stack. Same conviction: the people doing high-stakes work deserve software that respects them.
Since 2026
Want to talk through what you're facing?
Talk to Adam How we build
Five disciplines we don't compromise on.
Not certifications. Disciplines we bring to every engagement, from a state agency's case-management rebuild to a municipal records modernization to a regulated startup's first AI feature.
01 / 05
Accessible by default
Accessibility isn't a final pass. We build to WCAG 2.2 AA from the first commit, and hold internal tools to the same standard as public-facing ones.
02 / 05
Auditable systems
Every meaningful change leaves a trail your team and any outside auditor can read. These are the practices behind SOC 2 controls, whether certification is on the table or not.
03 / 05
Security-minded architecture
Security is a property of the system, not a layer bolted on at the end. We've shipped under privacy laws and PCI-DSS, and apply the same discipline whether the regulation is in your contract or not.
04 / 05
Long-term maintainability
We build for the team that will own the system in five years, not the team writing it today. Engagements end with a working handoff, not a perpetual retainer.
05 / 05
The principle that ties them together
Open source first
We default to open-source tools so you're never one acquisition or license change away from losing your stack.
We pick proprietary components when they earn it. For regulated environments, this isn't ideology. It's risk management. Your data, your runtime, and your future options stay yours.
We work alongside your compliance, security, and procurement teams. Never instead of them. Your specialists own sector-specific frameworks like FedRAMP, CJIS, PCI DSS, and GDPR; we engineer with their requirements in mind.
Open a channel
Tell us what you're trying to ship.
A 30-minute call to understand the problem, sanity-check the approach, and decide whether a discovery sprint or a second opinion makes sense. No deck, no sales engineer, no obligation.
- If we're not the right fit, we'll tell you who is.
- Plain-English questions. Not a slide deck.
- We never repurpose what you share with us.
Discovery call
30 minutes · video or phone · no obligation
Before we meet, you'll share
- Your organization
- What you're trying to ship
- Rough timeline (optional)