How we work
A studio,
not an agency.
ErtanWorks is run by the people who write the code. No layered account managers, no design-by-deck, no handoff cliffs between sales and delivery. The engineer who pitches the work is the engineer who ships it.
Principles
Four things we won't compromise.
- 01 — Small & senior
- 02 — Scoped & honest
- 03 — Code you own
- 04 — Long horizon
No layered hand-offs.
Engagements are run by the people who write the code. No layered account managers, no design-by-deck, no handoff cliffs. The engineer who scopes is the engineer who ships.
If the plan's wrong, we say so.
We propose a scope, we deliver against it. If something's wrong with the plan, we surface it — even when that costs us the project. A bad scope wastes everyone's time and reputation.
Your repo, day one.
Source lives in your repo from day one. No proprietary platforms, no licensing traps, no lock-in to our infrastructure. If you fire us tomorrow, the system still runs.
Stacks that age well.
We pick technology that ages well. The simplest thing that solves the problem usually beats the trendiest one — and is easier for the next team to pick up.
And what we don't
Saying no
is part of it.
- ×
Retainers and team-augmentation. We do scoped projects, not bodies-on-seats.
- ×
Subcontractor pipelines. The names on the kickoff are the names on the commits.
- ×
Vendor-locked platforms. No proprietary runtimes, no license-back-to-you arrangements.
- ×
Hype-stack chasing. If a tool is six months old we'll wait for the second-system rewrite. Boring is good.
- ×
Live-service game design for our own games. Single-player, finishable, not a service.
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