[ In short ]
Lunarion Labs helps San Francisco startups take ownership of their software: we rescue codebases left behind by contractors, make AI features reliable in production, and build SaaS products, mobile apps, automations and AI search visibility. We work remotely with calls scheduled in your Pacific Time morning. One senior lead owns the project from first call to launch, and every project starts with a fixed-price audit that ends with a written diagnosis and a detailed, prioritized quote.
01The San Francisco market
San Francisco and the wider Bay Area are still where a large share of venture-backed software companies are started, funded and sold. Silicon Valley stretches south toward San Jose, Stanford and UC Berkeley sit on either side of the bay, and the city itself is home to a dense cluster of SaaS, fintech and AI companies, from early teams in shared offices to some of the best-known names in technology.
In recent years the city has become the center of the AI wave. Model labs, AI infrastructure companies and a large number of startups building products on top of language models are concentrated here, along with the accelerators, investors and developer communities that support them. Developer tools, B2B SaaS, fintech and health tech remain strong as well, and many of those companies are now racing to add AI to products that were designed before it existed.
The pace is the defining feature. Startups here pivot, raise, hire and change direction quickly, and the codebase carries the marks of every turn. It is common to meet a company whose product has been rebuilt more than once by different contractors, with an AI prototype bolted on top and very little documentation underneath. What these teams need is a senior engineer who can make sense of what exists, stabilize it and keep shipping without stopping the business.
Sectors we know well in San Francisco
- AI startups
- B2B SaaS
- Developer tools
- Fintech
- Health tech
02Software challenges we see in San Francisco
Prototypes that became production
An AI demo that impressed investors is a different thing from a feature a large user base depends on. Prompts are scattered across the code, there is no way to measure answer quality, costs per request are unknown and a model update can change behavior overnight. San Francisco teams often discover this only after customers start reporting wrong or inconsistent answers.
A codebase with too many authors
Each pivot brought a new contractor, a new framework or a new architecture idea. The result is a product with three ways of doing the same thing, dead code nobody dares remove and deploy steps that live in one person's head. Every new hire has to start by figuring out how the system fits together.
Security and compliance arriving early
B2B buyers increasingly expect security reviews, access controls and data handling policies even from young vendors. Fintech and health tech products face stricter expectations from the start. Startups that grew on shared admin logins, broad API keys and production data copied to laptops have to tighten things before the deals they want can close.
Senior help without a full-time hire
Hiring senior engineers in the Bay Area is slow and expensive, and a small team may not need one full time. Meanwhile the founders are running sales and fundraising, and the codebase has no clear owner. Decisions get postponed, technical debt grows and the product slows down at exactly the moment it needs to speed up.
03What we do for San Francisco companies
Software rescue
For a San Francisco startup with a codebase shaped by several contractors, we start by reading all of it, mapping how it fits together and writing that down. Then we secure access, remove what is dead, add tests around the parts that break most and make deploys repeatable. We keep what works and refactor step by step, so the product keeps moving while it gets healthier.
SaaS & business software
We help B2B SaaS and developer tool companies harden the parts buyers look at: single sign-on, roles and permissions, audit logs, tenant isolation, usage-based billing, public APIs with proper documentation and an admin panel your team can rely on. These are the features that turn a promising product into one that passes a procurement review.
Mobile apps
When a San Francisco product needs a mobile companion, we build iOS and Android apps that share logic with your existing web stack where it makes sense. That includes authentication that matches your web product, offline handling, push notifications and store review, with the developer accounts held by your company rather than a contractor.
AI & agents
This is where much of our San Francisco work sits. We turn AI prototypes into production features: retrieval pipelines over your own data, agents with clear tool permissions, evaluation sets that catch regressions before users do, tracing for every call, cost tracking per feature and fallbacks when a model provider has an outage. You get AI behavior you can measure and explain.
Automation
Fast-growing teams accumulate manual work between tools. We automate the paths that matter: trial sign-ups enriched and routed to sales, product usage pushed into the CRM, support tickets tagged and summarized, and alerts when a key account goes quiet. We use custom code or tools like n8n, Make or Zapier, depending on reliability and volume.
SEO & AI visibility
Software buyers now research with search engines and AI assistants side by side. We fix technical SEO on product sites and documentation, build pages for integrations, comparisons and use cases, and structure your content so AI search engines can understand and cite it. For developer tools, well-organized docs are often the strongest search asset you have.
04Typical situations in San Francisco
- A San Francisco AI startup launched a retrieval feature that worked well in demos, but customers now report answers that are confidently wrong. The team wants evaluations, tracing and a fix plan without pausing the roadmap.
- A B2B SaaS company has had three different contractors in a row and no in-house engineer. The founders need someone senior to own the codebase, document it and keep shipping while they focus on sales.
- A fintech startup is close to a partnership that requires a security review. They want an outside audit of access, secrets and data flows, and a prioritized list of what to fix before the review.
- A developer tools company has a public API with sparse documentation and a site that barely shows up in search. They want docs, integration pages and technical SEO that bring in developers on their own.
05How a project runs, step by step
- Fixed-price audit. We review the code, access, hosting and contracts, then deliver a written diagnosis with a prioritized, costed plan.
- Secure. Every account and the repository are moved into your company's name, backups are in place and exposed secrets are rotated.
- Fix and build. We stabilize what is fragile, refactor step by step and build what is missing, on a copy of your product.
- Launch and hand over. We publish only after checking, then hand over documentation any senior engineer can pick up.
06How we work with San Francisco teams
We work with San Francisco teams remotely. Our working day runs on Eastern Time, so calls are scheduled in your Pacific Time morning, which overlaps with our afternoon, and asynchronous updates keep things moving between calls. One senior lead owns the project from the first call to launch and writes decisions down as we go, so nothing depends on memory. You can follow progress at any time in the Lunarion client app.
We work on a copy or staging environment and publish only after checking, so your product stays live and your users are not test subjects. We refactor step by step rather than proposing yet another rewrite. Code, domains, repositories, cloud, app store and payment accounts remain in your company's name and are documented at handover. We can sign an NDA before seeing anything, and we work in English and French.
07What shapes the scope of a San Francisco project
We do not publish prices: every project is different, and the audit is what sets the quote. These are the factors that weigh most:
- How many generations of code and contractors the product has been through
- The number of AI features in production and how much evaluation and monitoring they need
- Enterprise requirements such as single sign-on, audit logs and security questionnaires
- The cloud and model provider setup, including how much of it is undocumented
- Whether we act as the main engineering owner or support an existing team
08Frequently asked questions
Can you take ownership of our codebase like a senior engineer on the team?
Yes. One senior lead owns the product from the audit to launch, writes things down as we go and hands everything back in your company's name at the end. Many San Francisco startups use us this way while they are not ready to hire a full-time senior engineer.
Can you make our AI features reliable in production?
Yes. We add evaluation sets, tracing, cost tracking, guardrails and fallbacks around your AI features, so you can measure quality and see what happened in each request. We improve prompts, retrieval and agent design based on those measurements rather than guesswork.
How do you handle the time difference with San Francisco?
We work on Eastern Time and schedule calls in your Pacific Time morning, which overlaps with our afternoon. Between calls, progress and open questions are visible in the Lunarion client app, so you always know where things stand.
How does a project start?
Every project starts with a fixed-price audit of your code, access, hosting and contracts. It ends with a written diagnosis and a detailed, prioritized quote, so you can decide what to do next with a clear picture of the codebase and the risks.
Who owns the code and the accounts?
You do. Repositories, domains, cloud, model provider, app store and payment accounts are kept or moved into your company's name, and everything is documented at handover. No part of your product depends on access only we hold.
Will you push us toward a full rewrite?
No. A rewrite is rarely the right first move for a product that has users. We keep what holds up, refactor the parts that block progress step by step and only replace components when the audit shows a clear reason to.
09Other cities we work with
[ Lunarion audit ]
Need an outside view?
The Lunarion audit takes stock of your project: a written diagnosis, priorities and costs.