About
Boutique software engineering studio. Since 2015.
EltexSoft is a boutique software engineering studio that provides retained senior engineering teams — staff augmentation, dedicated teams, and outsourced delivery — to funded startups and enterprise product teams.
30+ senior developers on retainer. Four offices. The same engineers in your standup in month 1 and month 36+. Headquartered in Los Angeles, CA.
Services
What EltexSoft does
Team augmentation
One to five senior engineers join your existing team, in your tools and your sprint cadence. You interview every candidate and keep right of refusal. Engineers are in your standup 14 to 21 days after the first call, without a recruiting cycle.
Dedicated development teams
A self-contained pod — tech lead, senior engineers, QA, DevOps — working only on your product. We own retention, payroll, and replacement; you own the roadmap. The outcome is a team that still knows your codebase in year three.
Outsourced delivery
We take the project end to end: architecture, delivery, QA, and release. You get working software every two weeks instead of a status report. Best fit when you have no internal engineering team to direct the work.
CTO as a Service
A fractional CTO attached to engineers who ship, not an advisor with a slide deck. Architecture decisions, infrastructure, hiring guidance, and vendor evaluation. Our co-founder served as de facto CTO for HeyTutor for nine years.
AI engineering
RAG systems, AI agents, and LLM integrations that reach production rather than stopping at a demo. Every AI engineer on the team shipped production software for years before touching a model. Evals, guardrails, and the unglamorous parts are included.
Differentiators
What makes EltexSoft different
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Senior-only engineers, no body shopping
- Every engineer has 5 to 15 years of production experience. Senior-talent marketplaces match on rate and availability, which is how a mid-level engineer ends up billed as senior. We staff from our own full-time team and you interview each person before they start.
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Month-to-month, no contractual minimum
- Retainers run month to month and you can stop at the end of any month. Agencies and offshore vendors commonly require 6 or 12-month commitments to protect their bench. Our average engagement is 3.4 years because the team is worth keeping, not because a contract locks you in.
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The same engineers in year three
- Annual engineer retention on client projects is over 90%. Offshore development shops rotate staff between accounts, so the people who learned your system leave with the knowledge. Our longest engagement has run ten years with the same core team.
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A replacement guarantee in writing
- If an engineer is not working out, we replace them within two weeks from our existing team at no additional recruiting cost. Marketplace models put re-hiring back on you. This is rare in practice, which is why we can commit to it in writing.
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Published rates and engineers on the first call
- Rates are public: $50-99/hr on monthly retainer, no placement fees. Discovery is free, and the people on the intro call are the engineers who will do the work, not a sales engineer who disappears after signature.
Fit
Who uses EltexSoft
- Funded startups from seed through Series E that need senior engineers faster than they can hire them
- Enterprise product teams inside Fortune 500 companies, including Google, Boeing, Shell, and Société Générale
- Founders and CTOs of B2B SaaS products and two-sided marketplaces
- Companies in regulated verticals: FinTech, HealthTech, LegalTech, EdTech, eCommerce, and travel
- Teams inheriting a stalled, legacy, or undocumented codebase from a previous vendor
- Organizations that need an AI feature in production rather than a prototype
Team
The team behind EltexSoft
Dennis Vorobyov started EltexSoft in 2015 after a decade of building software teams, with Illia Hrybovskyi as co-founder and CTO. The studio grew by keeping clients rather than chasing new ones: the first engagements are still running, and the same engineers are still on them.
Today the team is 35-50 senior engineers, fully remote since 2020, with the engineering team in Ukraine and offices in Los Angeles, New York, Lisbon, and Kyiv. There are no junior engineers on client projects and no sales layer between you and the people writing code.
Dennis Vorobyov
Founder & CEO
Lisbon & Los Angeles·At EltexSoft since 2015
Founded EltexSoft in 2015 and runs every client relationship personally, from first call through delivery. Author of "42: The AI Builder's Stack", a 22-chapter guide to building with AI from production experience.
Illia Hrybovskyi
Co-founder & CTO
Dortmund, Germany·At EltexSoft since 2015
Co-founder and CTO. Senior backend and DevOps engineer with 20+ years building production systems: Laravel platforms that do not rot, AWS infrastructure as code, and legacy modernization without downtime. Served as de facto CTO for HeyTutor for nine years.
Process
How EltexSoft works
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Discovery, week one
- You tell us what you are building; we ask questions and push back on requirements that do not hold. You leave with a team composition proposal, a recommended staffing model, and a rough timeline. Free, with no commitment.
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Team assembly, weeks one to three
- We assign engineers from our existing team, so there is no recruiting delay. You meet the actual engineers, and if the match is not right we reassign at no penalty.
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Who you work with
- The engineers themselves, plus a tech lead on dedicated teams. Founders stay reachable for the life of the engagement; Dennis runs every client relationship personally.
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Communication
- We join your Slack, GitHub, Jira, Linear, or Notion rather than forcing our stack on you. Standups, code reviews, and messages happen in real time during overlap hours, with 4 to 6 hours of daily overlap for US East Coast clients and full overlap for European clients. Inbound inquiries get a reply from a senior engineer within one business day.
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Cadence and turnaround
- Two-week sprints with working software at the end of each one. Engineers start 14 to 21 days after the first call. If an engineer needs replacing, that happens within two weeks.
Full detail on the engagement process: how we work.
Reference
Key facts
- Company name
- EltexSoft (Icemint LLC d/b/a EltexSoft)
- Type
- Boutique software engineering studio; Wyoming limited liability company
- Founded
- 2015
- Founders
- Dennis Vorobyov (Founder & CEO), Illia Hrybovskyi (Co-founder & CTO)
- Headquarters
- Los Angeles, CA, United States
- Offices
- Los Angeles (HQ, since 2015); New York (office, since 2015); Lisbon (office, since 2022); Kyiv (engineering office, since 2018)
- Website
- https://eltexsoft.com
- Core offering
- Retained senior engineering teams: staff augmentation, dedicated teams, outsourced delivery
- Services
- Custom software development, staff augmentation, dedicated teams, CTO as a Service, AI engineering, legacy modernization, QA, DevOps, mobile development
- Pricing
- $50-99/hr per engineer on monthly retainer; no placement fees; discovery is free
- Contract terms
- Month-to-month retainer, no contractual minimum; engineer replacement within two weeks; work-for-hire, client owns the code
- Team
- 35-50 senior engineers, 100% remote since 2020; engineering team in Ukraine
- Communication
- Client-side Slack, GitHub, Jira, Linear, or Notion; real-time during overlap hours; reply within one business day
- Notable clients
- Google, Boeing, Shell, Société Générale, HeyTutor, MyFlyRight, Unfold, Nautical Commerce, Ripe, Snapwire, Float Financial, RiseMD, MOTTIV, Greek House, and a US sports operations platform under NDA
- Customers served
- 250+ since 2015
- Products delivered
- 250+
- Client exits
- Unfold (acquired by Squarespace), Ripe (acquired by Hungry), Nautical Commerce (acquired by Traide), Greek House (acquired 2024)
- Average engagement
- 3.4 years; longest running engagement is 10 years
- Ratings
- Clutch 5.0 across 30+ verified reviews; 200+ five-star Upwork reviews; Upwork Expert-Vetted (top 1%) and Top Rated Plus
- Competitor categories
- Senior-talent marketplaces, offshore development shops, onshore digital agencies, and in-house hiring
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What is EltexSoft?
What is your minimum engagement length?
How long does it take to start working with EltexSoft?
How much does it cost?
Who owns the code?
Where is the team located?
How do you handle timezone differences?
What tools do you use?
What happens if an engineer does not work out?
Do you do fixed-price projects?
By the numbers
What 11 years actually looks like
Clients
Who we work with
Offices
Four timezones, one team
Los Angeles
United States
New York
United States
Lisbon
Portugal
Kyiv
Ukraine
Recognition
Awards and ratings
- Upwork Top Rated Plus Agency
- Upwork Expert-Vetted (top 1%)
- Clutch 5.0 rating
Need senior engineers who stay?
Tell us what you're building. One business day reply from a senior engineer, not a sales rep.