Sprout Development
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Southeast Michigan · Software · Data · Automation

Engineering, by the project.

Backend, data pipelines and integrations, so product and research teams can keep building what only they can build. Scoped and priced before anything starts.

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Scope and price agreed up front Works with your existing stack No rip-and-replace Ann Arbor / Detroit
Nothing copied by hand
Still running next year
APIs3rd-party ML / analyticsmodels DatabasesSQL · NoSQL Data pipelinesbatch · stream Cloud infraAWS · GCP Legacy systemsspreadsheets SproutDevelopment
Engineering work across Customer acquisition Partner integration Research enablement Backend automation Data management
What we do

Stay focused on your specialty. We’ll take these.

Systems & data integration

Your systems handing data to each other accurately, without a person in the middle doing it by hand.

  • Custom API integrations & reusable connector libraries
  • Cloud-to-cloud sync, backup & data movement
  • Batch & streaming data pipelines

Data, ML & research enablement

Data off the instruments and into something the whole team can work with — and still run a year from now.

  • Analytics and ML pipelines, with alerts when they break
  • Connecting research teams to the data they need
  • Distributed & high-throughput processing

Cloud & automation

The manual routine that eats half a day every week, running itself — and telling you when it doesn’t.

  • Kubernetes, containers & cloud hosting
  • Modernizing legacy scripts into managed services
  • Automated reporting, notifications & workflows

Custom software

When nothing off the shelf fits: the thing you actually need, documented so anyone can maintain it.

  • Internal tools & operational dashboards
  • Bespoke integrations & data products
  • Web & mobile development when you need it
How we work

A written scope before anybody commits to anything.

No discovery theatre. Bring a project or bring a bottleneck; either way you get scope, price and dates in writing before work starts.

1

Tell us

An email, a call, or forward the thread. If you already know what needs building, we skip straight to scoping it.

2

Scope

What gets built, what it costs, when it lands. Fixed price wherever the work is knowable.

3

Build

In production at the end, not a prototype. Documented so it outlives the engagement.

4

Stay reachable

Monitoring and changes if you want them. A phone number if you don't.

Track record

Built, shipped, handed over.

Engagements delivered as Sprout Development, and the engineering background they stand on.

Partner integrationHealth-records SaaS · camps & schools

Partner integrations for an electronic health record used by camps, childcare and school programs — connecting registration platforms so health records follow the participant.

Five partner integrations delivered, each on its scoped date — opening registration channels that account for tens of thousands of customer acquisitions.

Data management4EVR · partner project

Lead backend engineering on a Bitcoin-backed publishing platform: a Postgres index kept live against the chain, and payments taken in both BTC and USD.

Continuous uptime since launch in April 2026; the indexer has kept pace with the chain throughout.

Where the experience comes from

Cloud backup SaaS
Cloud-to-cloud data movement, backup and sync at scale
Vacation-rental marketplace
Checkout, third-party tax integration, operational reporting
Customer-experience analytics
Survey data capture and the pipelines feeding ML models
Global logistics enterprise
Workflow automation and research access to locked enterprise data
Options-trading firm
Low-latency, high-throughput data processing
Healthcare provider · contract
Data migration between clinical record systems

Earlier engagements are described by sector rather than by name; specifics and references are available on request.

Engagement types

Four ways to work together.

Most people arrive knowing what they need built. If you don't, ask for a systems map instead — a short look at how your data moves that ends in a written plan you own, including if you take it elsewhere.

Capacity
Overflow engineering
By the weekrate on request

You're short an engineer, not a spec. Blocks of time against your own backlog, under your direction — including as a subcontractor under your brand.

Start and stop by the week
One deliverable
Project
from $4,5002–4 weeks

One integration, one pipeline, one automation. You bring the requirement; you get a fixed scope and price before anything starts. In production at the end, not a prototype.

Fixed scope, fixed price
Full system
Build
$15k–$75kscoped per project

The platform, the data infrastructure, the replacement for the system everyone is afraid of. Scoped and priced in writing first.

You own the code and the docs
Retainer
Ongoing
from $2,500per month · rolling

We host it, watch it, fix it when something upstream changes, and keep working down the list. The option that means you don't have to hire for this — until you want to.

30 days' notice, both ways

For comparison. A data or integration engineer in Southeast Michigan runs roughly $140,000–$180,000 a year once benefits and overhead are counted — and takes three to six months to find, hire, and get productive.

Most teams don't need a full-time hire. They need a few focused weeks and somebody to call when it breaks. A pilot costs less than a month of that salary, and you know inside four weeks whether it was worth it.

Prices are starting points for scoping conversations, not quotes. The number you're given before work begins is the number you pay.

Where the work happens

Cloud & infrastructure
AWSGoogle CloudKubernetesCloud RunDocker
Data & ML
PythonSQLRayBatch & streaming pipelinesWarehousing
Integration
REST APIsWebhooksQueuesETL & sync
Automation
Excel & VBA replacementScheduled jobsReport deliveryAlerting

Tooling follows the problem — not the other way around.

About

Built on work that couldn’t afford to fail.

Matthew Melear
Matthew Melear
Principal engineer · Ann Arbor, Michigan
734.358.9571 · [email protected]

An independent engineering practice built on a career across cloud backup, travel platforms, customer-experience ML, enterprise logistics and low-latency trading. The common thread: the plumbing underneath, built so the people above it can get on with their work.

Engagements are scoped to the outcome, not billable hours: diagnose the real problem, ship a solution that lasts, leave it documented. No resellers, no rotating teams, no hand-off to people who weren't in the room. Based in Ann Arbor — close enough to be in the room when that helps.

5 practice areasintegration · data · research · automation · software
End‑to‑endfrom scope to shipped & supported
SE Michiganbased & hands-on
Straight answers

The questions people actually ask.

Worth knowing before a first conversation.

We already have an IT provider. Where do you fit?
Right alongside them, usually. An MSP keeps your machines, network, and accounts running — that's a genuinely different job from making two systems exchange data, or turning a spreadsheet into software. We're happy to work with whoever you've got, and we're not trying to take over their scope.
What happens when the project ends?
You own the code, the documentation, and the infrastructure it runs on. It's written to be handed off and it's documented well enough that another engineer could pick it up. If you want us to keep running it, that's the ongoing option — a choice, not a dependency we engineered in.
How big is Sprout?
Small and deliberately so. Work is delivered directly, or with trusted specialists brought in when a project needs a skill set outside our core. Either way you deal with the same people from the first conversation to the handoff — no account manager, no rotating bench, no hand-off to someone who wasn't in the room.
How fast can you start?
Scoping is a conversation and a couple of days, not a procurement cycle. Overflow blocks can usually start within a week or two; project work begins once a scope is signed.
How much of your time do we get?

One or two engagements at a time, deliberately. Calls and reviews happen in your business hours; the build happens around them. What you are buying is a date and a working system, not a seat — and if a date is ever at risk you will hear it from me before it slips, not after.

You cost more per hour than hiring someone.

Per hour, yes. Per outcome, usually not. There is no recruiting cycle, no onboarding ramp, no benefits or payroll overhead, and no severance if it turns out to be the wrong fit. You pay for the weeks you need and stop. A hire is a twelve-month commitment made on the strength of a few interviews; an engagement is a fixed scope you can end.

Send us the project. Or the problem.

Describe the project, or forward the thread about the thing that keeps breaking. You get a scope and a price back — or a systems map instead, if you'd rather start by finding out where the cost is.

Scope and price in writing You talk to whoever builds it No pitch deck No obligation

Start a project Just want to talk first?
1. You send a paragraph 2. We talk for ninety minutes 3. You get the map