Building and supporting platforms since 2018
Who you're
actually hiring.
The uncomfortable question about hiring a small practice is who is really doing the work. Here is the honest answer, with a face attached.
Who you'll deal with
No account managers, because there aren't any.
Rob has been building for the web since 2015, working on household-name brands through some of the largest agencies in Greater Manchester and the surrounding North West: theme parks, supermarkets, train operators and construction. He started Helitz in 2018 to do that work on his own terms rather than from inside an agency.
He scopes the work and stays involved in delivery, even when an associate joins the project. That is a constraint: it caps how much Helitz takes on at once, and it is the reason there is nobody in between you and the person responsible for the code. When you call 01782 850 022 during a release, you get him.
Day to day that means current-LTS .NET, Umbraco, and React and Next.js frontends.
Brands Rob has built for
- Alton Towers
- Sea Life
- Merlin Entertainments
- Aldi
- Umbro
- Balfour Beatty
- CrossCountry
- Grand Central
- General Optical Council
- CEV
Built inside agency teams over the last decade, before and alongside Helitz, so these were the agency's clients rather than Rob's or Helitz's. Helitz's own client work stays confidential. This is the experience behind the practice, not a client list.
Paddy Molloy-Brown
Operations
Paddy keeps the company running behind the delivery work: onboarding, invoicing, scheduling and the administrative side that would otherwise eat into development time. You probably will not deal with her directly, which is how it should be.
How it actually works
A small core, and a bench we trust.
Helitz is deliberately small. Delivery scales through associates we have worked with for years, brought in for specific engagements, not a rotating pool of whoever is free.
You get the same people
Associates are chosen for the engagement and stay on it. Continuity matters more on long-running platforms than raw headcount does.
We turn work down
If we can't staff something properly we say so on the first call. Taking work we can't resource is how clients get let down.
Reviewed by a second developer
No code reaches a client environment on one person's say-so, whoever wrote it. That holds on a solo project as much as a team one.
Remote, UK-based, UK hours
Distributed across the UK rather than tied to one office, working the same hours as you and your clients.
Nothing is hostage to us
Code lives in your repositories, documented, with runbooks. A small supplier should be easy to leave, or the arrangement isn't fair.
White-label where it applies
For agency partners the work carries their brand, and most of their clients have never heard of Helitz. Direct clients simply get a development team.
The name
Helix, and blitz.
The name is two ideas pushed together, and it is a reasonable summary of how we try to work: build fast, but build right.
Most development goes wrong at one end or the other. Either it is quick and leaves a mess for whoever inherits it, or it is careful to the point of never shipping. The bar is clearing both.
- Helix.
- Structure, growth and layered complexity. The part that has to hold up years after launch.
- Blitz.
- Focused speed, intensity and execution. The part that gets it in front of your client.
Questions
The things people ask before the first call.
- How big is Helitz?
- Deliberately small. Rob Dorsett leads delivery, with operations support and a bench of associates we have worked with for years. We would sooner decline work we cannot staff properly than hand you whoever happens to be free.
- Who will actually write our code?
- Rob Dorsett scopes Helitz projects and stays involved in delivery, bringing in trusted associates when an engagement needs more capacity. You are told who will write your code. There is no account management layer between you and the developers doing the work.
- What experience does Helitz actually have?
- Rob has been a professional developer since 2015, working through some of the largest agencies in Greater Manchester and the North West on brands including Alton Towers, Sea Life, Merlin Entertainments, Aldi, Umbro, Balfour Beatty, CrossCountry and Grand Central. That is the background the work is built on: agency delivery pressure, real client scrutiny, and platforms that had to keep running afterwards.
- Isn't a small supplier a risk for a long-running platform?
- A small supplier is a fair concern for a long-running platform. Helitz keeps code in your repositories, with readmes, runbooks and architecture notes written as we go. You can take the work in-house or to another supplier without our cooperation. We would rather be easy to leave, and kept on merit.
- How long has Helitz been going?
- Helitz has been trading since 2018, and was incorporated as Helitz Digital Ltd in March 2021. It is registered in England and Wales under company number 13261365, based in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, and works with businesses, agencies and in-house teams across the UK.
- Does Helitz work directly with businesses, or only through agencies?
- Both. Helitz works directly with businesses that own an Umbraco or .NET platform, and as a white-label partner for agencies delivering under their own brand. Historically most delivery has been agency work, and direct engagements run through the same engineers and the same process.
Talk to the person
who'd build it.
No pitch team, no discovery deck. A short call about what you're stretched on, and an honest answer about whether we're the right fit.