You need more than a collection of screens. You need a web application that understands the work your users are trying to do and makes that work clearer, faster, and less error-prone.
We design and build focused Django applications for research teams, mission-driven organizations, and businesses with specialist requirements. We can take responsibility for the architecture, data model, interface, API, background processing, and deployment, while keeping the result practical and maintainable.
Senior, direct collaboration
Not every application needs a large delivery team. When you work with McQuillen Interactive, you work directly with the person designing and building the software. There are fewer handoffs, decisions stay close to the problem, and technical trade-offs can be explained in plain language.
That model has worked particularly well for small organizations, expert-led teams, and projects where the requirements become clearer through conversation and working software—not a massive specification written at the beginning.
What we can help you build
- Custom business and research applications built around a particular workflow rather than a generic software package.
- Data-heavy portals, dashboards, reporting tools, and interfaces for scientific or technical systems.
- APIs and integrations that connect your application with partners, internal tools, and specialist calculation engines.
- Prototypes and first product versions that are useful enough to test with real users and sound enough to keep developing.
- Thoughtful extensions to an existing Django application when your team needs experienced, independent support.
New products, existing systems, and the awkward middle
We can help shape a new application from early discovery through a working release. That usually means identifying the core users and risky assumptions, choosing a sensible architecture, and delivering the product in useful increments.
We also work on established Django systems: understanding unfamiliar code, improving tests, upgrading dependencies, untangling difficult areas, adding APIs, and replacing awkward workflows without turning every improvement into a complete rewrite.
Django from interface to infrastructure
Our core stack includes Python, Django, PostgreSQL, Redis, and Celery, with Django REST Framework for APIs. On the front end we use the simplest approach that suits the product, from server-rendered Django and HTMX through to React or Angular where a richer client application is justified. We have deployed and supported applications on both Google Cloud and AWS.
Technology choices matter, but they are not the product. The standard we care about is whether the application is understandable to its users, maintainable by the people responsible for it, and reliable in the real workflow it was built to support.
Experience with complex, data-heavy applications
Our past projects include long-running platforms, scientific applications, open-source products, and systems that connect web interfaces with demanding data and simulation tools.
- Validibot
- A Django-based data validation platform with reusable workflows, APIs, asynchronous execution, and specialist validators.
- BETTER
- A substantial rewrite and extension of a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Django application, including a REST API and Celery-based asynchronous workflow.
- International Glazing and Shading Database
- A data model, web application, and API supporting an important building-science database and its publishing workflow.
- iBiology Courses & KinesinLMS
- A learning platform developed and maintained over ten years, then transformed into an open-source LMS with support from an NIH grant.
Good communication is part of the work
A successful software engagement depends on understanding the real need, explaining options honestly, and staying responsive as the work evolves. Clients consistently describe our work as easy to use and our approach as communicative, reliable, and efficient.
“Daniel is a superb software developer and a pleasure to work with! He is highly skilled in his ability to grasp client needs, recommend solutions, and execute them with quality and efficiency.”
Carolyn Szum, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
You can read more client reviews and see how that approach has worked across different organizations.
A practical way to start
You do not need to arrive with a finished requirements document. We can start with the problem, the people affected by it, and the systems already involved. From there we can help with one of several useful first steps:
- A focused discovery and technical planning phase.
- A prototype or first production release.
- A review and improvement plan for an existing Django application.
- A clearly scoped feature, integration, upgrade, or rescue project.
- Ongoing development support for a system that needs a steady hand.