Software Development in Austin for Public Agencies and Growing Companies

How public sector work reaches us in Texas

The Texas Department of Information Resources runs cooperative contracts that state agencies, local governments and K-12 schools use to buy IT products and services. An agency can buy that way, or through a prime contractor that already holds a contract.

Our own routes into public sector work are responding to RFPs and subcontracting through a prime. When a project calls for it, we work inside the prime's delivery plan and reporting, and we build to the agency's records retention schedule rather than our own defaults. Our government page explains the approach in more detail.

TX-RAMP and the cloud question

DIR describes TX-RAMP as a standardized approach to security assessment, certification and continuous monitoring of cloud computing services that process Texas state agency data. If the system we build is hosted as a cloud service and handles agency data, the agency's security team is likely to ask about TX-RAMP during procurement.

That changes hosting choices, so we settle it in the design phase, with the agency's security staff, before anything is priced. Where the agency already runs an approved platform, building on it is usually simpler than certifying something new.

AI that talks to the public has to say so

The Texas Responsible Artificial Intelligence Governance Act took effect on 1 January 2026. Among other things, it requires a governmental agency that makes an AI system available to interact with consumers to disclose that before or at the time of the interaction, even when it would be obvious.

For an agency chatbot, a benefits assistant or an intake form that drafts replies, we put that disclosure into the interface itself. We also build the controls we put on every agent: an allowlist of what it may do, human approval before anything irreversible, and a log of every tool call. Before launch, we test it against an evaluation set drawn from the agency's own questions and documents, and re-run that set on every change. The AI implementation page covers the method.

Austin companies building a first product

Opportunity Austin's target industries include semiconductors, life sciences, creative and digital media, financial services, data management and advanced manufacturing. A company in one of those fields, or a startup selling into one, may need an MVP or a SaaS product that can survive its first real customers. We scope that work after the 90-minute AI workflow audit, with builds starting from $15,000. Most large builds are fixed-price, with a monthly retainer after launch.