We have over two decades of experience creating websites, managing web teams and training developers. We’ve built up a track record of delivering on technical challenges.
Are you interested in working with us on a project? Get in touch.
We’ve worked for some fantastic companies throughout the years.
Services we offer
We offer a wide range of services. All focused around delivering value to web projects and the teams that deliver them.
- Ruby on Rails development
- Website maintenance
- Interim / Fractional CTO
- Technical writing
- Training
- Something else?
Ruby on Rails Development
We’ve worked on highly available, well-trafficked Rails applications with millions in revenue going through them. We know the importance of writing clean code that is understandable and gets the job done well.
Our writing about Ruby has been featured in industry leading resources such as Ruby Weekly.
We’ve helped companies with;
- Ruby upgrades
- Ruby on Rails framework updates
- Security patching
- Adding features to projects
- Creating applications from idea to functional MVP
- Scaling projects
You can read more on our Ruby contractor Belfast page or our Rails maintenance page.
Website Maintenance
We don’t just do Ruby development, we actively maintain web projects across a range of platforms, such as WordPress, SquareSpace, and custom setups in a variety of languages.
Sometimes these websites can fall into disrepair, and the people who originally made them have either moved on or just don’t have the time to support your website.
We’ve been able to make pragmatic, continual improvements to websites, specifically;
- Help with content improvements
- Improve performance of the website
- Increase the accessibility of the website
- Implement SEO improvements
- Add new functionality
- Improve existing functionality
Interim CTO
We excel at solving business problems, putting in place great teams and giving them the required direction.
Working as either an interim or fractional CTO, we can help with:
- Working out the product roadmap
- Who the first technical hires should be
- Planning how the engineering culture could look
- Assisting with the hiring process (including for a full-time CTO when that makes sense)
- Putting good development practices into the business from the get-go
- Analysing the technical landscape and the current toolsets
- Turning tech talk into English when speaking to investors
- Using our network to help your business wherever we can
You can read more on our Interim CTO page.
Technical Writing
We love writing; we have a whole section of articles dedicated to the topic.
Having written books and articles for clients and publishers, we have found ways to take incredibly technical concepts and explain them clearly in a way that makes sense to both an expert and a layperson.
In the past we have helped write;
- Technical overviews of projects for non-technical stakeholders
- API documentation
- README / Setup documentation
- Blog posts aimed at a developer audience
- Articles aimed at a general audience on technical topics
Training
Both Elaine and Toby have experience in mentoring and training developers. Helping to pass on knowledge through workshops and one-on-one sessions.
We focus on breaking down complex topics into manageable and understandable chunks, helping to give confidence to the learner.
We are happy to come prepared on a topic or work closely with the team to understand pain points and deliver something specific to where the team need help.
Some training we’ve delivered;
- Introduction to Ruby on Rails
- Git best practices
- ISO27001 preparedness
- Introduction to data protection impact assessments
Everything Else
We get excited by tech and like to makes people’s lives more comfortable with it. If there is something you think will get us excited that isn’t listed above but you think we would be a good fit, let’s chat.
Are you interested in working with us on a project?
Want to know a little more about us?
Who are we?
Toby Osbourn
Toby is the founder of Tosbourn Ltd. with a long history in web development and Computer Science.
He has a passion for helping small to medium sized businesses with web development, business strategy, and direction, you can find out more about his interim CTO work. He also has a interest in helping websites perform well on search engines SEO.
He has a firm grounding in Ruby, Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, HTML, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Git, Jekyll,, and more. He can turn his hand to most things.
When Toby isn't on his computer (which to be honest isn't often!) he enjoys reading, playing video games and watching YouTube videos about Sudoku.
Toby’s latest articles
Setting a more specific database type in Prisma
Prisma sets a default of TEXT for all String fields, here is how you can override that.
Override database attribute types
Sometimes you don't have control over how your database handles information, so you need Rails to set it
Unsolicited Hiring Tips
If you're going to email a company out of the blue, help them to help you with these three tips
Review: How data happened
A fun read for anyone interested in data or the social history around it
Elaine Osbourn
Elaine is a full stack developer at Tosbourn Ltd. She has an interest in making the web an accessible place for everyone. She has a focus towards the back end of web development and particularly likes working on updates and security of projects.
She has worked on a variety of projects for clients in the charity, events and arts spaces.
When she's not writing code Elaine enjoying hanging out with her cats Pixel and BMO, crocheting and playing on her Nintendo Switch.
Elaine’s latest articles
How to speed up Rubocop
A small bit of config that could speed up your Rubocop runs
Creating draft posts in Jekyll
How to create and develop with draft posts in Jekyll
Reducing Noisy JavaScript Errors with Rollbar
The docs didn't make it very clear exactly what I should do so here is my fix
Fixing Issues with GitHub Actions and Rails
How I went about fixing some issues with a first push of GitHub Actions on a Rails project