Custom software
Web apps, internal tools, APIs and back-office systems, built in whatever stack suits the job and your team.
Bluesky Consulting · Pretoria
Software that works, built by an engineer who stays with it.
Bluesky Consulting is a small software company in Pretoria. I build custom software, SaaS products and AI automation, and I take on contract engineering work as an experienced engineer.
Who I am
I founded Bluesky Consulting in 2020. I'm PD van Lill, a senior software engineer with over ten years of experience in e-commerce, fintech, home services, e-learning and insurance.
My full background, projects and CV are on my personal site: pd-van-lill.pages.dev.
Why Bluesky?
The name comes from blue-sky research: open-ended work done to understand a problem properly, before anyone knows exactly where it leads. That's how I like to start projects, by exploring and measuring first, and it's where the practical wins usually come from. Then I build the result into software that runs reliably in production.
What I do
SaaS builds
I take a product from idea to launch: auth, billing, dashboards, hosting and the boring bits that make it reliable.
AI automation & integrations
I put language models to work in real processes: reading documents, sorting requests, making decisions with a person in the loop where it matters. I also connect them to the systems you already use.
Voice & telephony AI
Voice bots and call automation, plus integrations with contact-centre platforms such as Genesys and Five9.
Contract engineering
Senior engineering capacity for your team, contracted through Bluesky Consulting. I mostly work remotely.
How I work
- Talk. A short call to understand the problem, what "done" looks like and any constraints.
- Plan and size it together. You and I break the work into pieces, and I size each piece so you can see what it involves and what it costs before anything is built.
- Pick from the menu. Think of it like a sushi menu: you choose the pieces you want built, in the order that suits you. Billing is based on your requirements and the pieces you pick.
- Build in small steps. You see working software early and often, not just at the end.
- Ship and hand over. Deployment, documentation and a handover, so your team isn't stuck with a black box. If you want more later, the next pieces go on the same menu.
Contract engagements: for team augmentation, I slot into your existing tools and processes, contracted through Bluesky Consulting.
Tech I use
