Build production-grade smart order routing that scales.

The difference between a smart order routing that works in demo and one that holds in production is engineering discipline applied from the first decision.

Smart order routing projects fail for predictable reasons: requirements that were unclear at the start, architectural decisions that optimised for speed over correctness, and technical debt that compounds until the system cannot be changed without breaking something. PROPELOO starts every smart order routing engagement with the architecture — before a line of code is written — because the cost of getting it right early is always less than the cost of getting it wrong. We deliver working software at every milestone, with IP that transfers to you at each invoice.

What smart order routing engineering looks like in practice.

Production smart order routing requires correct decisions across multiple engineering domains simultaneously.

System Layers

• Architecture Layer: System design, technology selection, data modelling, API design, ADR documentation
• Development Layer: Business logic implementation, integration, testing, code review standards
• Quality Layer: Automated testing, CI/CD, performance benchmarking, security review
• Operations Layer: Deployment, monitoring, alerting, incident response
• Delivery Layer: Milestone tracking, change management, documentation, knowledge transfer

Core Technical Capabilities

• Architecture Design

  System architecture documented in Architecture Decision Records — every technology choice justified against requirements. Data model, API contracts and integration patterns designed before implementation begins.

• Core Development

  Feature development in two-week sprints with working software demonstrated at each sprint end. Every PR reviewed, every feature tested, every deployment to staging before production.

• Integration Engineering

  Third-party API integrations, data pipeline connections, webhook handling, retry logic and graceful degradation. Every integration has error handling and is tested against real API responses.

• Security Engineering

  Authentication and authorisation, input validation, dependency scanning in CI, secrets management, OWASP best practices and threat modelling for security-sensitive components.

• Automated Testing

  Unit, integration and end-to-end tests in CI. Coverage enforcement for critical business logic. Performance testing before launch. Security scanning on every build.

• DevOps & Deployment

  CI/CD pipeline, infrastructure as code (Terraform), containerised deployment, environment management and monitoring from day one.

How we approach smart order routing.

Every smart order routing project has the same fundamental challenge: translating what the business needs into software that reliably delivers it. The engineering is the easy part. The hard part is making sure the right thing is being built.

• Discovery before development

  A sprint that starts without agreed architecture and scope will spend the first three days making decisions that should have been made in discovery. Paid discovery (5-10 days) that produces architecture documentation, data model and milestone plan is not optional overhead — it is the difference between a sprint team that executes and one that debates.

  Axiom:

• Working software is the only metric

  A sprint that produces completed tickets but no deployable software has not made progress. Every sprint ends with software that can be deployed to staging and demonstrated. Velocity is measured in shipped features, not story points.

  Axiom:

• Change management over scope freeze

  Requirements change. The question is whether they are managed transparently. Every scope change is documented as a change order: what is changing, estimated effort impact, timeline adjustment. This protects both parties.

  Axiom:

• IP transfers with each milestone

  Every deliverable — code, architecture documentation, design files — transfers to the client at the milestone invoice. No ongoing PROPELOO dependency. No licence fees. The codebase is yours from day one.

  Axiom:

The decisions that define the system.

These are the questions we work through in the architecture phase.

• Build vs buy?

  Impact: Build for competitive differentiators. Buy or integrate for commodity functionality. The correct split depends on what makes your system unique.

  • Build from scratch — maximum fit, maximum time
  • Customise existing solution — faster, less precise fit
  • SaaS integration — fastest, ongoing cost
  • Hybrid — core custom, commodity components SaaS

• Monolith vs microservices?

  Impact: Start with a modular monolith. Extract services when demonstrated need justifies operational overhead.

  • Modular monolith — best default for most systems
  • Microservices — justified by team size or scaling requirements
  • Serverless — good for event-driven, spiky workloads
  • Hybrid — monolith with extracted services

• SQL vs NoSQL?

  Impact: PostgreSQL for the primary data store unless access patterns specifically require another approach.

  • PostgreSQL — ACID, flexible, correct for most applications
  • MongoDB — document model for highly variable schemas
  • DynamoDB — infinite scale, restrictive queries
  • Redis — caching and session storage

• Synchronous vs async processing?

  Impact: Async processing for operations that do not need to be in the response path. Synchronous for reads and real-time requirements.

  • Synchronous REST — simple, tight coupling
  • Async queues (SQS/BullMQ) — decoupled, resilient
  • Event-driven — loose coupling, eventual consistency
  • Hybrid — sync reads, async writes

• Authentication approach?

  Impact: Managed auth for speed to market unless compliance requirements mandate self-hosted.

  • Managed auth (Auth0/Clerk) — fastest, ongoing cost
  • JWT with refresh rotation — stateless, full control
  • Session-based — stateful, simpler revocation
  • Custom OAuth 2.0 — for providing auth to others

• Deployment infrastructure?

  Impact: ECS Fargate or Cloud Run for most applications. Kubernetes when the ecosystem provides genuine value.

  • Managed containers (ECS Fargate) — simple, right for most
  • Kubernetes — justified for complex orchestration needs
  • Serverless (Lambda) — good for event-driven, variable load
  • VPS — simple, lowest cost for predictable low traffic

What PROPELOO builds.

• Smart Order Routing — Production System

  Full production smart order routing from architecture through deployment — milestone-based delivery, automated testing, CI/CD and documentation.

• Smart Order Routing — MVP

  Rapid MVP of the core smart order routing functionality — focused scope, 8-12 week delivery, production-quality from the start.

• Smart Order Routing — Modernisation

  Migrate or rebuild an existing smart order routing system — strangler fig migration, zero-downtime deployment, data migration.

• Smart Order Routing — API & Integration

  Smart order routing API development and third-party integration — OpenAPI spec, authentication, rate limiting and developer documentation.

• Smart Order Routing — Audit & Review

  Architecture review of existing smart order routing system — technical debt assessment, security review, performance bottlenecks and remediation roadmap.

• Smart Order Routing — Scale-up

  Performance engineering for smart order routing at scale — load testing, bottleneck identification, caching strategy and infrastructure scaling.

Technology selected for the problem, not habit.

Every technology choice is justified against the specific requirements of the system.

• Backend

  Stack: Node.js (TypeScript), Go, Python, PostgreSQL, Redis

• Frontend

  Stack: React, Next.js, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, TanStack Query

• Infrastructure

  Stack: AWS / GCP, Terraform, Docker, Kubernetes / ECS, GitHub Actions

• Quality

  Stack: Jest / Vitest, Playwright, k6 (load testing), Sentry, OpenTelemetry

• API

  Stack: REST + OpenAPI, GraphQL, WebSocket, gRPC

• Auth

  Stack: Auth0, Clerk, JWT, OAuth 2.0

Security built in, not bolted on.

Every PROPELOO engagement includes security as a standard part of delivery.

• Authentication & Authorisation

  Secure session management, RBAC at the API layer, JWT with correct expiry and rotation, OAuth 2.0 integration and audit logging for sensitive operations.

• Input Validation

  Schema validation at the API boundary, parameterised queries (no SQL injection), output encoding for XSS prevention and file upload validation.

• Secrets Management

  No secrets in source code, AWS Secrets Manager or equivalent, rotation without downtime and least-privilege IAM per service.

• Dependency Security

  Automated vulnerability scanning (Dependabot/Snyk) in CI, pinned dependency versions, no known critical CVEs in production builds.

• Data Protection

  Encryption at rest for sensitive fields, TLS 1.3 in transit, PII fields identified with appropriate access controls and retention limits.

• Threat Modelling

  STRIDE threat modelling at the architecture phase — trust boundaries, attack surface identification and risk-prioritised mitigation before implementation.

From architecture to production.

1. 01. Discovery Sprint

   Architecture, data model, technology selection, milestone plan. Deliverable: architecture document.

2. 02. Foundation Sprint

   Project scaffold, CI/CD, environments, auth, core data model.

3. 03. Core Development

   Feature development in 2-week sprints. Working software every sprint.

4. 04. Integration

   Third-party integrations, API connections, data pipeline.

5. 05. Quality & Security

   Test suite, performance testing, security review.

6. 06. Production Deployment

   Zero-downtime production deployment, monitoring, runbooks.

7. 07. Handoff

   Documentation, knowledge transfer, optional retainer.

Smart Order Routing Engagements

Multi-venue order routing systems minimising cost and maximising fill rates.

• Multi-DEX Smart Order Router

  Challenge: DeFi protocol needed to give users best execution across 8 DEXs — naive single-venue routing leaving 0.3-1.5% value on table for large orders.

  Architecture: Off-chain route finder computing all paths up to 3 hops across 8 DEXs. Split execution across multiple pools to minimise price impact. On-chain aggregation contract executing atomic multi-venue swaps. Gas cost included in route optimisation — a cheaper route that saves $10 in fees is better than a marginally better price costing $15 more gas.

  Outcome: Users receive 0.4-1.8% better execution vs single-venue routing. Protocol handles $15M daily volume. Route calculation completes in under 200ms for 95% of pairs.

• Smart Order Router for Institutional CEX Trading

  Challenge: Institutional trading desk executing $50M+ daily needed routing across 6 CEXs — manual venue selection leaving execution quality unmeasured.

  Architecture: Real-time order book aggregation from 6 CEXs via WebSocket. Smart routing algorithm considering: available liquidity, fee tiers, maker rebates, withdrawal limits. TWAP and VWAP execution algorithms splitting large orders to minimise market impact. Transaction cost analysis (TCA) reporting per venue.

  Outcome: Measured execution improvement of 0.08-0.15% vs manual routing on $50M daily volume — $40K-75K daily alpha. TCA reporting identified 2 underperforming venues removed from rotation.

• Cross-chain Liquidity Aggregator

  Challenge: DeFi protocol needed to route user swaps across chains — users manually bridging then swapping, losing 1-3% to multiple fees.

  Architecture: Cross-chain route finder computing: bridge fee + destination DEX price impact + gas costs for all chain combinations. Across Protocol and Stargate integration for bridge execution. Single-signature user experience: one approval, router handles bridge + swap atomically.

  Outcome: Cross-chain swaps complete in average 4.2 minutes. Users save 0.8-2.1% vs manual bridge + swap. Router handles 3,000+ cross-chain swaps monthly.

Frequently Asked Questions