Legacy modernization services, delivered by a team that stays after the handoff
Most modernization vendors sell you a fixed-bid project and hand it back as a black box. We do it the other way. Full Scale embeds senior engineers who modernize your legacy software alongside your own developers, so the knowledge stays in-house when the work is done. We will tell you honestly which parts to modernize, which to leave alone, and which path each one is on. Senior engineers across the Philippines, fully loaded from $35/hr, with your first engineer in as little as 7 days.
// route new traffic to the modern service,
// fall back to legacy until it's proven
export function route(req: Request) {
if (flags.useModernOrders) {
return modern.handle(req);
}
return legacy.handle(req);
}Engineering teams trusted by enterprises, scale-ups, and Fortune 500s
Founded VinSolutions ($150M+ exit) and Stackify, both built on legacy stacks of their day
Modernization is a decision before it is a project
Before you modernize anything, you have to decide what "modernize" even means for your system, and that decision is where most projects go wrong. I have made it from the inside. I ran roughly 2,000 sharded SQL Server databases at Stackify, and I scaled VinSolutions to $35M in revenue on essentially one big database server before microservices were the default answer. The lesson from both was the same: the expensive mistake is rebuilding what you should have left alone, or band-aiding what you should have rebuilt.
So the first thing a good modernization partner does is tell you which path each part of your system is actually on, and then put senior engineers on it who have done the work before. We have hired engineers in the Philippines since 2018 across .NET, Java, PHP, Python, and JavaScript, the stacks most legacy systems are actually written in. They join your team and modernize alongside your developers, including the engineers powering enterprise systems at AMC Theatres. If you need a partner that does the work with you rather than a vendor that subcontracts it and disappears at handoff, you are in the right place.
Which path is each part of your system on?
"Modernize" is not one thing. Every part of a legacy system is on one of a handful of paths, and picking the wrong one is how budgets disappear. The industry calls these the R's of modernization. The honest part most vendors skip: a rewrite is a trap when the system still does its job and the only reason to touch it is that the code looks old. We have watched companies burn a year rebuilding what a refactor would have fixed in a quarter. If the right answer is to leave something alone, we will tell you, because we bill for the team, not the project, and we would rather keep you for six years than sell you a rewrite you regret.
Rehost
Lift and shift the system onto modern infrastructure with the code mostly unchanged. The fastest, lowest-risk path. Choose it when the code still does its job and the hosting is the actual problem, like moving an on-prem app to the cloud as-is.
Replatform
Move to a modern runtime or managed service with light, targeted changes. Choose it when you want cloud and maintainability benefits without a rewrite, like taking a .NET Framework app to modern .NET, or an old PHP version to a current one.
Refactor and rearchitect
Restructure the code without changing what it does, so it stops slowing every change down. Choose it when the system works but technical debt is the bottleneck. This is usually where the real money is, and where AI now helps us most.
Rebuild
Rewrite the component from scratch on a modern stack. Choose it only when the old code genuinely cannot carry the roadmap and a clean rebuild is cheaper than fighting it. We do the big ones incrementally with the Strangler pattern, never a risky big-bang cutover.
Replace
Swap the component for an off-the-shelf product. Choose it when the capability is a commodity someone else maintains better than you can, so your engineers spend their time on what actually differentiates you.
Retire
Turn it off. The cheapest modernization is deleting code nobody uses. We help you find the features that quietly cost maintenance and serve no one, and remove them safely.
The stacks legacy systems are actually written in
Legacy does not mean exotic. The systems companies need to modernize are written in the same handful of stacks we staff every day: .NET, Java, PHP, and aging front ends like AngularJS. We move them onto supported, maintainable versions without stopping the business, migrating piece by piece so the system keeps running the whole way through. Pick the move you need and we will match engineers who have done it before.
AI changed the economics of modernization
For years the math on modernizing an old system was brutal: most of the cost was just understanding code nobody had touched in a decade, and the risk of breaking a working system kept projects on the shelf. AI moved both. Reading and mapping legacy code is now dramatically faster, which lowers the cost and the risk of refactoring and rebuilds alike.
That does not mean you point an AI at your codebase and hope. The teams getting burned are the ones treating AI output as finished work on a system real customers depend on. Our engineers use AI for the parts where judgment doesn't add value and apply hard-won judgment to everything else. When the work shifts from modernization to net-new LLM features, you can also hire AI engineers from the same bench.
AI reads legacy code humans gave up on
The hardest part of modernizing an old system has always been understanding it: undocumented code, original authors long gone, behavior nobody can fully explain. AI changed that. Our engineers use it to read and map legacy code far faster than anyone could by hand. At SOTA Cloud, a cloud dental-imaging company we staff, one of our engineers used AI to reverse-engineer a proprietary file format that had no documentation at all, the kind of problem that used to stall a modernization for months.
Read Product Driven, the bookJudgment to review what the AI produces
AI-generated code carries its own risk, and on a system real customers depend on, a plausible-but-wrong change is expensive. So the human judgment to review what the AI produces matters more, not less. Our engineers are trained on the Product Driven framework from Matt's book: they think first, use AI for the parts where judgment doesn't add value, and own the outcome of what ships. That combination is exactly what modernization work demands.
AI without product thinking is just a slop machine, and the developers I want on my team know how to avoid that trap. They think first, use AI for the parts where judgment doesn't add value, and own the outcome of what they ship. That's who we hire and train at Full Scale.
Almost none of the reasons are about the technology
Modernization projects fail for predictable reasons, and the technology is rarely one of them. They fail because no one decided which path each piece was on, because the team did not understand the business the system ran, because a big-bang cutover replaced a working system overnight, and because the people who did the work left with the knowledge. Our model is built to avoid each of these: a clear decision up front, senior engineers who learn your domain, incremental migration, and a team that stays.
Nobody decided which R each piece was on
The most common failure starts before any code is written. No one decided whether a component should be rehosted, refactored, or rebuilt, so a quick refactor quietly turns into a full rewrite halfway through, with the budget already spent. We make that call up front, component by component, and write it down.
A big-bang cutover replaced a working system overnight
Teams flip from the old system to the new one in a single release, and when something breaks there is no way back. We migrate incrementally with the Strangler pattern: the old and new run side by side, traffic shifts piece by piece, and nothing goes live until it is proven.
The team modernizing it never understood the business
A vendor that does not understand what the system does for the business reimplements the bugs and misses the rules that mattered. Our engineers learn your domain because they are embedded on your team for the long term, not rotated in for a fixed-bid project and out at handoff.
There were no tests, so no one could change it safely
Most legacy systems have little or no test coverage, which is exactly why they feel too risky to touch. We add characterization tests around the existing behavior first, so the modernization has a safety net and you find out immediately when something changes that should not have.
It became a rewrite that should have been a refactor
The most expensive modernization is rebuilding what a refactor would have fixed. The code looked old, so someone decided to start over, and a year later there is a half-finished rewrite and the old system still running. We push back on rewrites that are not warranted, because we bill for the team, not the project.
The people who did the work left with the knowledge
When an agency finishes and leaves, the only people who understand the modernized system walk out with them. Our model keeps the engineers who did the work on your team, so the institutional knowledge stays in-house and the next change does not start from zero.
Hire dedicated developers, two ways
Most clients start with a single dedicated developer and grow into a full team. Either way, you get full-time engineers who sit on your standups, work your hours, and ship code against your roadmap across Node.js, Python, Java, Go, .NET, Ruby, and PHP. Both options run on our staff augmentation model at the core: dedicated, long-term engineers embedded in your team rather than freelancers, shared resources, or a project shop on the side. See the full breakdown of how we hire dedicated developers across every engagement we staff. When a hire also needs to build the UI on top of the API, you can hire full stack developers from the same bench. And when the workload moves toward high-concurrency services that have to run cheaply under load, you can hire dedicated Golang developers under the same engagement model.
Dedicated developer
Full-time, exclusive, sits on your standups.
- Full-time engineer assigned only to your project
- Works your hours, your tools, your codebase
- Joins your standups, reports to your tech lead
- We handle payroll, HR, equipment, retention
- Replace within 30 days if it isn't a fit
Dedicated team
Multiple engineers, embedded as a pod.
- 2-10 engineers staffed together as one pod
- Optional QA, DevOps, and tech lead included
- Operates as a team inside your engineering org
- Scale up or down by a head with 30 days notice
- Account manager you can escalate to in the US
Dedicated developers, starting at $35 an hour
That rate is fully loaded. Every engineer we staff on your system project is a senior developer in the Philippines working full-time under your direction, and we cover the payroll, benefits, HR, and equipment. The same role hired locally in the US runs $150K to $200K a year for a senior engineer, more for distributed systems or real-time experience, which is the delivery math that brings most teams to the table.
- Full-time, dedicated engineer
- Pre-vetted by senior engineers
- Works your hours, your tools, your codebase
- Payroll, HR, equipment, benefits handled by us
- US-based account manager you can escalate to
- Two-week money-back guarantee if it isn't a fit
Full Scale has made the Inc. 5000 four years in a row and is Great Place to Work certified. We have been doing this since 2018, and pricing isn't the only reason clients stay with our software development company, it's the easiest reason to call.
Why we deliver projects from the Philippines
Every project we deliver is staffed from the Philippines. You can also hire dedicated developers in the Philippines across every other stack we work in, with the same vetting bar, retention, and engagement model that clients get.
English-fluent by default
The Philippines is the third-largest English-speaking country in the world. Standups, code reviews, and customer calls work the way they do with any US team member.
Real time-zone overlap
Most of our engineers work US business hours with 4-8 hours of real-time overlap with East and West Coast teams, so decisions happen live during shared hours rather than crawling through 24-hour async handoffs.
Deep engineering talent pool
Cebu and Manila produce tens of thousands of CS and IT graduates a year, trained across Java, Python, .NET, and Node, deep enough to staff a full project team without compromising on seniority. The country has been a software outsourcing home for over a decade.
Cultural alignment with US teams
Filipino engineers grow up on US business norms, US TV, and US tech culture, so agile rituals, direct feedback, and collaborative workflows feel familiar from day one. These teams integrate fast rather than needing constant management.
The numbers behind a modernization partner that actually works
From the people we actually staff teams for
The capability of the folks that Full Scale has brought to our team has been phenomenal. The Full Scale team has staffed us with top performers in our company, even relative to some of the folks that we have here in the US.
It's a fully integrated team. It's just some of the people happen to be living in the Philippines.
If modernizing means choosing a new stack
.NET vs Java
If modernizing means repicking the stack, start here: an honest decision guide.
Node.js vs Python
Which backend to build on, and why the answer is often both.
React vs Angular vs Vue
Replacing an aging front end? Choose on the hiring market, not the benchmark.
PHP vs Node.js
Modern PHP is not what its reputation says. An honest build-and-hire comparison.
Flutter vs React Native
Modernizing a mobile app? The cross-platform decision, and when to go native.
Cloud-native application development
Where a replatform to the cloud should actually land.
Everything you wanted to know about legacy modernization
Modernize with a team that will tell you what to leave alone
Tell us what you are running and where it hurts. On a 30-minute call we will talk through which parts of your system to modernize, which to leave alone, which path each one is on, and what a team to do the work looks like. Senior engineers across the Philippines, fully loaded from $35/hr, with a two-week money-back guarantee. It is a working session, not a sales pitch.