Thinking in Systems

Good software is rarely loud. It’s not the tool people talk about every day or the interface that demands attention. The best software is the kind you rely on without noticing. It is the kind that works quietly, predictably, and consistently. At Formist, that is always the goal: to build systems that fade into the background because they simply work.

Most organisations choose off-the-shelf software for the same reasons people buy pre-built furniture: it’s fast, inexpensive, and seems to solve the problem well enough. And at first, it does. Most SaaS platforms cover the broad strokes — the obvious workflows, the typical patterns, the generic cases that thousands of businesses share.

Technical debt is often framed as a code-quality problem — untidy functions, shortcuts, inconsistent naming, or corners cut in the interest of speed. But these surface-level symptoms conceal a deeper truth: technical debt is fundamentally a business problem. It’s an accumulating cost that slows development, increases risk, and quietly shapes the trajectory of the systems you depend on.

Integrations are the invisible threads that tie modern businesses together. They move data between systems, trigger workflows, coordinate operations, and reduce manual effort. And when they work well, no one notices them. The best integrations disappear into the background.

Every engineering team has principles, whether formalised or not. At Formist, ours are deliberate. They guide the way we design systems, make decisions, write code, and approach long-term maintainability. These principles are not theoretical; they are practical tools used daily across client projects, integrations, custom CRMs, and internal systems.