A Vermont-based custom software/
We utilize the latest computing technologies to bring your digital dreams into the real world.
What we do.
Custom software, end‑to‑end.
Brave Squirrel Studio is an independent software studio in Shelburne, Vermont. We build custom applications — web apps, internal tools, AI-powered features, workflow automation — for businesses looking to grow, upgrade, or maintain their digital presence.
The bet behind the studio is simple: the same efficient workflows that let big tech companies ship faster can give an independent studio enough leverage to take on serious projects end-to-end. We're proving that bet in service of local businesses that need the leverage more than anyone.
Two ways to work with us. We can build the application for you and hand over something you fully own. Or we can sit alongside your team and teach them to use the same workflows we do — so the next thing you build, you build yourselves.
Art & design work.
The studio is also a working art and design practice. Brand identity, illustration, and 3D work happen here alongside the code — sometimes for the same client, sometimes for someone who only needs the visual side.
Logos and wordmark systems. Editorial and in-product illustration. Static and animated advertising creative. Original 3D models and animation for product surfaces, walk-throughs, and concept work. And the design counsel — moodboards, type, color — that ties it all together.
The people behind it.
Brave Squirrel Studio is run by its two founders. We do the work ourselves, and we're the ones who answer the phone.
Graham Darcey
Co-founder
Graham is a full-stack engineer with over twenty years of experience and skills spanning mobile and embedded, web and web applications, high-performance gaming, distributed systems, and security. Much of that has been custom work delivered on behalf of customers — building to someone else's spec and standing behind it in production.
He has worked at small, scrappy startups and at large enterprises like Verizon (where he worked on ads & recommender systems) and Uber Technologies (where he worked on world-scale map data and routing systems). Those systems have run at both ends of the scale — from constrained embedded devices to services scaled vertically and horizontally under continuous production load, along with the oncall and real-time monitoring that keeps them up.
Most recently he spent three years as a Creative Technologist at Hack Club, a nonprofit based in Shelburne. Hack Club runs free programs that help teenagers learn to code and build things of their own. His work there was helping those teens find their way into technology.
Maria Garcia Cerdeno
Co-founder
Maria is a long-time software developer with deep experience across both backend and frontend systems. She was an early engineer at Twin Prime — a startup later acquired by Salesforce, where she went on to spend several years after the acquisition.
Away from the keyboard, she's a prolific creative artist working in 3D modeling and animation, primarily in Blender and adjacent 3D frameworks. That dual fluency — engineering rigor paired with a working artist's eye — shapes a lot of how Brave Squirrel Studio approaches design and the small details that make software feel good to use.
Why Vermont.
We're based in Shelburne, VT, and we serve all of New England. We prefer partnering with small and mid-sized Vermont businesses that need technical help and don't have an in-house engineering team.
Working locally means we can show up. We can sit in your office, meet your team, see how the work actually flows. That context is worth more than any number of Zoom calls.
It also means we're part of the same community. If we do a bad job, we'll see you at the co-op. That keeps everyone honest in a way that incentive structures alone never quite do.
That's a preference, not a limit. We've both spent years building and shipping software inside Fortune 50 and Fortune 500 companies, and we take on enterprise work when it's a good fit.
What you get when you hire us.
Local, and in the room.
We're based in Shelburne, VT, and easily within meeting distance of anywhere in Chittenden County. When the work calls for it we'll meet at your place — not behind a Zoom square three time zones away.
Clear scope before the meter starts.
We work closely with you up front to define exactly what you need and write a real project plan. Goal-based engagements with a clear finish line — not an open-ended retainer that bills forever while everyone nods on calls.
Your data and secrets stay yours.
Both founders have spent years in high-trust roles at serious companies. We follow industry best practices for data protection and security, and treat what you share with the discretion the work requires.
Convenient billing, transparent work.
Painless invoicing through Stripe — no mystery line items, no chasing paperwork. And every engagement runs on the project-tracking platform we built ourselves, so you get a near-real-time view of exactly what's being worked on.
Built to run in production.
We're not handing you a prototype that tips over the moment someone breathes on it. Between us we've shipped code on hundreds of millions of phones and run routing infrastructure on hundred-thousand-core clusters. We bring that same operational rigor to whatever we build for you.
What we won't bend on.
You own what we build.
Code, infrastructure, accounts — all yours from day one. No proprietary platform, no lock-in, no surprise rent. We've shipped on AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, and self-hosted setups, and we'll adapt to whatever you already run — or would rather use.
Flexible engagements.
Fixed scope, retainer, hourly, or a mix — every project gets the terms that fit. We share estimates honestly, and we tell you when something is over-engineered.
You can always reach a human.
When something matters, you talk to the person who built it. Both founders are senior engineers with decades of production experience — that's who's on the other end of every conversation.