Stealth-mode startup · App + Backend
Generative AI Chatbot with Operational RAG
OpenAI-backed Retrieval Augmented Generation over media static data and live operational sources — application, backend, and ingestion pipeline.
Now building with BLWRK.io
A sharper take on technology — built by people who have shipped it for two decades.
Take On Tech is a small, senior software studio. We partner with founders and platform teams on the work that actually moves the needle: applied AI, hard backend problems, and modernizing systems that have outgrown their original blueprints.
Approach
Senior hands. Small surface area. Real outcomes.
No layered agencies, no junior bench. You work directly with the founder and a tight, deliberate team — the same people designing the system are the ones writing it.
01 — Applied AI
Generative AI & RAG
Production-grade chat, retrieval, and agentic workflows. We've shipped OpenAI-backed RAG systems against real operational data — not demos.
02 — Platform
Backend & Cloud
Event-driven systems, replatforming, containerization, and cloud cost work. Spring Boot, Kafka, Kubernetes, Docker — pragmatic choices that hold up.
03 — Product
Mobile & Web
Native iOS, React, React Native, and modern web stacks. From flagship retail apps to financial planning suites — interfaces people actually use.
Featured client
Building an AI-native fraud platform with BLWRK.io.
Take On Tech's current focus is partnering with BLWRK.io — a financial-crime and identity-risk firm — to build their next-generation, AI-powered fraud-prevention platform.
In active build
Fraud defense, reimagined with AI at the core.
BLWRK.io fights financial crime through identity risk management — fraud, AML, and cyber, led by veteran financial-services consultants. We're building something incredibly exciting together.
Generative AI
Identity Risk
Real-time Decisioning
Cloud-native
Event-driven
Visit blwrk.io ↗
Work · Founder portfolio
A track record across AI, finance, retail, and infrastructure.
Selected projects shipped by Andrew Slovak prior to founding Take On Tech — across stealth-mode startups, global retailers, and large financial institutions.
28+Successful Projects
10+Engineers Counseled
$2MClient cost savings & sales facilitated
48+Engineers Managed
Banking · OCC License
Grasshopper Bank — Banking License & Mobile Banking
Led the firm-wide effort to secure a national banking license. Reverse-engineered the codebase and documented loan calculations and core flows; OCC inspectors called the documentation the "Rosetta Stone" for the system. Integrated Alogent’s native toolkit to ship mobile check deposit, saving months of dev time.
Fraud · Architecture · via EY
Fraud Architecture Modernization
Performed a current-state analysis of their mature and legacy real-time anti-fraud and AML systems for a well-known EY financial-services client.
Apple · iPad
Apple Retail iPad App
iPad application for Apple's international resellers — built to streamline the reseller experience inside Apple's retail program.
FinServ · via EY
Estate Planning SaaS for a Major US Insurer
Led a six-person EY team building a financial-advisor estate-planning SaaS module, coordinating across six client engineering teams. React frontend and Spring Boot services, with quality enforced through peer review, SonarQube, and Veracode in the pipeline.
OTG · Airport POS
iPad Airport Ordering App
Department head on OTG's innovative iPad ordering experience deployed across airport restaurants.
Additional engagements
A broader sample of work across two decades — from MVP startups to global financial institutions and flagship retailers.
| Project | Company | Stack | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legacy-to-Modern API Accelerator | Well-known EY client | Spring Boot, Drools, DB2, AWS RDS | Designed bi-directional adapter APIs between DB2 and AWS RDS. Led the technical proposal and delivery, securing a $1M+ engagement. |
| Middleware Re-platforming | Well-known EY client | IBM IIB → AWS MSK, AWS Fargate / ECS, Spring Boot | Re-platformed 401K and new-hire-kit middleware off IBM IIB, eliminating vendor middleware and reducing licensing costs by ~$1M. |
| Cloud Enablement | Well-known EY client | Angular, Spring Boot, Docker, Jenkins, IBM UDeploy | Containerized frontend and backend; built CI/CD pipelines deployed via UDeploy; reduced infrastructure overhead. |
| LLBean iOS App | LLBean (via Skava) | iOS Native | Full eCommerce purchase flow for LLBean's flagship app. |
| Barnes & Noble iOS App | Barnes & Noble (via Skava) | iOS Native | Full rewrite of B&N's flagship eCommerce app. |
| Huawei Retail iOS SDK | Huawei (via Skava) | Mobile SDK | SDK integrated on-site in Nanjing, China. |
| Chain | Chain (startup) | Mobile MVP | Crash detection & theft prevention MVP. |
| SparkNotes iOS App | Barnes & Noble (via Skava) | iOS Native | SparkNotes book-summary app. |
| Skava Studio iOS SDK | Skava | Mobile SDK | Native rendering without App Store publish. |
| Energy Monitoring iOS App | Savant Systems | iOS | Energy monitoring & commercial automation. |
| Intranet — Vignette CMS | UBS / PaineWebber | Verity Search, Vignette CMS | Enterprise intranet platform. |
| Financial Advisor Web (FAWeb) | UBS / PaineWebber | Java, IBM WebSphere | Built the FA, team, and branch publishing platform; led the Piper Jaffray Advisors acquisition integration; stood up a SOX-compliant search engine indexing 450K archived documents in three weeks under emergency timeline. |
AS
Andrew Slovak
Founder · Take On Tech
Portrait coming soon
Founder
Andrew Slovak
Andrew is the founder of Take On Tech. Over 23+ years he has shipped software for Apple, UBS, Ernst & Young, Barnes & Noble, LLBean, Huawei, Grasshopper Bank, and a string of startups — moving fluidly across applied AI, mobile, web, backend, and cloud. He started Take On Tech to bring that range to a small number of clients who care more about outcomes than headcount.
Take On Tech's first engagement is BLWRK.io, where Andrew is leading the build of an AI-driven fraud-prevention platform — combining his architecture, AI, and full-stack background into a single product effort.
Have something hard to take on?
Take On Tech is intentionally small and works with a tight set of clients at a time. If you're building something that needs senior hands, get in touch.
Start a conversation →