A studio of one, by design.
Code Line has been Matheau Dakoske's independent studio since 2000. Every engagement gets the person whose name is on the work.
The story
Apple once knocked on Code Line's door.
They asked to bundle Art Directors Toolkit, the studio's flagship product, with every PowerMac and PowerBook/MacBook Pro they sold. It stayed there for seven years. Through the same period, the studio held a direct digital licensing deal with Pantone, one of the only independent developers ever to do so, first for Art Directors Toolkit and then for ColorExpert, which shipped on the App Store's opening day and was featured by Apple worldwide.
Between those two products came Art Files, a collect-for-output tool for Adobe Illustrator that required reverse-engineering Illustrator's undocumented file format end to end. It ran in production at Starbucks, Mattel, CVS, and L'Oréal.
That era built the studio's approach: design and engineering treated as one discipline, products built end-to-end by one person, and a standard of finish that earns institutional trust.
Matheau went on to serve as principal architect for a nationwide printing operation inside a private-equity roll-up, where he led a company-wide compliance migration with no downtime and architected the API platform that connected legacy systems to a new commerce platform. Then a founder he had worked with years earlier asked him back to build his next company's platform from scratch. That platform now runs the complete investor lifecycle for a real estate syndication firm, serving hundreds of accredited investors across a substantial property pipeline.
Today, Code Line offers that experience as fractional engagements: CTO, Head of Engineering, and Principal Architect work for a small number of companies at a time.
Principles
Built to keep running.
The syndication platform runs a real business every day. A showroom system built for a client kept working through that client's billion-dollar acquisition. Code Line builds systems that stand on their own, so a client's technology isn't dependent on any one person being in the room.
One judgment, from design through engineering.
Matheau worked as a professional art director before and alongside his engineering career. Products from Code Line are designed and engineered by the same judgment, which is why they need less explaining.
Senior work, done personally.
The person you talk to is the person who does the work. Every engagement gets Matheau's direct attention from first conversation to delivery.
Contact
Start a conversation.
The best first step is a short note about your company and the problem on your desk. You will hear back from Matheau directly.
Remote by default · Los Angeles based · Travel and on-site available