Software engineering · Cyber security · AI integration
Java and Angular systems, cloud platforms, digital products, penetration testing and AI integration for enterprises, public programmes and growing organisations.
Who we are
Othab Solutions is a Johannesburg software engineering and cyber security company. Since 2020 we have built, modernised and secured systems for banks, insurers, automakers, medical practices, membership organisations and national programmes, and shipped finished products for organisations that need something that works on Monday.
Our engineers come from the core systems of South Africa's largest companies, where code runs for years and a bad release costs real money. Our security specialists spend their days trying to break systems like the ones we build. Together they produce software that is built to a standard and tested against a real adversary before anyone else gets the chance.
We are deliberately senior-led. Every engagement has a named lead who owns it from the first workshop to handover, backed by a bench of engineers, security specialists and analysts that we scale to the job.
What we do
From the first requirements workshop to the penetration test before go-live, one team carries the work.
Business-critical back ends and front ends: payments and wealth services behind mobile banking apps, digital channels for insurers, dealer and customer systems for automakers. Software that handles real money and real customers every day, designed for the audit, the outage and the late-night call before any of them happen.
Monoliths to microservices without the big bang. We move application-server estates onto containers in the cloud, split front ends into independently released micro-frontends, and keep the business trading throughout. We still speak Oracle Forms, and the other things nobody likes to admit are still in production.
Infrastructure as code, pipelines that test and scan on every commit, and dashboards people actually look at. We set up and run the platform underneath the software we build, on AWS or Azure, and hand it over documented.
Fixed-scope builds for organisations that need a working product, not a programme: clinic intake and billing, member portals, governance platforms, B2B marketplaces. Progressive web apps that keep working offline on tablets and phones, wrapped as native Android and iOS apps when the audience needs an app store.
Useful AI inside the systems you already run, not a chatbot bolted on the side. Document and form intelligence, plain-language search over your own data, assistants with guardrails and audit trails, and workflow automation with a person signing off. Personal information handled the POPIA way from the first design.
Penetration testing, red-team exercises, vulnerability assessments and secure code review, run by specialists who think like the attacker. We test infrastructure, applications and APIs against real attack paths, rank what we find by business impact, and come with the fix, not just the finding.
Two capabilities in depth
Most security reports are a scanner printout with a logo on it. Ours are written by people who got in, and who can tell you exactly how, what it would have cost you, and what to change first.
The useful work is rarely a chatbot. It is reading the forms, finding the clause, drafting the response and routing the exception to the right person, inside the tools your staff already use.
Where we work
International payments and wealth services behind the mobile apps of major banks, built inside their release, security and compliance processes. We know what a bank's change board wants to see.
Dealer and customer systems for premium manufacturers: cloud migrations of national dealer platforms, micro-frontends for retail teams, and a connected-car programme delivered for an overseas market.
Digital channels on top of legacy policy and member systems, and the integration work that lets an old core talk to a new app without anyone rebuilding the core.
Patient intake and billing for medical practices: offline-capable, running on several tablets and the clerk's PC at once, built from the practice's own forms and price list.
RCL Hub, a school-governance platform for a national learner-council programme, designed from the data up to protect minors' information and hosted inside South Africa.
Membership, branch and organisational systems for a national political party, starting with a member portal and public website built on a pre-election timeline and a lean operating cost.
A compliance-first B2B platform for funeral parlours across SADC: vetting and compliance, policy verification, fleet sharing, cross-border repatriation and a supplier marketplace, on one data model.
Systems experience at a listed vehicle-retail and collections group, through senior roles our people have held: high-volume customer operations where uptime and auditability are the whole job.
Selected work
Scroll on. Each card is one brief, what we built for it, and what changed.
A practice drowning in paper, with a queue that moved only as fast as one clerk.
An offline-capable intake app on five-plus tablets and the clerk's PC, with billing from the practice's own price list, follow-ups and discounts included.
The queue moves in parallel, nothing is lost when the Wi-Fi drops, and the practice has nothing to administer.
A national learner-council programme needing to replace an ageing CMS site with a platform it could run its governance on.
An Angular progressive web app on a Supabase backend, 28 screens designed before build, hosted in South Africa with iOS and Android apps alongside.
One place for the programme's governance work, with learners' data kept at home.
A national political party running on paper and spreadsheets, with an election weeks away.
A member portal and public website on a lean cloud setup, as the first step of a full organisational system that branches and members can use.
Members can join, update and engage online before the vote, at an operating cost the organisation can carry.
An application-server monolith estate serving dealers nationwide, due for retirement without a day of downtime.
Containerised microservices on AWS with infrastructure as code, and micro-frontends that retail teams release independently.
Faster releases, one less legacy platform to feed, and dealers never noticed the move.
Parlours across SADC needing to verify each other, share fleets and move the deceased across borders with the right paperwork.
Five modules on one data model, with role-based access for administrators, parlour owners, vendors and drivers.
Production-ready from the first release rather than an MVP to throw away.
Cross-border payment flows that had to clear a major bank's security, compliance and release gates.
Java services for international payments in the bank's mobile apps, built to its standards and reviewed by its teams.
Cross-border payments offered in-app, delivered through the bank's own processes without shortcuts.
How we work
A senior engineer, or a small squad, inside your team, on your tools and your sprints. Billed hourly or monthly. Typical commitments run six to twelve months and are usually renewed.
We run discovery, write the specification with you, quote a fixed price and deliver in increments you can see. Changes are agreed in writing before they are built, so the price you signed is the price you pay.
For products we build, we can host and maintain them, in your cloud or ours, inside South Africa, on a monthly retainer with a named person to call. For security work, scheduled retesting keeps the findings closed.
How a build runs
Workshops with the people who do the work. We map the process before we design the screen.
A written spec and data model you sign off, with the open questions settled before anything is built.
Short increments and a working demo every two weeks. Your feedback is folded in as we go, not at the end.
Automated tests, a security pass by our own specialists and user acceptance testing against the spec.
Source code in your repository, documentation, runbooks and a handover session with your team.
How we are organised
Delivery is led by Managing Director Mahlatse Tlooke, who has spent over a decade building and leading engineering teams in South Africa's banking, insurance and automotive sectors, and holds a BCom in Information Systems and Computer Science from UCT and a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Administration from Wits Business School.
Senior engineers lead each workstream. Our security specialists test what the engineers build. Junior developers add throughput and are always paired with a senior. Analysts write the requirements everyone builds from. We scale the team to the engagement rather than carrying a bench of people waiting for work.
Talk to us
If we are not the right people for it, we will say so. If we are, you will have a scoped proposal within a week.