Our History

2016 - The Beginning

Contoso Software was born in 2016, in Seattle, from a very concrete problem that the founders saw repeating itself in digital companies: systems grew fast, migrated to cloud and microservices, but operations couldn't keep up — there was a lack of observability standards, clear severity criteria, and a consistent process for incident response and communication.

The Turning Point

The turning point was a major incident in a payment environment (at the time, still as a consultancy), which showed how "technically solving" wasn't enough without governance, update cadence, and coordination with business areas and customers.

This incident made it clear that reliability isn't just about technology — it's about process, communication, and accountability. The team realized that having robust systems meant nothing if there wasn't a structured way to detect, respond, and communicate about incidents.

2018 - From Consulting to Product

In 2018, Contoso consolidated the practices it applied in the field into its own product and began operating as a software company focused on reliability and operation of critical services.

The lessons learned from years of consulting work became the foundation of a comprehensive SaaS platform. Every feature, every workflow, every alert mechanism was built from real-world experience dealing with production incidents in high-stakes environments.