We build the data systems that tell a business what it
actually did — and we learned how by needing one ourselves.
ILE Development US LLC is a small United States data-engineering company.
We build and look after the plumbing behind a company's reporting: getting
data in, keeping it clean, and making sure the numbers people act on can be
traced back to something real. Warehouses, pipelines, and the tests and
monitoring that stop them failing quietly.
We work in Snowflake, dbt, Python and AWS, and we can hold the whole
conversation in Mandarin or English — useful for companies operating
on both sides of the Pacific. Every engagement is scoped in writing before
anything starts.
We run a cross-border retail line: customers in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan
tell us what they want from a US or Canadian shop, we quote it, buy it and
ship it. Small, careful, and entirely dependent on getting a handful of
numbers right.
Those numbers turned out to be harder than they look. A customer asks in
March why they were quoted what they were quoted, and answering it means
knowing what the exchange rate was that day, what the shop was charging that
week, and what the customs schedule said when the parcel actually moved. All
three had changed since. A spreadsheet holds one number per box, and every
one of those questions is about a number that used to be different.
Solving that is the first project below, and the reason for the
rest of them. What it forced us to get right is what we now bring
to whatever a client is already running.
Projects
Order-to-Delivery Event Platform — running our retail line today
Carries an order from a customer's first message to a tracked parcel: the
written quote, the purchase, the duty schedule that applied on the day the
parcel actually shipped, and tracking to the door. Any figure it quoted can
still be explained months later, because it kept the rate that was in force
at the time instead of the one in force now.
Carrier Consolidation and Assignment Planner — what may lawfully ride what
Groups a day's orders into as few consignments as the rules allow, and works
out which goods may lawfully travel with which carrier before anything is
booked. On a thirty-order day that is 37 consignments rather than 85. Every
routing decision records the rule that produced it, so a wrong one can be
traced instead of reconstructed by hand.
Template-Driven Data Ingestion Framework — a new data source in half an hour
Adding a data source means filling in a template rather than writing another
pipeline. It is the public version of a framework built earlier for a
provincial government data centre serving over a thousand industrial sites,
where it took the setup for a new source from two days to thirty minutes.
Streaming Telemetry Event Platform (AWS) — the same warehouse, fed continuously
Readings arriving from field equipment that will never all be upgraded on the
same day, so two formats stay live at once. It reconciles against the batch
side to the last decimal, because removing a duplicate must not look like
losing a reading.
Air Quality Data Pipeline on Snowflake
Air-quality data on Snowflake: transforms feeding a dashboard, refreshed on a
schedule without anyone starting it.
Serverless CSV Pricing Pipeline (AWS, Terraform) — for clients who do not want a portal
Put a spreadsheet in a folder and get a priced, checked sheet back, with a
written reason for anything the system refused rather than a silent gap where
a row used to be.
Free-Text Enquiry Scoping Engine — a paragraph in, a scoped estimate out
Turns a paragraph describing a job into scoped work, an hour estimate and the
earliest week we could start — with no language model anywhere in it, so
every hour traces back to the sentence that produced it. It refuses to stand
behind a total when the range comes out too wide to mean anything.
Example code for these is on
GitHub, and the
portfolio walks through the first one end to end.
The Order-to-Delivery Event Platform at the top of the project list is the system that runs the retail orders described below — the orders are what it was built to handle, and running them is what keeps proving it works. The terms below cover both ways of dealing with us: hiring the engineering, or placing an order.
Consulting engagements
Scope, deliverables, acceptance criteria, timeline and fees are
agreed in writing before work starts. Fees are quoted either as a fixed
price per milestone or at an hourly rate, as the statement of work
specifies, and are invoiced in US dollars. Either party may end an
engagement in writing: work completed and accepted up to that point is
payable, and anything paid in advance for work not yet done is refunded.
Retail orders
How we sell
Our retail line sells consumer goods to customers in China, Hong Kong and
Taiwan. We keep no catalogue and hold
no stock. A customer tells us which item they want; we quote it in
writing; and when they accept the quote and pay, we buy that item from a
United States or Canadian retail source with our own funds and in our own name and ship it to them by tracked international courier.
ILE Development US LLC is the seller of record on every order.
We take title to the goods before they ship, we bear the cost and the
risk if an order arrives wrong, damaged or not at all, and we set our
own price. We do not receive, hold or transmit money on behalf of any
retailer, brand or third-party seller, we do not operate a marketplace,
and we are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or an agent of any retailer
or brand.
Pricing
Every order is quoted in writing before any payment is taken. A quote
itemises the merchandise price, applicable sales tax, shipping, and our
margin, in US dollars. Nothing is charged until you accept the quote.
Delivery
We buy the item after your payment clears and ship it by
international courier (DHL, FedEx, UPS or the postal service, as
quoted). Delivery normally takes 3–4 weeks. A tracking number is sent to you when the parcel ships.
Where we ship. We currently serve customers in
China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. We do not ship to, or do business with, any
person or place subject to US sanctions — including Cuba, Iran, North
Korea, Syria, Russia, and the Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions — and
we screen every destination before purchasing.
Customs. You are the importer of record in your
country. Any import duty, VAT or customs fee levied on arrival is your
responsibility, and you are responsible for confirming that the item may
lawfully be imported where you live.
Items we do not buy or ship
To comply with export law, carrier rules and our payment processor's requirements, we decline orders for:
- precious metals, precious stones, jewellery and watches over USD 1,000, and other high-value goods
- gift cards, prepaid cards, stored value, vouchers or credits of any kind
- alcohol, tobacco, e-cigarettes and vaping products; cannabis and CBD products
- prescription medicines, pharmaceuticals and medical devices
- firearms, weapons, ammunition, and their parts or accessories
- counterfeit or unlicensed goods, and any item whose export from the US/Canada or import to your country is restricted
- lithium batteries or hazardous materials that the carrier will not accept
Refunds, returns and cancellation
- Full refund if you cancel before we have purchased the item.
- Items are bought to order and cannot be returned or exchanged for size, colour or change of mind once purchased.
- Wrong, damaged or undelivered items (not delivered within 60 days
of shipping): full refund or replacement. Contact us within 7 days of
delivery, with photos for damage.
- Refunds are returned to the original payment method within 10 business days.
Terms of service
- For retail orders, a contract is formed when you accept a written
quote and your payment clears; the quote and these terms are the whole
agreement. For consulting, the statement of work governs.
- All prices are in US dollars. Sales tax is charged where the retail source charges it; import charges in your country are yours.
- We sell as principal, not as an agent: we take title to the goods,
set our own price, and bear the risk of loss or damage in transit.
Retailer warranties, where they exist, may not extend to you; where a
retail source accepts a return for a defective item, we will assist at
no extra charge.
- We may decline or cancel any order that we cannot lawfully fulfil,
that falls under the list above, or that our destination screening
rejects; any payment already made is refunded in full.
- These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Wyoming, USA.
Privacy
We collect only the details needed to deliver our services: for
consulting, the contact and project information set out in the statement
of work; for retail orders, your name, delivery address, e-mail, and
the items requested. Payments are processed by Stripe; we never see or
store card numbers. We share your name and address only with the courier
delivering your parcel, and with authorities when required by law. We
do not sell or otherwise share your information, and you may ask us to
delete it at any time by e-mail.
Contact
ILE Development US LLC is a US company, operating from the United States.
E-mail: jc@iledevelop.com
Support hours: we answer e-mail within one business day.