Software company · Addis Ababa
Built to hold.
Watad Labs builds dependable software for students of knowledge. We engineer it carefully, use AI honestly, and build it to keep working long after launch.
What people see. Above the ground line.
Where the work meets the world.
The engineering underneath. Most of the holding happens here.
أَلَمْ نَجْعَلِ ٱلْأَرْضَ مِهَـٰدًا ٦
وَٱلْجِبَالَ أَوْتَادًا ٧
Have We not made the earth a resting place, and the mountains as pegs?
A watad is a peg. Mountains hold the earth steady; we want what we build to hold the same way.
Focus
Software for the needs that matter to students of knowledge.
We choose problems where reliability is not optional, and we build each one as if it has to last a generation.
Preserving knowledge
Tools that help scholars, students of knowledge and publishers record, edit and publish learning with its sources intact. This is our first area of work.
Serving communities
Everyday software for the communities and institutions where students of knowledge learn: schools, institutes, libraries and families.
Engineering for institutions
Dependable platforms and AI automation for organisations that serve students of knowledge, built to the same standard as our own products.
First product
Scholarly works, published with their sources intact.
Our first product is a tool for compiling and publishing scholarly works with their sources intact. It is in private development. Join the waitlist and we will write to you when it is ready to try.
Join the waitlistFour commitments.
These are the promises behind everything we build.
Itqan
إتقان
We ship less rather than ship sloppy.
Every release is tested, measured and finished.
Amanah
أمانة
Your data is a trust.
We never sell it, and we never use it to train shared AI models.
Sidq
صدق
No claim we cannot back.
No inflated numbers, no invented reviews. Software drafts; people decide.
Naf'
نفع
Built to last.
Open formats, maintained code and honest pricing, so what we build keeps benefiting.
How we build
The parts you never see.
Our products hold because of decisions made below the surface. This is the engineering we build them on.
- Backends
- High-concurrency services in Go, NestJS and Python.
- Infrastructure
- Cloud architecture on AWS, designed for cost and failure, not demos.
- Real time
- Live, event-driven systems that stay correct under load.
- AI, responsibly
- Agent workflows with LangGraph and CrewAI, with people approving what matters.
- Arabic first
- Interfaces, typography and search built for Arabic and right-to-left from day one.
Addis Ababa
Built by an engineer who uses what he builds.
Watad Labs was founded by Seid Muhammed, a full-stack engineer in Addis Ababa. He began building learning and community software for his own study, and he still uses what he builds. We are building for students of knowledge in East Africa, the Gulf and beyond.
We also take on a limited number of engineering projects.
If your organisation needs software that has to hold, tell us about it. We reply to every message.