AgileEngine

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CTO at Centriq Technology, and we are a consumer-facing, early-stage startup with a web and mobile presence. We supply a product that allows consumers to keep track of all things in their home that have an on-switch, and we provide assistance in ordering replacement parts, finding manuals, or connecting with service or maintenance professionals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AgileEngine?

We wanted to increase our team size for our mobile product development team. We have an immediate need to publish features quickly, and the mobile development team lead and I were the only two people writing code at the time we engaged with AgileEngine. We weren’t getting the production we wanted because there were only two of us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have two project tracks with AgileEngine. We have a single-person QA staff, who works with our project management team and performs manual tests and writes extensive test automation for both our mobile and web projects. And we’ve previously had two, but right now we have one, mobile developers with React Native experience working with us on building features for the mobile app.

In both cases, the main challenge we sent their way was working with our stack, which is all ClojureScript, which is not something they had a lot of experience with. It’s a niche language, but it works well for us. Our platform is largely on AWS, but some things look weird because there isn’t a natural place to put Appium, for example, so our QA guy had to build that from scratch—a place that would let him run Appium Python tests in this ClojureScript environment. And he was able to do that.

What is the team composition?

We were assigned one project manager. We were able to interview a number of their developers to find the right fit depending on the tasks. And we had a QA manager.

How did you come to work with AgileEngine?

Our CEO referred them to us, but I don’t recall how he came to know them. I took a call with AgileEngine, and the initial conversation with them convinced me that they were worth pursuing as partners. They were comfortable setting up a 30-day trial—we’d pay for what we used over 30 days, no harm, no foul. And that gave us confidence in them. We had great communication with their engineers and account manager.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $20,000–$30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2017, and we have ongoing projects.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They’re completing tasks at exactly the same level of our full-time developing employees, who are more directly experienced with our platform.

How did AgileEngine perform from a project management standpoint?

We manage projects and deliverables through a combination of Trello, Slack, and video calls. They’ve adapted really well to our project management software, as well as the ClojureScript language we’re working with. We haven’t had any difficulties. They are good in standups, and they’re proactive about finishing a task, making sure of the next priority, and delivering it. They have become stakeholders in the quality of our deliverables.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their developers are bright and eager to challenge themselves. We told them we were working with a rare software language, and they said they had team members who were willing to jump in and learn something new. They’ve proven that they can adapt very quickly. I foresee having them with us for a long time. As our scale improves and our development budget increases, I will certainly be talking to AgileEngine first.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It sometimes takes a while to get the right developer in front of us during the interview process.

That's not a fair criticism of them, though, because the things we're asking for are so rarified and unique that I wouldn't expect them to have a huge stable of those kinds of people.

Any advice for potential customers?

They’re thinking of you as a long-term collaborator, not as a source or hourly income, so don’t be afraid to set expectations or request things to change. They want the relationship to be positive for both sides and effective in the long-term.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO and co-founder of ClickDishes Inc. We provide mobile ordering solutions for quick service restaurants.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AgileEngine?

We struggled to hire developers skilled enough to build onto the system that we had pre-built by an external development company. As a result, we decided to outsource the work to AgileEngine.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our existing system was okay to get started with, but we had two major issues with it in production and needed to change how it worked. AgileEngine initially allocated one senior developer to redesign the backend so it could be more maintainable. They built our microservice architecture and put it up on Amazon with a way to track and log information. They accomplished this using Node.js and Amazon Web Services. An additional developer joined the project to design the new UI dashboard for both our clients and our internal administrative purposes.

What is the team composition?

A senior developer acts as AgileEngine’s team lead and there’s also an intermediate developer.

How did you come to work with AgileEngine?

We were already looking for a consultancy firm and one of their marketing emails appeared in my inbox. They were already experienced in the technologies our platform uses and they offered a price that was highly competitive for top-tier developers.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $60,000 at this point.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2017 and the engagement is ongoing. The new backend architecture will soon be released to our production systems. The frontend development only started a month ago.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The project consists of two developers working for us on-demand, so it’s hard to evaluate definitive metrics. The amount of code they’ve been able to produce is insane considering the size of their team. We’ve learned a lot from their senior developer about how to structure our system and actually release it on Amazon.

How did AgileEngine perform from a project management standpoint?

They mainly provide developers, so we haven’t had to utilize them for intricate project management. Their team lead is capable of delegating work and managing the other developer while maintaining communication with us. We provide the mock-ups and wireframes and they take it from there. We stay involved to an extent, but micromanaging them isn’t necessary. However, we do use Jira and Confluence as our primary project management tools. We also utilize GitHub to review our code.

What did you find most impressive about them?

A lot of companies claim to have expert-level developers, but AgileEngine actually does. Also, I get the opportunity to work through the code with them and I appreciate the hands-on experience.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They know what they're doing and it’s apparent that they’ve been in the industry a long time. The only difficulties we've had throughout our experience with them stems from our decisions to pivot direction. However, they remained compliant even in the face of significant project shifts.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d recommend paying the extra money to contract on of their senior developers because they’re a wealth of knowledge. However, they also have a swarm of intermediate developers that can help deliver well-defined projects.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

R1: I’m the co-founder and COO of a company that provides safety and risk management software for transportation fleets.

R2: I’m the Head of Product.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AgileEngine?

R1: We were short on development capabilities and power – we only had one co-founder who was our technical lead, and he was overwhelmed – so we were in a time crunch to hire and onboard new developers. We thought outsourcing to a nearshore firm would be the best short-term solution.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

R1: We thought they were going to be a stopgap, but the team was really performing well, so we’ve kept them on for quite some time now. They’re helping build out our enterprise platform, which is a web-based app, and updating it with modern-day technology. Specifically, they’re making it flexible, open to API connectivity, and introducing mobile responsiveness.

R2: As we’ve started getting more work from the front- and backend, they've sent specific developers to help us take wireframes, comps, and mockups, and turn them into actual working products. They also sent us a QA person, so any user story that we put out goes through development and then gets put through our cycles and tests, before it’s sent for User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

What is the team composition?

R2: We worked with five people, two front- and backend developers each, and a QA resource.

How did you come to work with Agile Engine?

R1: We looked at two or three different development shops to figure out where their developers were coming from, how much they would cost, what kind of engagements they were used to, and what they offered, services wise. We happened to be down in Washington DC, so we stopped by Agile’s headquarters to meet them face-to-face. We talked for a few hours to understand how they work, who they’d worked with before, and what types of projects they excelled at. We then asked them for two or three current and former customers of theirs, as references, and we heard nothing but good things from those people.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since November 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

R2: The best measure would be the velocity and the increase in our ability to actually measure velocity. We’ve been able to finally get estimates from them that are pretty darn accurate. We’ve been able to take stories that were just bleeding over from the sprint, and now hold each other accountable to those estimates.

How did AgileEngine perform from a project management standpoint?

R2: I handle most of the project management directly actually. They do have a project manager I touch base with every two to three weeks, but that's not specific to the work they're doing on the project for us. He’s more of an engagement manager, between them and us.

We do use Slack and Jira though. All of our user stories and our Agile boards are sitting in Jira, and that's reviewed daily on a stand-up using Google Hangouts. If we need to have a larger story investigation, we'll extend that, the story estimation and elaboration time of the stand-up. All communication, other than face-to-face, is done through Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

R2: Sometimes you have to fight to get the truth with offshore contractors, but these guys are extremely direct, which I like. If development of a specific feature will take too long, they'll provide other options and come to the table with multiple things for us to look at and choose from.

Are there any areas they could improve?

R2: Allowing some of the junior developers to take on additional work, and not being so hierarchical, would benefit them. I think some of the junior developers are talented enough to take on bigger stories and bigger features correctly.

Any advice for potential customers?

R2: We onboarded slowly, so it took additional time for them to find the right developers. I would tell people to onboard more than one developer at a time, and to look at bringing on QA at the same time, if you're going to use them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the Head of Data Science for a telecom software and services firm. We create services and software to optimize and manage cellular networks.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AgileEngine?

We were trying to find expertise in the technologies that we use to deliver work for several customers around the world.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

AgileEngine is able to fill the gap and find the appropriate expertise for the technologies we use. They work on both the integration side and the development side, helping us create web-based UIs. They also help on the core side of our platform using a number of technologies like Spark, big data, and databases. They’ve been working on creating components that contribute to features involved in our machine learning algorithms.

What is the team composition?

We’ve been working with three different people, all located in Ukraine.

How did you come to work with AgileEngine?

We used to work with a company in Finland but we couldn’t make the time difference work, and they weren’t great about following-up with us. We had some of the same issues with a company in Spain. Our CTO eventually found AgileEngine and they really fit our needs.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $100,000-$250,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since November 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They’ve been involved with at least four major components, which are used in everything from our UI’s, to core functionalities that interact with our database. They’re key parts of the applications that we use.

How did AgileEngine perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re good at executing the plans that we develop for different components, and they give feedback about the best way to make those plans. They’re very proactive, which is good when working remotely. There are no issues with the time difference or language barriers and they're very flexible. Sometimes we have to meet outside of normal hours when we have a deadline and they’re available 24/7; it doesn’t matter if it’s a weekend or a holiday. We communicate daily using Skype and Slack, and all the work is written in Jira.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They work remotely, but it feels like they’re right here with us, and they’re always online. They’re skilled at understanding complex requirements, and you don’t have to provide fine grain details when you want them to work on complex tasks. They grasp the idea and are able to elaborate on it without too much support. They’re pretty autonomous, which helps a lot when you have a remote team. You don’t have to micromanage their work at all. Finally, when AgileEngine doesn’t know something, they’re smart enough to learn, and they do it quickly.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could provide better estimates of when the work is going to be ready, even though it’s not an easy task with the nature of the work we do. Sometimes they miss their approximate number, but that’s just a consequence of the dynamics of our work. It’s not because they don’t try to meet deadlines or don’t know how to estimate.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Stay on top of them at the beginning of a new project to make sure that they understand the goal and the reason for the job. You don’t have to be on top of them after that. Once they get it, they drive it by themselves. But that’s the same no matter what remote team you’re working with.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president and co-founder of a solution provider in the human services space. We provide human services programs with education and the foundations to do their job better. I specifically work with a software as a service (SaaS) platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AgileEngine?

We needed expert partners to help us with scalability, architecture choices, and infrastructure.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’re very much a part of my team. They’re involved in every aspect of development: finding a product-market fit, designing architecture, then implementing, running, and maintaining it. We work hand-in-hand. 

They have a great deal of insight into different technologies and make recommendations in that area, and during the development process too. We also use them for UX, web work, QA, and security.

What is the team composition?

There are three people on the team. In the past, we’ve had up to seven.

How did you come to work with AgileEngine?

We were looking for expertise. We were already using some unique technologies. Their leader had written a book on Java and seemed like an interesting person. We initially hired them because of their very high level of technical expertise.

How much have you invested with them?

Over a hundred thousand dollars.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2008 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They helped us deliver on time, which was a huge positive. Our invoices have been paid on time by our customers and it’s definitely helped us with ongoing renewals. Our attrition rate has reduced a lot.

How did AgileEngine perform from a project management standpoint?

We work with them on project management so there is good communication and collaboration. We use Jira, Basecamp, Skype, GoToMeeting, and Smartsheet.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re an interesting mix of people who understand product life-cycle management, agile, and all those things that we use in the startup world. They also have a hacker and system administrator mentality. They are the perfect combination so you can have discussions with the team on both aspects, at the meta level and the detail level, which is so difficult to find.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could use their authority a lot more than they do because we do consider them a part of our team.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re a good combination, so make them your partners involved in leadership.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the senior manager of a product group at a financial technology firm. The product is a loan accounting and risk analytics cloud platform that targets commercial banks and their loan portfolios.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AgileEngine?

We needed help with staff augmentation and product development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They augmented our development staff and helped us build the UI on the product side. They also worked on some server-side projects using Struts, XML, and JavaScript.

What is the team composition?

I’ve seen three people, but there were more.

How did you come to work with AgileEngine?

I worked with Alex (Founder and CEO, AgileEngine) a few years ago in a satellite company. I suggested him to the co-founder of our company.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from 2009–2012.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

One of their developers was the best developer I’ve worked with. I was very impressed because was very smart. He started in the Ukraine office, and they brought him to the U.S. Alex is good in JavaScript, etc.

How did AgileEngine perform from a project management standpoint?

We did the project management. They were very responsive and delivered the work quickly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s hard to grow a company to over 100 people. It’s impressive that they now have over 200 employees. Their overseas operations are advanced. The talent pool is pretty good and they have really good developers.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Before they brought their people to the U.S., they delivered good work, but we needed people on site. Once they brought people on site, the problem was solved.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They have a good talent pool. As a client, do due diligence; don’t just settle for the people they offer but interview them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AgileEngine?

We needed to quickly develop mobile apps for iOS and Android, along with an administrative dashboard that would allow us to control users and devices, as well as deploy firmware. We needed a good provider to augment our team and allow us to hit the ground running on all fronts.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

One of the most complex things they helped us with was to develop a system for over-the-air updates to devices located all around the world. We're able to upload the firmware code on the backend and schedule when it will be deployed. The system has a lot of moving parts, so it required a collaboration between them and our engineers.

What is the team composition?

We’re working with three full-stack developers from their team. One of those focuses on the backend, the second one focuses on the mobile application, and the third one is a junior developer who does a bit of everything, primarily on the backend. All three developers are full-time and they operate as though they were members of our team.

How did you come to work with AgileEngine?

We found them after doing some online research. We were looking for a remote team that could augment our in-house team, specifically developers who would be easy to communicate with and who overlapped with our working hours.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in early 2017 and have an ongoing collaboration.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Like a number of crowdfunded products, ours has taken longer than expected to hit the market. Many of our metrics are still internal. They helped us achieve our set milestones for the integration and release of new features. We have stable iOS and Android apps, and we’ve integrated with a lot of third-party platforms while building a powerful backend.

Our success metrics revolved around getting the feature set developed and making sure that everything met the quality requirements. They delivered on all of these.

How did AgileEngine perform from a project management standpoint?

Their developers participate in our daily standups and sprint planning along with everyone else in our company. They make sure that results are delivered to clients. They routinely check in with us, making sure that everything is going well.

We provide feedback on any opportunities for improvement, which they take to heart. They’re always seeking out ways to improve their processes, demonstrated through the great candidates they delivered. We recently flew in three of their members for a three-week period. We’re in a crucial period, so having them sit next to us is important.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve worked with remote teams in the past. AgileEngine stands out for the quality of their talent. They have a phenomenal process for ensuring they onboard the best of the best, which they succeed in doing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any critical comments.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Communication is critical with any remote development team. As with in-house resources, engineers need to be presented the big-picture into which their work will fit. AgileEngine really wanted to be involved and understand that, so giving them this opportunity is something every client should do. They bring in talented, curious people who appreciate a higher level of engagement.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Farmers Edge is based out of Alberta, Canada. We cater to farmers, taking big data related to farms and putting it into a format that the grower can access and use to make decisions on crops, equipment, and insurance. I am the head of software quality assurance and project management for the company. I’m in charge of planning new features, implementing them, and making sure that they are QA tested and that they meet all our requirements.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AgileEngine?

We have needed a QA team for multiple simultaneous projects. One of our those was unique because it had an unrealistic time frame from the beginning. The partner we were working with asked for a three-month deadline for supplementing some of the services they offered in another format. It was a daunting task, but we agreed to it.

All our teams and efforts were put towards that project. It was a good opportunity for our own company since the potential partnership would give us to more potential business.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

AgileEngine has provided QA and development services. We reached out to them to quickly build a team of quality people. They needed to have enough experience with the software development lifecycle to anticipate our needs, despite not having traditional project components in place. We had bitten off a big chunk and agreed to deliver it in an unrealistic timeframe.

What is the team composition?

I’ve been in touch with a project manager from their side, who was responsible for the initial team setup. I tell them what I need, and they give us the resources we need to make it happen.

They found internal candidates after we outlined our QA and development needs. I interviewed each one and selected the candidates I thought would work best.

How did you come to work with AgileEngine?

We found them through word-of-mouth. Our head of backend development was aware of AgileEngine and had used them in the past. We had a kick-off meeting with Alex Kalinovsky [CEO and founder, AgileEngine], made an overview of our needs, and went from there.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with AgileEngine a year ago. We are currently reaching out to them in order to build a team for an upcoming project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Ticket following is the best metric we have. Using Jira, we have found that our velocity and sprint cadence have been higher and a bit more organized than normal. AgileEngine’s project manager has maintained that high volume and kept things under control. Some of the documentation she provided has been invaluable for our communication with upper management and the other development teams. The volume of tickets they’ve tested has definitely been above normal. Aside from that, we’ve appreciated their experience in working with other teams and integrating into the work environment.

How did AgileEngine perform from a project management standpoint?

Some of the tasks we gave them were challenging, but they’ve handled everything well. I opened the door to project management communication on both sides. We coordinated our efforts with the understanding that we’d have to play it by ear, for lack of a better expression.

We didn’t have fully fleshed-out documentation, design specifications, or product requirements. Sometimes we had a paragraph where there should have been 12 pages, so we’d have to work through that and build requirements as we went. Even on the QA side, we identified proper test requirements as we went. It was an extremely difficult challenge, but they did a good job.

We are running a Jira instance in the cloud. They were invited into that process for development and QA. The team helped identify and review the stories and move tickets through our workflows. We also depended heavily on Confluence for our communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Compared to the other third-parties that I’ve dealt with, AgileEngine’s quality of candidates has been high. If I ask them for a certain set of people, they intuitively understand what I’m looking for and actually find those qualities. Their level of experience on the project management side allows them to identify valuable skills in candidates.

AgileEngine is also flexible in terms of availability, especially when it comes to important releases. They’ve made their team available even late at night on their time zone.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The English level of certain candidates has been a challenge on the development side. There have also been a few gaps in sourcing developers, which have caused us to wait a month instead of two weeks for them to find a resource. I’ve been willing to wait if that means finding a quality person since low-quality developers can be an even bigger time sink.

I’ve been happy with them overall. They’ve been attentive when setting up meetings and ensuring that communication was completed within the proper timeframes. When there was frustration on AgileEngine’s end, we’ve tried to improve it.

We’re a growing company, having gone from 60 to 400 employees in the last year. This has caused a lot of process changes, but AgileEngine has adapted to us. They are aware of our limitations and have built bridges to address them.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Know what you’re asking for when you go to them, and be as clear as possible about the candidates’ qualifications.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We provide data collection, reporting, and input software for the management of UXO [unexploded ordnance] and EOD [explosive ordnance disposal] projects. I’m the VP of Engineering.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AgileEngine LLC?

A different company had written our software when I first came onboard, and it wasn’t architected to meet our client’s product requirements. I reached out to AgileEngine to build a software team because I knew they had the skills to do it properly, as well as the depth to understand where we wanted to go. I knew they could give us proper feedback on how to achieve our goals.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Many of our clients are government entities or civilian contractors working for the government, so I can’t talk about specific requirements in the same way as I would if we were a commercial entity. One of the initial things we did was work on designing mobile applications, including iOS and Android devices, for our industry.

We relied on AgileEngine to create those apps for us, provide feedback, and be involved in the design based on the functional specifications we provided. They helped us figure out the standard or more efficient way to do things, eventually contributing to the product’s design, testing, implementation, and support. We also relied on their expertise for the Apple app-store review process.

The high standards we have locally are applied to AgileEngine as well, and I expect them to write functional specifications. They’re currently developing a POC [proof of concept] with different technology stacks we want to consider, specifically for some custom requirements we have involving mapping technologies. I’m able to use AgileEngine for research into future directions that we can then evaluate. They’re key in the development of our main products.

In the case of our mobile apps, we’ve delegated all of the development to their team at the moment. I’m confident in the team we have there, and I’m comfortable with the GitFlow process that ensures code quality and technology transfer among the team.

What is the team composition?

I primarily work with startups, and have worked with AgileEngine for two different companies. In each case, the team size grew to meet our requirements. In my previous role, we had a team of eight people, including a team lead, two senior software engineers, and one mid-level software engineer. We had three QA engineers who could write automation code, and we also had a project manager/Scrum person for managing tasks.

For my current company, we’ve worked with four people from AgileEngine, including a very strong technical lead who is the foundation of our team there.

How did you come to work with AgileEngine?

I liked their hiring process because they allowed us to interview multiple candidates before selecting one that was a good fit. Now I’ve since become so confident in our Team Lead that I ask him to narrow down the options to two candidates for myself and the U.S. team to interview. Because he knows the culture and region, he can give me a better sense of the caliber of education/schools on the candidate resumes, and I trust his instincts on the “fit” of candidates with our team. This helps streamline the hiring process.

What is the status of this engagement?

With the current company, we started working with them in April 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

I can’t share exact metrics, but we’re continuing to use them because we’re satisfied.

Due to the stringent security requirements in my industry, their team is not always able to do everything they normally would in a commercial project. There are certain parts of the system they may not have access to, so they have to develop based on my description of how something works. They’re not allowed to see data, which poses some unique challenges. I’ve been working in engineering for a long time and haven’t found a team that could handle this limitation as well as AgileEngine.

We have tight deadlines and real-world situations of people waiting on things, so we have to get the work done right the first time and it has to meet our quality levels. I’ve had to take what AgileEngine does and integrate it with the parts they can’t access. I’ve found that, in terms of API integration—whether it’s React Native, React.js, C++, or JavaScript—that I’m consistently pleased with their clean design and code.

They have internal reviews before I even see the code, which is absolutely fine with me and has not affected meeting my aggressive deadlines. This approach increases the quality of their deliverables. AgileEngine has done a lot of learning as a team.

How did AgileEngine LLC perform from a project management standpoint?

Like many engineering organizations, we use GitFlow for creating branches, pull requests, and code reviews. We rely heavily on Skype and Slack for communication. My team and I hear from them every single day. My philosophy is that people should ask questions concerning what we’ve asked them to do if they have them. Our time zones spread all over the U.S., but both I and AgileEngine have adjusted our times to obtain more overlap.

Their strong technical leads are the primary reason I’ve gone to them. The caliber of the strongest lead and their ability to meet deadlines and do what needs done sets the tone of the project. I think of them as part of our company. They are my technical team who just so happens to be located elsewhere.

We encourage collaboration and have a Skype group channel for our U.S. team to interact with them. There is full transparency, and everyone is in the loop. We also use GoogleDocs. Their abilities to expressive technical concepts in writing is very good. The communication skills and English proficiency of our technical leads are excellent and more honed because they’ve been doing this for longer, but I have never had a communication issue with any member of the team.

We use Jira and Confluence, so things are well-specified. We also use prototyping tools like Zeplin, Sketch, proto.io, and Webflow in order to hone designs as much as possible to avoid having to rework things.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are the only outsourced team I’ve ever worked with that can meet my expectations regarding requirements. AgileEngine performs as well as my team members who come from elite schools for computer software. I wouldn’t be using them otherwise.

They’re very creative, which is a unique characteristic in our relationship that has worked well for us. They have good ideas, and we’ve set up an environment that allows the ideas in our company to come from anywhere. It all goes to helping us improve our products. AgileEngine is definitely a part of that process. They’ve contributed greatly to improvements and ideas for what we’re doing, and they’ve helped us question some of the choices we’ve made.

Their developers’ strong mathematical foundation also makes them stand out. This area can sometimes be a challenge when working with companies from other parts of the world, but it’s never been an issue with AgileEngine. They always take performance into consideration. I’m grateful for this because the last thing I want is slow, inefficient code. This eliminates the need for me to have to spend time re-iterating or making significant architecture changes because they’re done correctly in the first place.

In terms of communication and collaboration, AgileEngine is genuinely a part of our team. They’re interested in making us successful. They’re not just a contractor clocking time, and if I’m pushing for a release to the app stores, they offer to be available whenever we need to push the release on time.

I’ve introduced AgileEngine to three different companies, and I’m confident that I’ll continue to use them in the future.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only part I don’t like as much is the administrative side. They’ve recently hired someone for managing the SOW [statement of work] process, but I would like to have a company dashboard page on their side that shows my SOW and billing history. It would help me better plan my hiring budgets to see my current structure, but also salary ranges of types of individuals to aid in planning/budgeting.

Within that same construct, I would also want an automated way to provide bonuses. They’ve worked with me on this directly, but it would be nice to automate the process. This would also be nice for equipment purchases.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

My advice is to find a strong technical lead who you feel comfortable building your team around.  There needs to be one person whose advice we can rely on, who knows the landscape, and who can determine the qualifications and fit of a resource.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

AVITAS is an aviation consulting company that appraises commercial aircraft for banks, lenders, and lessors. Their online system provides aircraft and engine values, the values also appear in physical publications.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AgileEngine.

We needed a new development team to upgrade the system and extend its features.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They improved the system’s coding, functionality, and UI design using Tomcat, Java, and JSP [Java ServerPages]. Building extra functionality was the most complex part of the project.

What is the team dynamic?

We worked with offsite-developers.

How did you come to work with AgileEngine?

The company we previously used – in affiliation with another developer – moved their focus to the public sector and introduced us AgileEngine.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in 2012 and is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Internal efficiencies resulting from the improvements, increase in our productivity and client positive feedback. Also, our subscriber base has increased.

There is minimal user feedback because our system is a very utilitarian tool in a niche industry. However, we view its repeated use in multi-million and billion-dollar deals to be indicative of its value. We are one of the leading appraisal companies in the industry due in-part to our system’s functionality and performance.

How did AgileEngine perform from a project management standpoint?

The developers were awesome. I had initial reservations about remote working, but their diligence produced results that exceeded my expectations. We used Skype, emails, and specification documents to coordinate workloads with minimal issues. They displayed impressive initiative and follow-through.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Alex, the CEO, is a fantastic guy who is always willing to meet and share his experience and advice. He’s a giving and selfless individual with an approachable demeanor that makes for a great colleague. Alex provided technological solutions and ideas for any challenge, even if he was not managing that project. He is one of the most proactive and knowledgeable developers I’ve met.

On the whole, the team could not have performed better. They always bent over backwards to help and always delivered. No complaints.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Alex and his colleagues’ expertise provide the best value. You will get the best solution from this team.