WyeWorks

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder and former CPO of a social media marketing platform. I was in charge of product, engineering, and marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with WyeWorks?

We collaborated with WyeWorks to develop our social media marketing platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Using Ruby on Rails, WyeWorks developed our social media marketing application that allowed companies to monetize their engagements from a host of social platforms. Our product allowed merchants to push content to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google+ at the time. WyeWorks took the lead to develop those plugins.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a team of probably 10 engineers.

How did you come to work with WyeWorks?

It would have been costly to hire locally in Silicon Valley, so I decided to look elsewhere. WyeWorks offered competitive pricing for high-level engineering skills. Further, they seemed to have a healthy company culture, so there is minimal turnover on their staff. They make an effort to custom tailor the team to fit the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from 2010-2014.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We truly benefitted from them taking ownership of some of the critical components of the platform. They became an essential part of our engineering team as we launched our product.

How did WyeWorks perform from a project management standpoint?

Although it was a remote engagement, it was a seamless project. They are quite strong in their coding ability, but they stand out in how they managed the collaboration. We’d use Slack and Trello to communicate and track our tasks, and we’d have weekly standups to discuss our goals. They always set reasonable expectations and put in the extra time to address tasks that took longer than anticipated to meet deadlines. We worked so well together that I have selected them to help with another project at my current company.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s rare to meet the team when working remotely, but they make regular trips to Silicon Valley so that we can collaborate in person. That builds an extra bond of trust with their team, which speaks to their willingness to cater to the client.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I cannot determine anything that needs improvement.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an engineering leader at Cisco Meraki. We provide cloud-managed IT solutions that simplify networking, enhance security, and optimize digital experiences for businesses, making IT management easier and more efficient.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with WyeWorks?

We needed help upgrading our monolithic Ruby on Rails application to the latest versions.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

WyeWorks manages the end-to-end Ruby on Rails upgrade process for us. This involves a roughly 5 million-line, 16-year-old monolithic codebase that has been running on very old LTS versions of Rails. Getting to the latest versions of both Ruby and Rails is a large, complex, and error-prone effort, and WyeWorks handles the entire project for us.

As for milestones, we’ve been getting to new versions of Ruby and Rails. For example, we’ve made Rails 6.1 to boot, fixed all failed unit tests for Rails 6.1, and rolled out Rails 6.1 to development, sandbox, and production environments.

What is the team composition?

We work with 6–10 teammates from WyeWorks.

How did you come to work with WyeWorks?

We found them through a referral and conferences. We chose them over other options because they had high ratings, their pricing fit our budget, they were a great culture fit, and they offered good value for the cost.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in July 2022, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Thanks to WyeWorks, we’re running our Rails application on more modern versions of Ruby and Rails. We’ve also achieved security compliance and unlocked new capabilities such as DB replicas and OTEL. Moreover, the Ruby upgrade (with YJIT) has made Rails response time between 20%–50% faster while saving around 30% on CPU.

How did WyeWorks perform from a project management standpoint?

WyeWorks is excellent at project management. They often deliver on time or ahead of schedule. As for communication, we use virtual meetings, emails, and messaging apps.

What did you find most impressive about them?

WyeWorks is reliable, knowledgeable, has a team player mindset, and is flexible.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’re doing great. They’re very flexible and responsive.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Lead Delivery Manager of TXI Digital

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

TXI Digital is a Chicago-based digital product consulting firm that partners with Fortune 500 and mid-market companies to design, build, and deliver experience-led data products — spanning strategy, UX design, and engineering — that solve complex business challenges. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire WyeWorks to accomplish?

• Software Delivery

SOLUTION

How did you find WyeWorks?

Referral

Why did you select WyeWorks over others?

• Great culture fit
• Referred to me

How many teammates from WyeWorks were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

From day one they hit the ground running, meshed perfectly with our team, and have just consistently delivered great work. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

They have been an absolute pleasure to work with. And doing all of that across time zones? No complaints, no drama — just results. Our client stakeholders have noticed too, which says a lot.

A few things that really stood out:
- They ramp up fast and ask the right questions
- Their work quality is consistently solid
- They come with solutions, not just problems
- They're just genuinely great people to have in the mix

What was your primary form of communication with WyeWorks?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

Are there any areas for improvement or something WyeWorks could have done differently?

N/A