Cedarcode

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of engineering at Notable, a small startup. We’re a fintech company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cedarcode?

The primary challenge to address was to get senior software engineers. Our team had been pretty small with only two full-time engineers and two contractors. I needed to continue to grow the team. The need was to continue to move at a pace that was acceptable for our business goals and promises to our partners.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cedarcode provides senior engineers to expand our team and to help with web development. They guide the project, help me when decisions that need to be made, and don’t need coaching because they’ve been doing this for a long time. 

The team is working on a website. There’s a user-facing portion which is a funnel that asks a series of questions, each one leading closer to a decision. It’s all web-based, APIs, admin, and databases. 

There’s a user-facing portal and an operations team-facing portal. The latter is important because the operations team is helping people out as they call in with questions about the product that we offer.

In terms of software engineering practices, what was important for me is that there was a continued emphasis on automated testing such as making sure that the software is delivered and has been tested so that we don’t have to do it ourselves or hire a QA team.

What is the team composition?

There are currently two people.

How did you come to work with Cedarcode?

I’ve known about Cedarcode for 3–4 years. I host a Ruby meetup and two of Cedarcode’s team members offered to give a talk at my meetup. We continued to touch base as I was thinking about expanding the team. 

I learned that they had one developer available that fit our technology stack which was important. We started a month-long trial engagement but it was clear by week two that it was going to work with that developer.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2020, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Generally, I measure by the number of individual pieces of work such as user-facing features. I measure the volume week over week. We have an internal goal of how much broken up work we want to accomplish per week. 

The qualitative aspects undergo automated testing so that the code that’s being contributed improves our overall test coverage as each piece of work is done. 

The engineers suggest and implement elements that improve the overall stability of the project, reduce bugs, and reduce the ability to introduce bugs because there are more guardrails and control in the software that’s being built.

How did Cedarcode perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is exceptional. For our stories and the work the engineers are doing, we communicate through PivotalTracker. Their team is directly embedded with our team.

We communicate with the engineering team members through Slack. We use video chats for talking about any larger piece of work and also for our daily standup. We also have a monthly call. Some small things we figure out over email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their maturity, their breadth of knowledge, and the seriousness with which they approach the project are impressive. There’s never a time they don’t show ownership.

Over time, the engineers have really integrated and gotten to know the product, which is important. I know a month ahead of time when they’re taking time off.

Are there any areas they could improve?

If I had to expand the team, it would be more difficult because they’re really serious and considerate about how they expand their team. 

If I needed five more software engineers, they might not necessarily be able to provide that. They might not have five available because everybody is already working on a project. However, it’s not realistic for me right now or an area of improvement.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They make it easy to start the partnership. They offered me a month-long trial. If you’re unhappy with the engineer’s work, you don’t pay for any of that month. My jaw dropped a little bit when they told me because that is so significantly different from what other companies offer. 

I work with another much larger consulting firm and they only offer a week instead of a month. Cedarcode makes the onboarding process really easy. Look at their opensource contributions. 

It’s not a huge amount but it’s impressive and important. It shows that the type of people they work with are good at what they do in terms of software engineering.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work at an internet marketplace, and my role is engineering manager. I work directly with product managers to determine the “what” and “how.” Then, I work with individual contributors from planning, to investigation and implementation.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cedarcode?

We originally brought Cedarcode on to work on an internal admin tool that needed more bandwidth. We wanted to bring on experts that could ramp up fast, as they already had experience with Ruby on Rails. Then, since that project went well, we moved them onto a more customer-facing project. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their responsibilities have been in the implementation of the main logic in Ruby on Rails, but they are capable throughout the entire stack. They’ve done database optimizations and worked on our build pipeline. They’ve also worked with some JavaScript and tweaked our legacy React code.

Initially, we kept their scope tight. But, we’ve given them increasing responsibility throughout the engagement. Now, they can take a high-level task and break it down. At one point, they implemented a complex state machine for our booking flow. With little help from me, they broke down the epic into sprints, identified the priority, and did the implementation.
 
What is the team composition?

At the start of our relationship, we were working with Braulio (Co-founder & Senior Software Engineer) and Sebastian (Co-founder & Senior Software Engineer). Then, after the initial project went well, we brought on Marcelo (Co-founder & Software Engineer). We told them we’d be happy to have more bandwidth, so they also brought on a junior engineer named Santiago (Computer Analyst). 
 
How did you come to work with Cedarcode?

They reached out to us at a Ruby conference. It was a low-risk engagement as we were bringing on contractors for a small project. We feel very fortunate that this has gone magnitudes better than initially expected.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested about $40,000 per month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them back in May of 2018, and the relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’re wonderful. I’ve been pitching them to other managers, and it looks like another team will pick them up once our projects have ramped down. I can’t speak highly enough about the quality of the code they produce or their reliability. 

They take ownership of their work and help to fill in gaps where it’s needed. Since we started working with them, there’s been a reduction in support tickets.

Also, the junior engineer is really bright, and he’s onboarded so fast. Now, he’s completely competent at implementing tasks.

How did Cedarcode perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been extremely adaptable in their communication. We do a daily standup and have a weekly meeting with their principals. They visit our site every six months.

Their communication is transparent, genuine, and honest. They aren’t reactive, and they’re exceptionally collaborative, which is tough to find. Ultimately, they are a pleasure to work with—they make my job easy.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They genuinely design the ideal system. Sometimes, we have to find a balance between delivery and ideals. But, whenever we give feedback about that, they’re so accommodating. So, it’s actually a good quality, but it’s the only feedback I can think of.
 
Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I think they can be successful in any relationship. The more trust and ownership you give them, the more it’s going to pay off. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and head of engineering at Urbandoor, an online marketplace connecting business travelers like long term consultants, relocations, and interns with hospitality partners in service departments.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cedarcode?

Our business is a Ruby on Rails application, and we were looking to grow our team rapidly. However, it’s difficult to hire experts in this area, so we began looking at staff augmentation options.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’re working on our app primarily using Ruby on Rails and contribute to open sourcing. Although they work remotely, they’ve become a fully integrated part of our team, participating in weekly stand-up meetings and visiting our office several times per year.

What is the team composition?

Originally, we had two people working with us from their team, but the goal was always to expand our team and collaborations. A few months later, we added a third teammate and recently added a fourth.

How did you come to work with Cedarcode?

They reached out to me after I posted about a remote opportunity on a job board. I wasn’t sure that we wanted to work with a consulting agency, because we were still planning to hire full-time employees.

However, Sebastian and I emailed back and forth a few times and met once while he was in town. He communicated clearly, was well-spoken, was knowledgeable, and clearly had deep-industry experience. He laid out exactly what their skill set was and what they could provide, so I knew I wanted to pursue this partnership.

How much have you invested with them? 

Our average invoice is about $30,000, so we’ve spent about $500,000 so far.  

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2018, and the project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’m very glad we decided to work with them because the engagement has worked out well. They’re experienced and work at a senior level—I know that if I give them work, we’re going to receive high-quality deliverables on our schedule. They’ve provided a lot of value for our company.

How did Cedarcode perform from a project management standpoint?

When it comes to project management, they’re very adept. They do their due diligence. Saving a lot of work before moving ahead, they re-scope every project once we give it to them, breaking down each task, determining how long it will take, how it should be organized, and what possible challenges could arise.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re great engineers, but they’re also passionate about what they do. They continue to invest in their careers and grow their skills by attending various conferences.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We would have liked to hire more of them earlier on. At the beginning of our project, we quickly reached the capacity of what we could ask them to do. But as their team expanded, we were able to ask more from them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Trust them enough to bring them into your company and help them understand your business. One of the things we could have improved on as a buyer, in the beginning, was folding them into our team. We didn’t realize that by excluding them from company-wide meetings, they were missing a lot of context. Once they started attending those meetings, they began operating at a whole new level.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm a senior manager in our commercial organization supporting sales and marketing.  I was the internal product manager for the applications Cedarcode supports and sourced vendors to support the application.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cedarcode?

We had an application that another provider developed. That provider didn't want to support the application on a long term basis, so we needed another company to help us maintain it.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cedarcode supports a couple of applications and addresses any issues and performance enhancements as needed. They also perform upgrades to the application stack and dependent libraries. Over time, they have made the application more efficient. The applications revolve around workflows and the internal global process for supplier onboarding. The applications enable workflows for processes that need approval and they perform validations so data is collected "right the first time". Cedarcode's work is on both the frontend and backend of Ruby on Rails applications. We recently upgraded the applications to a newer version or Rails. The applications are 6 years old.

What is the team composition?

We work with two or three developers from their team, led by one main lead for communication.

How did you come to work with Cedarcode?

I did an online search for Ruby on Rails developers. I interviewed them and felt they were mature. They had good processes in place and understood our requirements. We gave them a chance, and they've worked out very well. They understood our entire application stack and know how to manage our servers.

How much have you invested with them?

I moved to another area of our company, so I'm no longer involved in the project. That said, I'd estimate we spend somewhere near $90,000-$100,000 a year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2015, and the collaboration is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

People are satisfied with them, and they're the subject matter experts on these applications. They have more institutional knowledge than some of our internal team, and they've educated new people about the platforms. We've had no complaints, and they've proven themselves.

A few years ago, we had some internal changes to our databases and a dependent system was upgraded to a new version of MS SQL Server. The team was only made aware when the process broke.  It was a difficult problem to troubleshoot, but working with Cedarcode, they were able to identify the solution and quickly make changes that brought the systems back online. Within a short period of time, we solved the problems. We couldn't have done that without their help.

How did Cedarcode perform from a project management standpoint?

They are good project managers. We use Basecamp, and they follow the processes we established years ago. They make sure that all our new team members maintain consistency, and everything runs smoothly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're very independent and we never have to hold their hands. They ask the right questions and move forward. We appreciate their maturity, and they make things easy for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can only judge them for the work they've done for us. They could potentially improve their support capabilities on the server-side. There are certainly opportunities if they took control of the entire infrastructure and moved into DevOps.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They're a really good value for the money. I've worked with other offshore companies, but the quality Cedarcode offers is superior. The time zone overlap is great, and there is so much to be gained from working with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the VP of engineering at ID.me.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cedarcode?

We had multiple high-level priorities that were understaffed on the engineering side, so we needed to bring someone on for staff augmentation.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cedarcode was brought on to augment our staff and increase our output as a team. They were very closely integrated and involved in all of our sprint planning and daily stand-ups. Our engineering team is split into multiple different product priorities. We had an identity verification side of things and a consumer-facing shopping platform, and they helped us on the consumer-facing side of things.

Throughout the engagement, we expanded the scope of their involvement. Cedarcode was eventually brought onto multiple different teams. Their team works remotely and comes into our office once or twice a year. Cedarcode works with our entire tech stack. For our project, they use Ruby on Rails, HTML, CSS, and Javascript. 

What is the team composition?

We work with one senior engineer and one product manager from Cedarcode. 

How did you come to work with Cedarcode?

One of our team members met Cedarcode at a conference and followed up with them. We spoke with other companies who have used their services before and they gave us great references. After evaluating their expertise with our tech stack and their contributions to open source, we decided to bring Cedarcode on board. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spend about $5,000-$8,000 a month.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with Cedarcode began in July 2015. While I left the company in September 2017, I know they continued to work with the at least into 2018. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our sprint completion percentages have gone up. Cedarcode was great to work with. Their team is well organized and their communication was outstanding. It was a pleasure to work with them and was once of the best experiences I’ve had with an external development team.

How did Cedarcode perform from a project management standpoint?

We managed the workflow using Jira, GitHub, and Slack to make the remote environment work. Our teams also used Google Hangouts. Our project manager regularly checked in to see how we could improve our relationship over time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Cedardcode wanted to go above and beyond, proactively seeking our feedback. They know what they’re doing but they want to improve and become a better asset to our team. That’s why our relationship grew. We kept renewing their contract every six months and growing their level of responsibility. The team is adaptable to changes. Our overall team structure changed a couple of times along the way, but Cedarcode always adapted to new team members very well. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t just look at them as a staff augmentation resource, find a way to integrate them with your team. That’s where Cedarcode really shone and became an asset to us. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

When I worked with Cedarcode, I was a designer and developer at CareerBuilder. I was in charge of architecture, specifically related to Ruby on Rails. I also led our UX team.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cedarcode?

We reached out to them while most of our engineers transferred from .NET and Microsoft technologies to open source and Ruby on Rails. We needed help in GitHub and ways to build hyper services in Rails.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provided some staff augmentation, but they also helped coach us through some big projects. They did a lot of workshops and sessions with our team, and they imbedded with us to process requests, designer views, and architecture. They were very influential in some big architecture decisions.

Our team built tools and libraries to increase the productivity of other engineers. We focused on shared libraries involving authentication, templates, generators, or anything else that might get plugged into a project. The main product we focused on was a line of business application that helped with our invoicing, billing, and product management.

What is the team composition?

One contact worked with our accounts receivable team on invoicing and billing. The other worked on our general-purpose line of business team to build our principal application. He guided that team and acted as a lead.

How did you come to work with Cedarcode?

We were a sponsor at a conference, and we posted on the job board that we had openings. They attend the conference every year, saw our posting, and reached out to us. We met for about an hour, then we interviewed and hired them about a month later.

How much have you invested with them?

There was a budget, but I wasn't privy to the exact numbers. This was a very large project, and about a quarter of our IT team worked on it.

What is the status of this engagement?

I believe the collaboration started at the end of 2014 or the beginning of 2015. I left the company in 2017, but the contract was ongoing when I left.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were early adopters of microservices. Before they joined, we had a monolithic offering in .NET. As a company, we didn't have a lot of knowledge in the field, but they were instrumental in helping us make decisions around authentication, when to create a service, and what our templates should look like. Our team could spin out a microservice in less than 20 seconds. They probably saved us over a year of effort.

How did Cedarcode perform from a project management standpoint?

They're probably the best vendor I've ever worked with. They set us up with a wiki with guidelines for our teams, and they taught us all how to work in GitHub. They also held multiple workshops to get everyone up to speed. Their communication was phenomenal, and they would always adjust their schedules to be present whenever our inhouse team was working. They speak better English than half our internal staff.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The two or three years I worked with them were probably the best in my career. I know what these relationships are usually like, but they always felt like partners. They focused on quality, made connections with their teams, and had great communication skills. Everyone I worked with had high attention to detail and a senior level of expertise.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We had a large, varied department, and each team had five or six engineers. They were small when we started working together, and they grew with the relationship. By the time I left, there wasn't anything I thought they should improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If your organization is predominantly Rails, I think they'd be a good fit for you. They also have some expertise in Elixir and JavaScript.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CTO of a gambling company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Fantasy sports and sports betting games.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Improve performance of our application
• Speed up delivery of deny features

SOLUTION

How did you find Cedarcode?

Conference

Why did you select Cedarcode over others?

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Cedarcode were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

They helped launch key features for our product. Leveled up our team and provided guidance to our engineers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• None

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

They were embedded in our teams, and they constantly deliver high-quality work on time.

What was your primary form of communication with Cedarcode?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They have a very high talent bar. They communicate well and our constantly improving.

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

None