Cedarcode

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the director of engineering at BetterUp.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cedarcode?

I needed a product development team. I had an urgent need to expand my team as quickly as possible because we wanted to launch a new product. I was mainly looking for full stack engineering support because we were building a new product, so I needed teammates who could understand all aspects of development. We aimed for this product to grow, so we were also looking for someone with growth and upscaling experience.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cedarcode provides four full stack engineers to work specifically on my teams. These engineers work as any other member of my team; they work on the same code base, attend the same meetings, and have the same goals. I have three different teams under my watch, so the four engineers are spread across those three teams.

We initially started with two engineers from Cedarcode, but we eventually expanded that team based on my experience; I was interested in hiring more engineers. Currently, every engineer works remotely for us. However, they all work together in the same office. Recently, I asked for an engineer with mobile experience to join my mobile development team.

What is the team composition?

We work with four engineers from Cedarcode. This team includes a senior engineer and three regular engineers.

How did you come to work with Cedarcode?

Cedarcode has been working for BetterUp for some time. Prior to talking with them about the specific needs of my team, I had received really good reviews about them from other leaders within my organization. These leaders told me that Cedarcode's engineers were top-quality engineers.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working for BetterUp over two years ago, and Cedarcode was already working for us since then. I believe they've been working for us as a company since mid-2021. This is an ongoing partnership, and I plan to continue working with Cedarcode for my ongoing staffing needs.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Every Cedarcode engineer has been successfully integrated as a BetterUp engineer; we've never thought of them as engineers coming from a different organization. Overall, we've had an amazing collaboration. We work from different locations and time zones, so it feels like our team is working around the clock.

On the staffing side, Cedarcode is very thoughtful about who they hire. They're very meticulous and tidy, so the quality of the engineers has been really good. Although Cedarcode takes some time to provide us with new talent, they always bring the right talent. Whenever I ask for a specific talent, they're able to bring it.

Regarding the work itself, the team has been able to work on a lot of items voluntarily. For example, they've cleared off 40% of our legacy code, and they're aiming to eliminate 70%–80% of it, which is nice. This type of work wasn't expected because we're a fast-paced development team, so feature development is the most important part of our business. Still, Cedarcode has contributed to these other areas, exceeding expectations.

How did Cedarcode perform from a project management standpoint?

Cedarcode delivers work on time. We have Microsoft Team meetings internally, and Cedarcode engineers attend often. Moreover, our conversations happen over Slack.

I work with Cedarcode's engineers directly because this empowers me to be a more direct manager. Most of the feedback I give them in our one-on-one meetings is very positive. Still, they're very good at taking feedback, and the process has been very transparent. We've seen continuous improvement, which has been amazing.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

I would like to give a shout-out to Santiago, who is the most experienced engineer. Prior to working for my team, he had worked for many other teams within BetterUp. When I started this project, I was new to the company, so hiring someone who already had the experience and knowledge to work with us was very valuable for me and my team to ramp up. Santiago has been one of our biggest assets.

The most recently hired engineer has been Agustina. She's very energetic and flexible in picking up anything that she sees as an opportunity to learn. She takes on every new challenge.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Cedarcode's engineers' ability to take extreme ownership of our projects has been outstanding. We treat them as our employees, and they also consider themselves our employees and become part of our company. We've never seen them as members of another organization.

Are there any areas they could improve?

As mentioned, we frequently share feedback with Cedarcode's engineers. However, it would be more useful for Cedarcode to share the individual goals of these individuals so that we could help them grow. Most of the time, they pick up on tasks. However, it would be good if they also focused on their individual growth.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm a business systems analyst for a biotechnology research company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cedarcode?

We needed support with custom software development and platform management services for our custom forms for supplier and customer enablement.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cedarcode provides us with custom software development services. The software they provide helps us with our supplier and customer enablement process, capturing all the information to set up and update new suppliers. 

Cedarcode also supports our internal and custom platform that provides help for the procurement and global sourcing teams. The team provides guidance on what needs to be populated on the purchase orders and material groups that need to be used, as well as information related to finance and accounting.

What is the team composition?

We have three teammates assigned to the project: Braulio (Co-Founder & Senior Software Engineer), Marcelo (Co-Founder & Software Engineer), and another software developer.

How did you come to work with Cedarcode?

When I joined my company, they were already working with Cedarcode.

What is the status of this engagement?

I believe my company's engagement with Cedarcode started in 2017. I started working at my company in October 2020, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Cedarcode's work quality meets our expectations.

How did Cedarcode perform from a project management standpoint?

Cedarcode delivers work on time and communicates via email. We have weekly meetings in Webex to review all the project's items and collaborate via Jira.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

I want to give a shout-out to Marcelo. He has been very engaged, responds promptly, and is very knowledgeable. He provides support immediately when needed and responds quickly to urgent requests.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can't think of anything Cedarcode can improve at the moment.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I suggest having constant communication with Cedarcode to clarify requirements. I recommend talking over the phone and sharing screens.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the general manager of the direct-to-consumer (DTC) business unit at a digital coaching company. Our offering includes both B2B and B2C components, and I lead the B2C side of the business, which is the newer growth side.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cedarcode?

Cedarcode was brought in to help us build our DTC product, which was borrowing from what we had done on the B2B side of the business but was trying to make it more of a consumer offering. I started working at my company around a year and a half ago, and Cedarcode has been working with our DTC business unit since it started. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cedarcode has helped us build our DTC product platform based on the work delivered by our internal product design team. We already had a B2B product built, and when we launched the consumer business, we needed to build a lot of different infrastructure around that. On the B2B side, we didn't need to worry about a consumer paying for the subscription. 

Cedarcode has helped us build how we onboard consumers into our platform and define what we needed to change about the experience to speak more from a DTC lens. The team has also helped us build the infrastructure to collect payments and create a subscription business out of this, working with Stripe integration, which is what we use for our payments.

What is the team composition?

We work with four engineers from Cedarcode on the DTC business unit, including Braulio (Co-Founder & Senior Software Engineer) and Sebastian (Co-Founder & Senior Software Engineer). Additionally, at least another four engineers work on other projects throughout the company. 

How did you come to work with Cedarcode?

Cedarcode was already engaged with my company when I started working here.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent almost $1 million since I started working at my company. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Cedarcode in 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Cedarcode has been critical in developing a new coaching digital product for our company from scratch. We've just launched the product and don't have quantitative metrics. Cedarcode's collaboration with our company has extended to other projects. As with any project, different curveballs have come up. I'm very impressed with the level of thought and feedback and the way that Cedarcode has shaped the project, being an incredible and important thought partner in how we've built the product.

We plan to launch the product to consumers in about another month after the team completes more QA. The product Cedarcode has built will be a huge unlock for our DTC business unit. For a long time, we've wanted a digital-first product that allows consumers to come into our offering so we can upsell them into one-on-one coaching — a big leap for many consumers to go straight into that.

We have a robust onboarding funnel regarding the number of steps consumers go through before they sign up for a coaching subscription. Optimizing that conversion funnel is incredibly important, and Cedarcode is at the forefront of implementing and executing optimization strategies that have been successful after our tests. Cedarcode is a crucial voice and has been instrumental in helping us improve our onboarding conversion rate over time. 

How did Cedarcode perform from a project management standpoint?

We've never had an issue with the project's budget because Cedarcode has been on top of it. We're impressed that Cedarcode has delivered on time. For big projects like this, it usually doesn't happen because there is always something that ends up shifting the timeline. The team has had to upskill in certain areas to develop our product and hit our internal launch target, and we launched the product internally this week. Cedarcode has been incredibly thorough in how they've built our platform.

We've tightened up the process because we weren't scoping enough before giving requirements to Cedarcode's engineering team. Some requirements seemed simpler, so there have been times when a few tasks took longer, but this was more on us. 

We communicate via Slack, email, and in-person meetings. We have a Monday meeting with the entire team and separate meetings where we review specific tasks. Cedarcode is in daily product stand-ups with our product team and is a core part of our company, so we have many touchpoints throughout the week.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

Braulio and Sebastian originally came to us to start the project, and both have been excellent. I've worked with many different engineers on different teams, and especially for a team that is not full-time employees or integrated within our company, I've never felt left out because of the passion, interest, and commitment they have to their work, which is unlike anything I've ever seen.

Braulio and Sebastian ask the hard questions and are engaged as thoughtful business partners. They like to understand the strategy behind our product and have influenced material decisions where we thought we were doing something beneficial, and they ask if we've thought about the impact. This isn't necessarily the case when working in a contract relationship, which can become very transactional. 

Braulio and Sebastian don't approach our relationship in a transactional way. They treat our project as if it's from their company and feel responsible and committed to it. They've worked with our company since the beginning of the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Cedarcode actively participates in our thinking process through what we want to build. We find a lot of value in that, and their work is never contentious. The team always works in the spirit of making the product better because they care about it, too. Cedarcode is integrated with our team and doesn't only execute what we give them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We have a monthly feedback meeting to discuss our comments with the team. We haven't noticed any major necessary improvements, but I've discussed with Cedarcode when we had some newer teammates join the team. I encouraged them to ask questions if something wasn't clear or they didn't understand the business rationale. I wanted to ensure that the more junior engineers understood our business rationale because it's such a valuable piece of the process. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend not treating Cedarcode like contractors in a traditional sense. If you work with the team as contractors, you might not have them in a lot of your core meetings about the business because they’re not part of the full-time team. I've seen that happen in other projects. 

You'll get the most value out of Cedarcode by bringing them fully into the fold. Sometimes, that can feel like a bit of a waste because they charge hourly, and you pay them in an hour-long weekly meeting, but it's absolutely worth your money because that will make Cedarcode a better strategic partner.

I also suggest having a clear and well-defined process of how you will work with Cedarcode. Every engineering team I've worked with is different regarding what they need from their product partners and process perspective. Work with the team to understand how to unlock their superpowers in the most efficient way through the process.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for Notable Finance LLC, a fintech startup. We specialize in home improvement loans designed for home sellers looking to maximize the value of their homes. We offer a software solution to support our applicants throughout the entire process, from applying for a loan to repaying that loan through our system. I'm the company's CTO, so I'm the head of all of our technical operations, which includes managing our contract with Cedarcode.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cedarcode?

When I joined the company, our business was scaling rapidly, so we needed to bring in a group of developers with strong technical acumen. However, we didn't want a lengthy onboarding period; we wanted developers who could join our project right away.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cedarcode provides us with very flexible development services; they've assigned a group of developers to work on our app development projects. We've established a joint onboarding process. We have guidelines, practices, and standards pertaining to our development practices, our industry, and the fintech environment regulations, so we've provided those guidelines to Cedarcode. Still, they've also had their own internal onboarding process every time they bring new members onto their team.

Whenever they add a new team member, the team lead from Cedarcode assigned to our project ramps up the new developer into our tech stack. Therefore, they basically get onboarding assistance grom both sides, which accelerates the time it takes for them to actually start contributing to the project.

One of our most recent projects and our focal point in 2024 has been building a core product offered to an exclusive partner. This product has been designed for sellers. When an applicant is selling their home and is working with a specific brokerage, they have the opportunity to go through a loan application process within our platform to help fund any improvement or closing costs they might have.

One of the key features that we've developed in the last year is the ability to branch that service out to be more agnostic across multiple brokerages. Thanks to this feature, we can partner with over 30 brokerages with the same capacity.

Cedarcode's team has been primarily responsible for updating our code base and making it agnostic. This has required improving areas that were previously hard-coded to make it easy to onboard new partners. Basically, they've headed up that effort and been responsible for managing the incremental improvements that have come with it.

Technology stack-wise, our code base is predominantly TypeScript and JavaScript. We also have a PostgreSQL backend. We operate in an MVC (model-view-controller) model, which is structured similarly to a Ruby on Rails product but using TypeScript. Moreover, we're hosted in Heroku and use AWS for a lot of different things. We also have third-party products that integrate with either AWS or Heroku.

Our engagement with Cedarcode is strictly based on software development work. Although they're involved in tasks like requirements gathering and functionality demos, everything they're involved in is centered around software development in some way, shape, or form.

What is the team composition?

We currently have three developers from Cedarcode assigned to our project.

How did you come to work with Cedarcode?

Cedarcode had already started working with us prior to my arrival. However, I know that my predecessor had surveyed a lot of similar service providers that offered contractual-based development services. When we were introduced to Cedarcode, they offered us the kind of experience we were looking for and had a lot of technical expertise.

We noticed that they had a wide range of experience and a strong background in engineering and development philosophies, which would translate well into our business. Therefore, we knew that they would be able to jump into the project and contribute to all aspects of our platform right away. In particular, Cedarcode had a strong Ruby on Rails background, which denoted very strong development practices and skills.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent around $1 million with Cedarcode. We have a monthly rate, but it varies from month to month because our contracts have changed over time, as well as the rates for the developers and engineers.

What is the status of this engagement?

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

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Something noteworthy about Cedarcode is that everyone from their team contributes to our project at a technical level. There isn't a project management layer that doesn't directly contribute to the development work, so every teammate who's part of our contract contributes to developing the app.

One of the key milestones Cedarcode has achieved is expanding the core product I mentioned to make it more agnostic. Previously, it took us months to onboard a new brokerage partner into our platform. Thanks to Cedarcode's most recent updates, it is now a matter of days.

Still, Cedarcode's main success metric has been the volume of commits they've made, which has been very high. Their team has made more than half of the total commits we have to our project, demonstrating that they're very efficient and productive. We also measure their development velocity, which has been consistently high. Overall, Cedarcode has been one of our company's top performers in both areas.

How did Cedarcode perform from a project management standpoint?

Cedarcode's project management is very good. We operate on tight deadlines, and they've almost always met them. It's very rare for them not to meet a deadline, and in case they anticipate not meeting one, they provide us with a warning in advance. We communicate well via email or Slack, so there are no surprises. Moreover, the delays haven't been their fault. The complications in requirements have led to those few instances of Cedarcode not being on time.

We work in an agile environment, so every two weeks, we iterate on new changes and ideas that can vary widely. In addition to using Slack throughout the day to communicate, we also use Google Meet for our daily stand-up meetings and any required cross-department calls. We also use Linear, which is similar to Jira, to collaborate and have asynchronous communication. We use Trello for specific bug reports, but we don't use it often. We would rather use Linear.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

Although they're all great to work with, I want to give a shout-out to Marcelo (Co-Founder & Software Engineer). He does a great job of managing all the work his team is doing, and he's always vouching for the right way to do things.

Marcelo has also done a great job of ensuring that the development team is as scalable as possible, given that there are always a lot of unknowns in what we're doing. He's particularly talented at anticipating unknowns, developing solutions, and guiding his team into thinking the same way.

What did you find most impressive about them?

One of the things that distinguishes Cedarcode from other service providers is that there's no overhead involved. Everyone contributes to the code base almost daily, so we get a lot of value for the money.

Their team is very active and involved in the project, and everything is straightforward. We know what we're getting, and there's not a lot of change in what we're doing. Moreover, Cedarcode has a pretty steady team. All those characteristics combined set them apart from similar companies.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can't think of anything Cedarcode could do differently. They've been pretty good with everything.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

You will benefit from having a strong technical contact or liaison with Cedarcode. If you're an organization with many layers and not much technical acumen, you could struggle to engage with them. Therefore, ensure that you know the technical side of things so that you can speak at the same level with everyone from Cedarcode. Other than that, Cedarcode is very easy to work with, and everything is very straightforward.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the VP of engineering at an organization that is building a coaching platform for companies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cedarcode?

We needed help finding software engineers who were nearshore to the US and had the right skill set and quality to help us achieve our business objectives.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We use Cedarcode as a software consultancy service. The team brings software engineers on a staff augmentation model that we hire on a recurring annual contract. The engineers' services include building features for our product, maintaining and testing those features, and prototyping new ideas. Cedarcode's resources work primarily on web applications, and have started building a mobile app. 

Cedarcode's team works using Ruby on Rails and is fully embedded into our core team, having access to our internal documents and processes. Cedarcode's engineers work with our in-house designers on different requests since this isn't a fixed project. Cedarcode's engineers work remotely from Uruguay and have come to the US to meet with us. Most of our company is in the US and Canada.

What is the team composition?

We work with around 10 software engineers and with Cedarcode's founders.

How did you come to work with Cedarcode?

Both founders of Cedarcode are known in the Ruby on Rails community and have established their company name as Ruby on Rails partners. Our company sought offshore teams to work with that software and support our projects.
How much have you invested with them?

We spend around $100,000 monthly.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with Cedarcode precedes my time working at my company and has lasted 5–6 years.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We started working with 2–3 developers, and our team has scaled up to 10 engineers. The resources Cedarcode brings are extremely good and deliver high-quality code. The internal teams that Cedarcode's engineers have embedded into have been extremely effective and good at keeping up with timelines and high-quality work. We haven't encountered issues or bugs in their deliverables, and I haven't heard any complaints from my internal team.

Our customers' support requests aren't about product issues since they usually ask about how to cancel a subscription or add features. The team is flexible enough to address those requests, even if they're not technical problems. I've worked with other vendors where I've requested the project manager or the team's lead to swap a teammate because they didn't work out for the project. However, this hasn't happened with Cedarcode. 

The team doesn't have a big staff and has a strict vetting process for the resources they choose to work with. When Cedarcode hires a new teammate, we don't interview them because we trust the team has found the right talent with the right mindset.

How did Cedarcode perform from a project management standpoint?

The team delivers work on time or ahead of the deadlines we set to provide updates for our customers. We have a fixed budget with Cedarcode, and they haven't asked for extra charges. We collaborate via Slack, Jira, Confluence, and all the Atlassian tools.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality of the professionals Cedarcode brings is fantastic. I don't have to worry about the resources' ability to meet our standards. Our team embraces the provided resources as if they're in-house engineers and treats them the same as our employees because they deliver what they say they’re going to. 

The engineers often suggest ideas to fix our code and don't only take orders, and my team appreciates that. Cedarcode is interested in delivering high-quality work and not only on the money income. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Cedarcode often takes a long time to hire new resources because they pay a lot of attention to their process. If I have an urgent need or request for extra engineers, Cedarcode takes a long time to find them because, as a small business, they don't have engineers on retainer. 

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Cedarcode's founders are great. The more you include them in your team and the less you treat them as a software vendor, the better they will be.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Engineering Manager of Airbnb

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Cedarcode assumes complete ownership of Airbnb's one service, ensuring its proper maintenance and management.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Taking full responsibility for the management and improvement of a Ruby application

SOLUTION

How did you find Cedarcode?

Other

Why did you select Cedarcode over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

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.

The provisioning work scope refers to the range of tasks and responsibilities involved in setting up and managing various systems, resources, and permissions for employees within an organization. It encompasses activities such as partner account creation, access management, integration with external tools and services, job scheduling, and ensuring the provisioning process aligns with the organization's policies and requirements.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Cedarcode made significant contributions to ongoing company-wide projects, such as Atrium, and is currently playing a crucial role in the complete revamp of the Provisioning Application.

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

Cedarcode showcases a remarkable level of professionalism in their work, assuming full responsibility for tasks and consistently delivering effective solutions. They exhibit efficiency and are readily accessible to provide assistance, even beyond their regular working hours, whenever the need arises.

What was your primary form of communication with Cedarcode?

Virtual Meeting

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

We're impressed with their level of professionalism and expertise in Ruby on Rails.

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

NA

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Senior Engineering Manager of a travel accommodation company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Domestic and international travel accommodations

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Build and maintain internal software tools for provisioning tens of thousands of users annually

SOLUTION

How did you find Cedarcode?

Referral

Why did you select Cedarcode over others?

• High ratings
• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned
• Domain specific knowledge

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.

The project is a long running, multi-year program to build and maintain the custom software tools required to provision people for the company's customer support operations. This software is enables the seamless onboarding, offboarding, upskilling, downskilling, and permissioning for tens of thousands of users annually.


Key deliverables are mainly ensuring system stabilty to support day-to-day operations and developing and delivering new features required to enable the company's growing business needs.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Seamless day to day operations for our global customer support teams
• New features and improved tech foundation to enable business growth 

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

The CedarCode team are absolute professionals. They are proactive and engaged. They work to ensure requirements are understood. They actively identify and address problem areas. CedarCode folks are a near equivalent of full-time employees for us. They are a great culture and team fit while getting work done on time with high quality.

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?

CedarCode aims to go beyond just being contract staff augmentation. They work to be part of the team, deeply understanding the company needs and working to meet those needs. They are engaged in team social events and are simply a pleasure to work with.

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

No person or organization is perfect and there is always room for growth and improvement. Nothing in particular stands out about CedarCode in terms of improvement or doing things differently. They always bring their best and will instantly own up to any mistakes and address any issues.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of engineering for an engineering company, and I’m responsible for five different teams.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cedarcode?

We needed full-stack engineers’ staff augmentation.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cedarcode provides us with two full-stack engineers to help us build, deliver, and maintain our product. Currently, we use them for a business problem that we’re trying to solve, and both of them are participating in our direct-to-consumer (D2C) efforts.

Historically, we’ve sold our product to companies, so the specific D2C product is in an early stage at the moment. We need to make adjustments to it to make it fit direct consumers. These efforts include connecting the product to advertising platforms and having a lot of A/B testing. Cedarcode engineers take a big part in that effort.

What is the team composition?

I work with two engineers from Cedarcode.

How did you come to work with Cedarcode?

Since we needed to grow extremely fast, we decided to try staff augmentation, which basically means that we have contractors that help us augment our personnel. Currently, around 30% of our team is comprised of contractors.

Hiring engineers in the US is really hard; it’s a long-term effort. When we bring new people into the company as insiders, we look very thoroughly before hiring, so finding specific engineers with our current development stack is challenging.

When we hired Cedarcode specifically, we were looking for Ruby on Rails developers. We did some research and found them. Then, a member of our team told us about meeting them in the past, so we called them.

They were open about providing us with one engineer, and a few months later, they provided us with another one.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $120,000–$150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around December 2020, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Both engineers are doing a really great job, allowing us to deliver changes to the product quickly. I don’t measure Cedarcode’s work specifically because it’s a team effort. However, they’re part of the development team, and they’ve helped us modify the product.

How did Cedarcode perform from a project management standpoint?

As they’re part of the team, they don’t manage the project by themselves. Our company works remotely, especially when it comes to engineering. The same applies to Cedarcode, so we mainly communicate via video calls.

We have daily standing meetings that they’re part of, and we treat them almost the same as full-time employees.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Cedarcode takes big pride in the quality of their people, but this has its ups and downs. On one hand, it takes them more time to ramp up a new engineer. On the other hand, this gives me the feeling that the resource will be of high quality and that they’re going to deliver.

Working with a company outside the US can present challenges such as language barriers and time zone differences. However, Cedarcode takes their work very seriously, and the success of the projects is very important for them.

Other companies that I worked with hired people without caring if they were good or not. They didn’t test them, so we found out weeks later that they didn’t align with our expectations. That’s not the case with Cedarcode.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t know what Cedarcode could improve on; they’re doing a good job, and we like working with them. If anything, I wish that we could extend our team and have more engineers.

It would be good if they could hire more amazing people faster. However, I know that it’s hard to do, and what I’m asking for is something that they might not be able to fulfill quickly. Additionally, maybe they’re happy with their team as is.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be patient in the beginning. They take it very seriously when it comes to finding the right people for you.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of engineering at Better Place Forests, an end of life business. We own forests and we sell trees as memorials for those who are cremating their bodies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cedarcode?

We needed to expand our startup and augment our engineering team in a cost-effective way.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’re a Ruby on Rails shop and Cedarcode specializes in that. We have an internal management app that we use to manage all our inventory as well as our website and frontend. They worked on both those apps. 

In addition, we built out a customer dashboard where existing customers can have a look at the trees and manage their purchase. That’s something we built completely using the Cedarcode team. Ruby on Rails is the main stack and we started implementing React.

What is the team composition?

We started with two developers and we added a third around 2–3 months ago.

How did you come to work with Cedarcode?

There’s a Ruby conference every year and they present there. I got to know one of their engineers through that conference, and, in a previous role, I had actually spoken to them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $25,000–$30,000 per month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2020, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’m very happy with them because they take ownership. I wasn’t looking for someone who just builds what we tell them. We wanted someone who would think about the product and could be part of the team, which is what they are. They do a good job and ask good questions. They think about how to improve our products.

How did Cedarcode perform from a project management standpoint?

We follow a scrum methodology, and they’re part of our scrum team. It’s a combined team working together. We have standups, and since everyone is remote, that has really helped in getting them integrated further. English is not their first language, but their communication is good.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

Cedarcode is very good with Ruby on Rails. They’re a small team but they concentrate on quality rather than quantity, which is good.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could have a better ability to scale fast. Since they’re a small company, if we suddenly want four engineers, they will not be able to provide that.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re a little more expensive than other South American agencies, but they’re worth it.