Celerik

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of sales for Touch To, a custom design and development company. We build mobile applications, websites, and anything related to custom software. As a small company, I also work as a project manager, account manager, product owner, and recruiter, so I do a little bit of everything.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Celerik?

We needed help with frontend development. As with many domestic software development companies, we had to leverage nearshore partners to stay competitive from a pricing standpoint.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Celerik has been building out the UI and leading the endeavor on our mobile application. They use React Native for the website’s frontend, Auth0 as our authorization portal, Storybook as our UI component library, and Expo — a React Native element — for the mobile application.

What is the team composition?

We work with two frontend developers; one of them splits his time between the website and mobile application. Additionally, we have a project manager from their end. 

How did you come to work with Celerik?

They reached out to me on LinkedIn around three years ago. They just introduced themselves and mentioned the services they offered. Then, the CEO was in Austin and asked me if I wanted to get lunch. He was a great person, so I gave him a chance on a few projects. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent at least $150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been using them since November 2021. We began with the mobile application about four weeks ago, and we’re about a month away from completing it.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our metrics are internal. However, we look at how quickly they do the work and our internal satisfaction, and Celerik has been fantastic. They’ve exceeded our expectations. 

How did Celerik perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Jira, Confluence, GitHub, Slack, and Zoom to communicate and manage the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

All team members are fluent in English; they have almost a native proficiency, which is incredible. Moreover, their developers are at the top end of their experience level. They might have a handful of years of professional development experience, but they deliver like a senior team member.

Another added bonus is that we share the same time zone practically the whole year. Since they’re in Medellin, Colombia, they’re one hour ahead of us once we flop over to Daylight Savings time, so they’re available during our working hours. Overall, the team is accommodating; they’re a great, trusted partner, and we’ve enjoyed working with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their developers have a little less seniority. However, Celerik has gone through every effort to find people for us. If we need to scale and they don’t have someone available, they go through a recruitment round on their own and find candidates to interview. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

With their team, it’s vital to specify your needs and requirements in terms of the level of seniority, technologies, and level of English. If you need senior resources, there might be a ramp-up time to free up those resources for you.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a co-founder and CEO of a hybrid software & consulting company. We help emerging companies create great employee experiences.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Celerik, and what were your goals?

We hired Celerik to build our first software product, a web app for employees to memorialize their personal aspirations alongside a digital coach to guide them towards an improved work experience.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We were introduced to Celerik through a referral from a high-end, reputable US-based development agency (that was out of our price range at the time).

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The process started with an initial discovery process and high-level architecture recommendations (we came with initial designs, though ultimatley updated with support from Celerik). We also partnered on the development of a clear user journey before building. During the development phase, we had weekly meetings with bi-weekly demos.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We started working with four primary Celerik employees: a project manager, a technical lead, and two junior engineers. The team grew a bit over time.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We were able to build the entire platform in about 3 months to enable us to move into our user testing phase with good initial success. The platform has met our expectations, though did end up costing more than we had originally anticipated (due to evolving scope as we improved our designs and learned what we needed along the way).

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

The project management was very solid. We had a dedicated project manager who supported us along the way with regular meetings and ongoing conversation in slack.

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

Celerik was very trustworthy and accomadating. Building software is hard (I am an ex-product manager) and Celerik is clear and and transparent throughout the entire process - it feels like they are a part of the company.

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

Overall, the process was great and Celerik was (and continues to be) a great development partner. One thing we talked about as an opportunity is to be more up front around the cost impact of design and product decisions.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the head of product and co-founder of a company that uses AI and machine learning to provide software to companies to improve their operations. We've started with serving companies that provide bus schedules. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Celerik?

We had a gap in our development capabilities surrounding frontend development and UX designs. So, we hired Celerik to fill that gap. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Celerik has developed the code for the frontend of our web application and implemented it. At the beginning of the project, we explained the mockups we provided, and then Celerik converted them into wireframes in Figma. They used Microsoft Azure for the development, which they broke down into reasonable delivery expectations.

The app's purpose is to help bus companies produce timetables based on current data effectively. These companies receive a lot of data from other services and making sense of the wealth of data can be challenging. So, our software helps companies create customer-friendly, punctual timetables more easily than before. 

What is the team composition?

We started working with 4–5 teammates, and at one point, we worked with eight teammates. However, the project is slowing down, and we're working with fewer teammates. 

How did you come to work with Celerik?

One of our customer success teammates had a friend who'd worked with Celerik before for frontend work. We looked at different companies that could deliver for us, and after talking to Celerik, we decided to work with them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent more than £180,000 (approximately $215,000 USD). 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement with Celerik began in March 2021. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Celerik's work has helped us unlock a significant customer in the UK — the frontend impressed our customer, so they decided to engage with us. There are a lot of processes on the backend to organize the available data, but having a frontend that makes delivering the software to customers easier is the main value of Celerik's work. We're now well established in the SaaS industry, and we hope to continue growing. 

We've experienced some bugs, but this is the first software we've built, so we're not exactly experts ourselves. There haven't been any major crashes, and we still want to continue working with Celerik. Eventually, we want to bring the work in-house, but we're happy utilizing Celerik's services and high-quality deliverables for now. 

How did Celerik perform from a project management standpoint?

Typically, we communicate through Slack, which works well to facilitate horizontal communication. Celerik is very agile and reacts well to our workflow — they've been responsive during hard times. 

Celerik provided regular updates on sprints and the project's progress — we set up development targets to hit. We had weekly calls with them to discuss the following week's goals. I had regular meetings with technical teammates from Celerik when they had questions. They dedicated a lot of resources to the project to ensure they met our timelines. We also coordinated with their team to ensure that the backend we'd built was compatible with the frontend. 

Halfway through that project, we realized the scope didn't match the timeline we'd finalized. So, I think they could've scoped the project better. It was always going to be difficult for them to deliver according to the scope because it changed several times, but the scope should've been more open-ended so there wouldn't have been as much friction. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The personal touch from Celerik's senior-level teammates was fantastic — their team stepped up and found resources to deliver when we needed them, even when they had to work overtime. It was great to have a team engaged with our project that understood the implications of not meeting deadlines. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

While the language skills that Celerik's senior-level teammates' exhibit are very good, their technical teammates could improve their English language skills. The communication difficulty altered depending on our communication channel — communicating with Slack was slightly better. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It's useful for customers to go into a conversation with Celerik with an understanding of what they need but be open to any changes that need to be made throughout the development process. So, I'd suggest keeping the scope and deadlines more open-ended. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the owner of a small B2B software company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Celerik?

We were looking to augment our software development staff.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Celerik first helped us with a DevOps project. They came in and took a look at the way we were doing things. Once they understood how we built and deployed our software, we had a few discussions about what the Celerik team would do differently. 

They then assigned a few developers to us, and they've been working with us on our projects since then. Their work includes helping us set up our Azure DevOps Server.

What is the team composition?

We've worked with three teammates, including Juan (CEO & Co-Founder) and Daniel (CTO), who is one of the developers we work with.

How did you come to work with Celerik?

We found Celerik on Clutch.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent between $30,000–$50,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in December 2020, and it's ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We really appreciate the team's efforts. Daniel is a very communicative, skilled developer, and Juan is very attentive and ensures that each project goes smoothly.

How did Celerik perform from a project management standpoint?

They adhere well to our deadlines and budget. We use our Azure DevOps Server as a project management tool, and we communicate primarily on Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We appreciate how much attention Juan gives to our projects.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There's nothing that comes to mind in terms of what they could improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Know whether you want your internal team to lead the project or have the Celerik team manage it. Having that figured out would make the process smoother.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Corona is a 140 years old multinational bathroom and tiles company with a base in Colombia and a presence in South America, Central America, Mexico, and United States. I am a Pan American Design Director for the Bathroom and Kitchen division.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Celerik, and what were your goals?

We developed an Artificial Intelligence platform to recognize user toilets in order to facilitate the replacement of their toilet seats. Celerik helped us, connecting the AI Api with our front end, and also build some custom code for enhancing the UX experience of our site.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

The main reason we picked Celerik was that they were willing to work next to us. They allowed us to be part of the team and let us learn through the development of the project.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

there were two main parts: 1. Connecting the AI API, following the recommendations of the IT area of our company in terms of security. 2. Developing a series of functionalities that allow the site, to identify the origin of the search and releasing data based on that origin. As well as a custom camera development for the user experience.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Mainly one, but at some times 3.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The project is in an early stage, and is also confidential for now.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We had biweekly time reports, and daily meetings to work together.

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

The way they adapted to work was in sync with our needs.

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

Organization in terms of deliveries

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

SWEN.CO is an online ecosystem for journalism. We create AI tools and web experiences that empower humanity with information. I am the founder of SWEN, an AI architect, designer and journalist.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Celerik?

We hired Celerik to help us build a globally replicated IAC devops platform for our AI and ML news ecosystem. We needed to integrate complex machine learning models into a microservices based architecture that was built in the Azure cloud.

Celerik stepped up to the challenge with great enthusiasm and was able to produce the results and also ensure that we were at the cutting edge of the technology by suggesting ways to improve the core codebase and then contributing this back to the opensource community.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to get this project completed in record time and we had limited knowledge of the completely new technologies we were implementing.

We knew that if we could create an IAC platform for all of our systems we would be able to continue to move at great speed. Ensuring that our platform would be able to serve millions of journalists around the globe.

SOLUTION

How did you select Celerik?

We interviewed dozens of engineers from all over the world and many were great but were afraid of the ambitious plans we had to implement completely new technology.

When we first met with Celerik we knew there was something different about them, the team had a completely different attitude, they looked at our problem as challenge that they could help us find a solution for.

So they began to understand our unique requirements and worked with us to put a plan together to get our project completed in record time.

Describe the project in detail.

Once Celerik was on board they defined our needs and begin working on deploying our infrastructure as code platform immediately. THey worked with all of our engineers to enable them to work to best practices and shared knowledge amongst our team to keep everyone at the top of their game.

What was the team composition?

Celerik have just the best technical talent in the world, Juan is a brilliant technical manager understanding our company and then assigning Dani to be our SWEN DevOps mastermind.

The talent of Dani is unmatched to any engineer I have ever come across - his command of complex ML and AI infrastructure as code deployments is rare and he is a true talent.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The project was successfully delivered in record time and we continue to build upon the SWEN IAC DevOps platform with the continued help and support of Celerik.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Our working collaboration has been seamless, we have had a great working partnership and we hope that this will continue into the long term.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their ability to instantly integrate into our team and processes. They are truly brave and have the technical prowess to back it all up.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We would love to hire many more people from Celerik!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Founder and CEO of a company called Cartelle. It is a women's fitness lifestyle brand that combines fitness workouts, mindfulness and yogic practices along with nutrition and community into a single app.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Celerik?

As a company, we needed to diversify our app and backend development team in order to maintain the system and be able to complete future development. Being an ex-Microsoft system integration partner we had built our entire system on the Microsoft stack.

So it was imperative we find a team that is well versed in Microsoft technologies and in particular those technologies when used in a mobile app environment.

What were your goals for this project?

The initial project was to do a handoff from our North American team to Celerik's team and have them upgrade and modernize the development environment.

Short goals were to move from unmaintained and insecure (credentials expose in the code and infrastructure) and outdated solution to an updated and well support solution in different areas like business process, security, the onboarding process for new developers, development process, data, applications, and infrastructure, making sure that the system is stable and ready for additional development.

SOLUTION

How did you select Celerik?

We initially did a search in our local Canadian marketplace but couldn't find any shops that had the required expertise. We ended searching Upwork and found a few offshore shops that had relevant experience. We conducted some cursory interviews and we really liked interview with Juan the CEO from Celerik.

They had relevant case studies with tech start-up companies in North America and Juan had spent some time in Canada so at least he knew where we were on the map and that we all don't live in Igloos.

We felt they would be a trustworthy and collaborative partner to work with and the time zone difference is only one-two hours so it would make working with the team easier.

Describe the project in detail.

The scope of the project was to get an understanding of the entire system, set up new environments and then move the system to a new Dev Ops, upgrade any deprecated libraries, remove any security holes and have sufficient understanding to troubleshoot bugs.

Workflow steps included providing Celerik admin access to all of the system logins on Azure, MS CRM, App store etc and some system diagrams. Since we had little to no documentation on the system (something Celerik is helping to rectify) we have had a series of handoff calls to help bring their team up to speed.

The Celerik team completed a system audit and based on short-medium term business goals created a roadmap to address most pressing concerns and then set out a work plan for longer-term goals. The app runs on iOS and has Android in the testing phase, so part of the work is to get Android fully deployed and in market.

The app can also be accessed through the web so again they have ensured web integrations along with Stripe and Apple / Android payment gateways are working and secure. There is also 3rd party integrations along with a web portal that we built to visually build programs so the team needs to understand how that works and how programs are populated and maintained in the backend.

What was the team composition?

To date the Celerik team has comprised of initial onboarding conversations through Juan (CEO) and Daniel (CTO) and then they brought in a team that fits our project being Daniel an Azure architect and JP a full-stack developer. Daniel and JP liaise directly with our development team in Canada and an Android development team in India.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

This project is still in motion so hard milestones have not been reached. Interim milestones such as team onboarding, system audit, project plans, meeting cadence and preliminary milestones of environments being setup and code testing and integrity checks have been met.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

So far the workflow has been very good. The Celerik team is very communicative and we have used Microsoft Teams as a good productivity platform to move documents and schedule meetings. There also seems to be good workflow/collaboration between the team members on Celerik's side. The Celerik team also has good English so that also helps with team communications and workflow.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

To be honest, I really like the personality of the owners and the team. At the end of the day, there are a lot of talented developers out there but what makes the difference is if the team cares about your business as much as you do.

From the CEO to the developers that we have worked with, it feels like they want us to win as much as we do. That creates a sense of trust and that there is a work ethic present to do the right thing.

Are there any areas for improvement?

So far I don't have any complaints so I wouldn't say any direct areas for improvement per se. From my experience working with remote teams versus direct teams there always is a bit of a gap.

This has less to do with Celerik and just the nature of remote work. It's always a little easier to communicate in person, especially when you are just getting going. An in-person visit would help solve this issue and that will likely happen in Q1 of 2021.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We provide data and services within the travel sector

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Celerik?

we needed the site to to be brought up to production standard so that it would cope with an enormous increase in the volume of traffic.

What were your goals for this project?

To significantly increase the speed of the sites operation and to ensure that it was stable and responsive under heavy user load.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

They had a track record of applying the technologies that we were working with to real world projects. Feedback and recommendations from previous companies that they had worked with showed that they took a professional approach to their projects and that they made sure they were completed on time.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They were able to quickly review our whole system and the infrastructure that it sat on. They were then able to work with various aspects of it to identify areas that could cause issues and to come up with various solutions to improve performance.

What was the team composition?

Their setup allowed us to get access to multiple people depending on the area of the system we were looking at. We were ultimately guided through the project by one senior member of the team who oversaw the work done and was available to us as we implemented each step.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

This project allowed us to confidently make a significant increase in the traffic that our site handled each hour.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

With one senior contact, the project was kept on track using online project management tools to track each task and report the results.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They were always available to respond, always communicated what was happening and were flexible to look at all areas that we needed advice on.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There is nothing that I can suggest to improve.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Tienda Registrada is a market research company that studies the neighborhood store channel through POS technology. We offer mass consumption companies a spectrum of store behavior in Colombia and we delve into baskets and interest categories with a high level of granularity up to SKU. I am the Director of business and strategy in the company and I seek that every day we give great differentials to the companies that serve for decision-making and a growth in their sales.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Celerik?

Within the data that we collect in the POS system are some atypicals in the sale of products, due to errors of the shopkeeper in the manipulation of the machine. We looked for Celerik to help us automate these outliers of price and in this way the team did not continue to do it manually.

What were your goals for this project?

With automation we seek to save time for the sales team so that they can dedicate themselves to further analysis.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I already knew Celrik's work and we looked for them so they could help us with the project.

Describe the project in detail.

We share data from various categories and products that we analyze, identifying outliers and those that are not. With this input Celerik proposed the model to us.

What was the team composition?

Within the Registered Store we had the analytics and innovation leader who knows in detail how the selection of outliers was done manually and Celerik was given all the know-how with his team of data scientists to help us develop the model.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Once Celerik shared the model with us, we tested the results with several SKUs and realized that it was getting closer and faster to what was currently done manually.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Communication was very easy and delivery compliance exceeded expectations.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They came up with a simple and useful model in a short time which was impressive.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We help companies save money with automated tax tools. I am the founder and lead strategy and product vision.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Celerik?

Celerik was first hired to help us optimize our backend and transition to a more robust framework. Additionally, the team helped us come up with a roadmap to update our Angular frontend framework.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed to shore up development to improve our backend architecture,  transition over to a RESTful API, and setup the infrastructure we needed to scale our product. Additionally, we were looking to expand our development team and needed help establishing a better git workflow and CI/CD pipelines.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

After meeting with several other development shops, both domestically and abroad, we selected Celerik.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Our engagement began with a video call where our team and their teams were introduced to one another and each person’s involvement in the project was described in detail. Soon after we began to provide Celerik with technical requirements and user stories to develop a comprehensive development plan for the following weeks.

Throughout the engagement, Celerik advised us as to how to successfully transition to a new backend architecture and helped us containerize our application as well. The team also inspected our frontend and developed a roadmap to update and improve our Angular application.

What was the team composition?

The team was composed of a dedicated project manager, two backend developers, and one frontend expert.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

The improvements to both our frontend and backend are underway and will allow our business to scale both our development team and the number of customers we can securely serve with our web application.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Most of the developers working for Celerik are very proficient on full stack and were capable of working on more than one area of the project.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their in-house expertise and their willingness to learn about our business model impressed us.