Density Labs

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of web applications at a business communications solutions company. We provide VoIP telephone services, video conferencing, and a variety of other solutions for residential customers, small and medium-sized businesses, and enterprises. 

In my role, I lead a large team of engineers across the globe to deliver user portals, administration portals, and APIs, among other applications, for our end customers and internal teams.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Density Labs?

We hired them for staff augmentation services.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Density Labs provides us with staff augmentation services. They provide Ruby on Rails developers, React frontend developers, and QA engineers. The team receives training from Density Labs. In some instances, Density Labs brings in junior developers that they train for 3–6 months before they present them to us. 

Once we bring in developers, it takes around three months to onboard them into our internal team. We provide them with requirements for them to implement. 

What is the team composition?

I work with several contractors from Density Labs. 

How did you come to work with Density Labs?

Federico (Founder & CEO) applied for a job we posted seven years ago, and we liked him. However, he needed to work part-time from Mexico, so a full-time offer didn’t work out. Instead, he worked for us as a contractor and was really good. 

As my team and responsibilities grew, I wanted to expand my contractors’ footprint, so I proposed that Federico hire a team and create a company. He found really good developers and started Density Labs. Our need for help grew, and we hired more and more resources as contractors through Density Labs. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them around 2016, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Density Labs attracts excellent resources — that’s the biggest advantage of working with them. We really like the team we work with, and they’ve delivered huge amounts of work for us. In some cases, resources have worked with us for many years. 

How did Density Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

At the engineering level, they don’t have project management tasks. Although we’ve had some resources in roles that involve a bit of leadership, Density Labs’ team has individual responsibilities for delivering their work, and they’re good at that. We don’t have a set budget; we pay Density Labs by the hour. 

We use Jira for project management. As for communication, we have stand-up meetings to sync and also use email and Slack. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Density Labs’ high-quality engineers make them stand out from other providers. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could improve the way their account management team communicates. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very specific about the requirements for the resources you’re looking for. When communicating with Density Labs’ representatives, don't make any assumptions about everybody agreeing — be very explicit and clear in your directions. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I'm an executive at Remine

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

PropTech Saas company that delivers MLS solutions to the Real Estate industry

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Density Labs to accomplish?

• Build out engineering team
• Deliver product features
• Support customer needs and requests

SOLUTION

How did you find Density Labs?

• Referral
• Other

Why did you select Density Labs over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Density Labs were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

Needed to fill out our teams for multiple projects. Density provided and range of engineers (Managers- Jr Devs) that were able to work on the project in different manners. They were able to deliver on numerous features and implementations to get customers live with our products.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Customer retention. 
• On-time deliveries. 
• Number of outages. 
• Reusability of the code

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

Due to the nature of the business, some deliveries were on time, and some were delayed due to numerous factors. Density engineers worked on communicating the needs, delays, and missing requirements. They also did a good job with feedback on ways to improve.

What was your primary form of communication with Density Labs?

• In-Person Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Their willingness to work with us and our needs is impressive. They were always flexible and willing to make changes to help support us. There was never a situation where we felt we were "trapped" with the talent we had or the structure that was set up.

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

None

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Manager, Product/UX Design of Ooma

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Ooma provides high quality and great value VOIP communications solutions to businesses and private customers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Density Labs to accomplish?

• Enhance our Product Design team capacity
• Design the new version of our small business app

SOLUTION

How did you find Density Labs?

Ooma was already using Density Labs for software development

Why did you select Density Labs over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Referred to me

How many teammates from Density Labs were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Our Density Labs designers have been responsible for designing key elements of our new app. The team has primarily done concept and design work, as well as creating prototypes and contributing to usability research.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our primary metric is time-to-completion.

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

We integrate the Density Labs designers with our in-house team and manage everyone's time the same way, primarily using Jira to allocate work. The Density Labs designers are generally delivering work within or ahead of expected time-frames.

What was your primary form of communication with Density Labs?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The quality of the staff that Density Labs provides us is very high. The team consists of 3 junior designers and a team lead, all of whom are valuable contributors to the projects they work on but also overall team initiatives and culture.

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

Density Labs' management is quite responsive and if ever there is an issue to discuss it is dealt with expediently.