ExpertaLabs

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm CTO delivering design and IT solutions for huge international companies working in the mobility field.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We need to urgently deliver monitoring and logging solution, supporting heavy customisation, working in cloud and on-premise, with IoT support. We were looking for expertise in field, as we need to boost our internal knowledge and best practices on market. We have to fit to strict time schedule but keep budget limitations.

SOLUTION

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

We organized a competition and ExpertaLabs won. The major factor was the optimal solution for monitoring and logging. The decision point was delivery time and expert availability. ExpertaLabs proposed the best solution in a reasonable time.

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

We handover to ExpertaLabs whole working package. We have been in touch on daily basis to discuss and understand theirs proposals and solutions. After confirmation from our side agreed user stories were implement. Each Friday we did recap, to minimise risk to go in wrong direction.

Both parties used modern approach when delivered parts have been fully integrated into our technology stack and we both insist on full automation, integrated testing and deployment. We used modern DevOps stack - GitLab/GitHub, Kubernetes, Helm, Terraform, GoLang, Grafana, Prometheus.

One of our key requirement was about boosting our internal knowledge with focus on real usage and examples instead of wikipedia reading. It is important to mention that we need that solution is fully handover back into our company and we don't need any future external maintenance help and support.

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

There were 2 experts working as an independent team. On our side were 3 people to understand the solution and gain a knowledge boost.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to keep project deadlines. We would had been in big trouble without their help/expertise and we would had definitely missed project deadlines. The consequence would had been huge penalties from contract conditions. Because of ExpertLabs, we ramped up our knowledge from zero to hero within weeks. 

Actually now we have fully automatic solution which is working in all our Kubernetes clusters. I liked weekly recap, as I always learn something new.

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

We use an agile approach and we were in daily contact. All open points were immediately and openly communicated. We used Jira, MS Teams, GitLab. There were not any problems in keeping any deadlines despite the increased workload.

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

We were in direct contact with technical experts. Communication was professionally led and in a friendly manner. We liked the technological boost and working on examples together. It is always great to have decent technological opponents to discuss design and ideas.

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

I think if experts are more strict on some technology decisions, we can save some effort and time to not evaluate some wrong technologies. We had some own ideas at the beginning but it turned out that we are not as smart as we thought and that we should listen to good advice. But I believe that it is more our limitation.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Engineering manager for Central traffic management systems at Yunex GmbH.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We have high demand of projects in the are of traffic management and IoT and we needed to extend our capacity. We have been searching for specialists combining high technical skills, agile development and who understand traffic domain. We found all at ExpertaLabs.

SOLUTION

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

We have been deciding between 3 vendors and the main reason we have selected ExpertaLabs was due to proximity of their development location, experienced team and reasonable hourly rate.

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

They implement project specific requirements for one of our key customer using Java and Kubernetes cloud technology in modern microservice architecture. At the beginning they have setup deployment environment, then implemented initial 3 usecases with focus on automated testing and pefromance optimization. Now we plan to do live demo for our customers. Cooperation will continue and ExpertaLabs team will extend additional features.

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

There are currently 2 senior Java fullstack developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are able to keep all deadlines thanks to this team and also deliver addiitonal features that have not been planned while still keeping high quality of the solition. We have decided to continue our cooperation.

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

Cooperation with ExpertaLabs team is excellent. We keep daily contact and exchanging all relevant information. Team uses agile approach and shares all progress with the whole core team in a transparent way. Any project impediments are immediatelly described and communicated in order to decide on the next steps.

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

Their flexibility, great communication skills, and expert team are impressive.

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

I will be happy to keep and extend cooperation with this partner.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the head of Product Management for the urban portfolio at Yunex Traffic. Our products range from field devices for traffic control to cloud software for adaptive traffic management.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We worked together with the team on the development of a completely new field device for Vehicle-to-Infrastructure communication.

SOLUTION

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

Before ExpertaLabs was founded the team was part of our company and thus we had been working with them for several years already. So we knew about the capabilities and quality of work.

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

They have been involved over the complete product lifecycle, starting from the initial product definition all the way to the market launch. The work included the setup and software development of the complete software, which was a Linux based embedded system. The system required a wide range of expertise in the areas of embedded software (C++, Java), cyber security and web user interface plus a thorough domain expertise in the area of V2X. The project was developed according to the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe) and besides the actual software the team also provided the relevant development and customer documentation (user manuals, project milestones, system test reports etc.).

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

The team consisted of a total of 8 developers including one product owner. The product owner was the main contact who coordinated the work among the team. For special topics (security, test automation, low level embedded) the corresponding experts from the team were always available on demand when needed.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project was delivered in time. All deliverables including the software itself were of high quality. All in all expectation were exceeded.

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

We communicate mainly through MS Teams for regular meetings (weekly). Work packages are tracked in Jira. Documentation is done in Confluence.

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

Throughout this time the team has always been a reliable partner over the complete product lifecycle. The collaboration is characterized by open communication and a high level of ownership culture. The team shows far above-average commitment and is by no means lacking in flexibility. Especially the technical expertise and the ability to apply the latest technology at very high quality has been the key to success for us.

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

none