Lambda Team

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of Eolymp Academy

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

An educational platform for learning Computer Science

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Lambda Team to accomplish?

• Build web application for solving computer science problems

SOLUTION

How did you find Lambda Team?

• Online Search
• Upwork

Why did you select Lambda Team over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Lambda Team were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

The first iteration of the project will focus on a small part of our system and will include a small standalone web application with just a few pages. You will start a new project from scratch using modern technologies, frameworks and best practices, build application UI, navigation, few pages to display tasks and interface to submit them (we will need a code editor, probably monacoeditor). 

We already have a backend which will provide all necessary API (REST/GraphQL), so you will only need to focus on developing frontend part. We have a few applications built on Typescript/React/MUI stack, but we can consider moving away from these to something newer and lighter.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project was delivered in production in hands of real users.

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

The team delivered daily updates and organised weekly meetings to discuss progress, ask questions and discuss next steps. The team quickly adjusted to design changes and responded to new tickets in the project management system.

What was your primary form of communication with Lambda Team?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Great experience in building web applications, big pool of professionals with various skill sets

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

We could have gone more in-depth analysis in the beginning of the project and avoid changing frameworks after one week of work. But even though we had to change frameworks it didn't affect overall project delivery time or budget.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an IoT Manager at Mill International. We manufacture and design panel heaters, oil heaters, convection heaters, sockets, and sensors.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Lambda Team?

We currently run our Cloud services through a third-party company, but we’ve had capacity and reliability issues. We needed a company that could build a Cloud platform that is more suited to our use cases and is much more future-proofed in terms of reliability and capacity.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started the engagement by discussing our pain points, after which Lambda Team provided us with suggestions on what type of technologies to use on AWS and conducted cost analysis for us. We then got them in contact with our development team to work on building the Cloud platform. They worked closely with our firmware development team to migrate all our products to the new platform.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with a system architect, a frontend developer, and two backend developers from Lambda Team.

How did you come to work with Lambda Team?

We found Lambda Team through a freelancing marketplace. We found that Lambda Team had previous experience working on similar types of projects, and that was one of the main reasons why we chose them over their competition. They were also fairly priced and proactive in their approach, which we liked.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $643,000 on this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re quite happy with the quality of Lambda Team’s work. It’s a very modular and clean-built system.

How did Lambda Team perform from a project management standpoint?

Lambda Team has performed well in terms of project management. They are able to meet deadlines. We have weekly meetings wherein we go through our progress and challenges.

We typically communicate through Microsoft Teams and Google Meet, and we use Linear for project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

A lot of the tech stack that we use is quite new and fairly advanced, so I’m most impressed with Lambda Team’s understanding of the technology and ability to get things done.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure to give them clear instructions on what you want and how you want it done.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We offer consulting services, and we build apps for Oracle NetSuite products. Our team delivers solutions to external customers to enhance their business processes and automate their business. We’re also one of the top NetSuite partners in the US.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AWS Lambda Team?

We hired AWS Lambda Team to create a custom API for our shipping solution.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

AWS Lamba Team is creating a product that can enable us to manage shipping processes. It involves getting shipping rates from FedEx and other package company providers and printing shipping labels and packages. They’re using AWS to develop the API. The team is about to complete the project, but there will be additional project phases in the future.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with three people from AWS Lambda Team, including Kirill (Co-CEO).

How did you come to work with AWS Lambda Team?

We decided to work with AWS Lambda Team because they seemed knowledgeable when it came to AWS, which was exactly what we needed. They were also helpful, and they talked to us to make their process very understandable.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve probably spent $22,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project in February 2021, and we continue to collaborate.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We keep track of their work by checking if they meet the deadlines we’ve specified and if they’ve stayed within our budget. Additionally, our internal developers implement a code review to determine the project’s success. Overall, we’ve got a lot of good work from them.

How did AWS Lambda Team perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been very responsive and efficient. We appreciate that they have a work tool where we can track their progress. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their high level of transparency has been impressive, and they’re great at meeting deadlines.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’re very busy, so the only thing that we’ve experienced is wanting to get as much of their time as possible. However, I know that they don’t have unlimited resources on their end. As a result, they have to keep on growing and expanding so that they can have a good number of resources.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Set expectations early about how much time you’re going to need to finish your project. Additionally, make sure that you provide the AWS Lambda team with the correct details and requirements that they need to begin the project. That way, they can immediately start working on your project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CIO for a boutique advertising agency that specializes in Amazon’s advertising within the platform. We work for third-party sellers who want to sell their products on Amazon but don’t have the resources to do all the advertising that is required to be successful.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AWS Lambda Team?

We approached AWS Lambda Team to help us with intelligent automation. We used to collect a lot of our advertising data through manual extractions off of Amazon’s advertising console. We wanted to automate the entire process by tapping into Amazon’s API and have that flow of information go from the ads console to our AWS Redshift database.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Lambda Team automated our entire system. I acted as a project manager so I could validate what they did. We went through all the tasks together, and they executed them phenomenally.

Now, our agency doesn’t need to move the data manually. Every day, we have a scheduled process that goes and collects data from the ads console and uploads it into our database. It’s hard to define the output because it’s not something tangible, but we can see it happening every day. We now use our business intelligence tools and see that they’re updated on a daily basis, which is a much faster process than before.

What is the team composition?

I started working with Kirill (CEO & Co-Founder) and Vitaliy (AWS Architect). When we got into the more detailed work, they restructured their resources, and I started working with Oleh (Developer) and another person.

How did you come to work with AWS Lambda Team?

We went to Upwork and interviewed a lot of different prospective contractors. AWS Lambda Team was the best interview performer, and they were the ones that gave me a nice blueprint of how we would tackle the project.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $10,000–$15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together on the project in January 2021, but there were some items that needed to be taken care of from our side. Once we had everything implemented, AWS Lambda Team really kicked into the project at the beginning of March 2021 and finished it by the beginning of April 2021. 

We plan on communicating with them when we need maintenance or support. I might ask them to create some technical items I need, like restructuring the database based on what type of data objects we want to hook our tools to or adding new data points to it. There are definitely going to be support opportunities in the future, and we plan on working with them again.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Moving from manual to automatic data extraction has allowed us to see data on a daily basis rather than on a weekly basis. It has also allowed us to track our weekly and monthly performances — we’ve never had those timeframes in the past. The automation has helped us achieve mid-week optimizations that the team didn’t previously have.

We’re still connecting the database to our tools. It’s hard to quantify the impact because the project was completed less than a month ago.

How did AWS Lambda Team perform from a project management standpoint?

Lambda Team communicated well, and they were an overall great partner for this project. We started using Trello, which was nice for high-level activities because we could track tasks over time. Once we were close to finalizing the project, we flowed into Slack and utilized a thread channel to document our communication. We were able to use that resource to scroll through the items that needed to be done, and there was where I posted minor new requirements that weren’t part of the original scope.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Lambda Team was very flexible. I came out with a lot of additional requests that weren’t there in the project’s initial scope, and they handled them gracefully. Other providers are very restrictive about the original scope, and they don’t want to move outside of it. AWS Lambda Team was very adaptive and open to the suggestions that I had. — it was awesome working with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

When business owners give requirements, they tend to have a larger vision about the project. However, when it comes to the developers, they only see the technical requirements. For example, when I started this project, I instructed them to tap into the API and extract the data. In the beginning, they just took that on rather than having the vision to wonder what objects I wanted to bring into the database. This was an opportunity to be more visionary and think more from a business standpoint.

Any advice for potential customers?

Come in with a high-level task and a detailed list of requirements. Make sure you know the full scope so you don’t have to come back to do additional iterations.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Seed-stage technology startup headquartered in Singapore. Founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire AWS Lambda Team, and what were your goals?

We were building new product outside of our core platform as an MVP. The Lambda team held full ownership of the project -- BE / FE / Devops and worked closely with out Product / Project teams to deliver it within time at the quality expected.

SOLUTION

How did you select AWS Lambda Team and what were the deciding factors?

We worked with them previously before on a website redesign project.

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

There were 8 main epics: Authentication, Onboarding, Items, Orders, Dashboard, Notifications, PWA & Offline mode, and Analytics. Each epic was released and tested over 2-week cycles. We used an AWS Lambda serverless architecture in Java / Postgresql, while the PWA web stack was in React JS.

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

Between 4-6, they were front-end engineers, back-end engineers, and a project leader.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They delivered the product on time within 10 weeks at the quality expected. The product was deployed for multiple user tests and pilot launches.

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

We had daily slack stand-ups and weekly calls to check in/out. We used Slack and Jira for all communication and project coordination.

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

Highly committed to meeting the quality we set forth. They take ownership of any open issues, and put in the effort to clearly explain any blockers or issues.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO of a digital marketing data analytics firm. Our company is focused on analytics services for digital marketing campaigns, and we help our customers to improve the performance of their campaigns.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AWS Lambda Team?

We have our own data warehouse, and of course, we need data ingestion there. We have our own ETO that collects data from different data sources and then ingests it in our data warehouse. We wanted to improve the way it works in AWS, and also move from a Java-based framework to a Python-based framework.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

AWS Lambda Team designed an environment for us that was scripted and implemented.

What is the team composition?

We work with a backend developer and a Python developer. Andrew (Backend Developer) is our main point of contact.

How did you come to work with AWS Lambda Team?

There are several platforms for software companies, and we found them there. After a few calls, we selected them as our partner.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have been working with AWS Lambda Team since March 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are still in the development phase. It’s not as much an improvement in the performance as it is an improvement of how we can build functionality on top of it. The old Java framework was really not scalable and not easy to use.

The change from Java to Python is important. I expect the same performance as before; however, we can do much more.

How did AWS Lambda Team perform from a project management standpoint?

AWS Lambda Team delivers on time which is good. The project management is quite straightforward. We are now in the finalization of the testing, and then we can add other functionality. 

It is all in line with the original project. There is no real project management on top of it with agile or with common framework, but given the size of this project, I also didn’t think that was really needed. We use GitLab, Slack, and email for communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Our developers are quite good in terms of the requirements from a business perspective, and they have implemented that on a technical layer. I like their knowledge and they deliver what you expect.

The whole project has gone smoothly which is what I like, and there are no surprises where they can’t deliver on what they have promised.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I am quite happy with the way we work together.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They have good, in-depth knowledge and I don’t know if the same results would be achieved without that knowledge. This is more of a general remark on every technology project, but you need to know what you want.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of MyWayy, a startup with a mobile app for lifestyle habit tracking and time management through social gamification. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AWS Lambda Team?

A few different backend developers worked on the project. As a result, it became messy and inefficient, so I needed the code to be reformatted to be consistent throughout.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

AWS Lambda Team reviewed the code base and did some testing. They tackled the issues with the features and functionalities one at a time. Additionally, they helped to put together a user poll incognito, set up user account creations, and find users within the app.

The team also helped with subscribing and following users, as well as blocking and reporting users. They re-architected a good portion of the backend, fixed the bugs, and got it to beta. They worked in Node.js.

What is the team composition?

There is a project manager who oversees one backend developer.

How did you come to work with AWS Lambda Team?

I found them on Upwork.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $2,500 so far. We pay $30 per hour.

What is the status of this engagement?

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

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’ve been able to come in and quickly grasp the underlying issues, fixing what was asked of them. It started off as a week-long project, but they completed all the tickets we asked them to fix, and we have continued giving them tasks. Working with AWS Lambda Team is cost-effective.

How did AWS Lambda Team perform from a project management standpoint?

I mostly manage the project, working directly with the developer and QA teams. AWS Lambda Team is responsive and communicative. We were using Jira, but it is more effective for us to use Slack given the integrations we have.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The developer is concise. He takes instructions and ideas, executing them with minimal questions or re-work required.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could report more frequently, perhaps daily. Sometimes we get daily reports, but not always.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It would be beneficial to get their whole team involved rather than just one person.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We provide virtual assistant services for local SME's. Founded in 2014, we are based in Espoo, Finland and have about 50 assistants working for us. I am the Chief Technology Officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Lambda Team?

We hired Lambda Team to build a new customer service portal, Smoothly Account, for our clients.

What were your goals for this project?

The solution had to satisfy our functional requirements and be built on top of Amazon Web Services with a serverless approach.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We initially found Lambda Team on Upwork as an AWS Serverless specialist solution provider. We did a small test assignment with them earlier last year, which they completed successfully and we were waiting for the previous vendor to finish up their work before we could enroll Lambda Team.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They technically designed, developed, configured and deployed a new backend+frontend customer portal for us. The project began with an existing base from the previous vendor, but it soon came evident it wasn't of much use and that they had to rebuild many of the components. The actual development of the solution was done in two week sprints.

What was the team composition?

The project team included a tech project manager, a lead developer, two backend developers and one frontend developer. The team composition fit our project goals very well.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The solution built in this project is a key component of our customer delivery process. We started the project almost a year before, had major problems with the previous vendor and were now able to launch successfully with Lambda Team's help. So in summary, the project was of huge business importance and Lambda Team pulled off its delivery extremely well.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The team in overall was self-directed and included senior developers so project management was quite light and we could focus on prioritization and discussing slowdowns. We had weekly meetings, used Kanban to track different items and as a customer we kept a close eye on development due to our bad experiences with our previous vendor. Project management in other words was quite effective considering our project setup and Lambdas tech project manager did most likely did a lot of groundwork to make things go as smoothly as they went. We communicated exclusively using Google Meet, Slack, Trello and Bitbucket.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I especially liked the fact that all team members spoke fluent English and we could communicate frequently and directly with them during the project without any intermediaries in between. In addition, the high levels of skill, work ethic, responsiveness and reaction times stood out as equally impressive traits of Lambda Team.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There isn't much what I think Lambda Team could improve on in their current target segment, we knew pretty well what we wanted and received a job very well done. My only suggestion for their future is that if they would like to handle even bigger projects (100k$-500k$ range), I would recommend them investing in improving capabilities such as sales, project management and solution design further. This would no doubt enable Lambda Team to handle bigger projects with more ease and make the clients feel they are taken care of with validated models in each aspect of the project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and CTO of ScaleAbout. We provide a platform for social media influencers to provide guidance, mentorship, and services to their followers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Lambda Team?

We needed to rebuild our site to be adaptive and responsive to all devices. We also wanted to build mobile native apps.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

In an ongoing collaboration, Lambda Team has built the frontend and client side of our site and apps. They enabled video and voice recording and monetary transactions. The platform is responsive to different devices.

What is the team composition?

We work with two developers.

How did you come to work with Lambda Team?

A friend whose opinion I value recommended Lambda Team based on his experience with them. We required many of the same technologies in our project as the ones deployed in my friend’s product. My team presented our requirements and timeline, and Lambda proposed a great plan and reasonable pricing.

How much have you invested with them?

We have spent between $25,000­–$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in January 2018. The project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our site is active and operates according to our requirements and designs.

How did Lambda Team perform from a project management standpoint?

When we have a new task for Lambda Team, we put it in our weekly sprints and determine a deadline. Deployments have been on schedule. We have a set weekly meeting, but Lambda Team has made themselves available whenever we need them. Communication is efficient and effortless.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Our final site adheres to the original design prototypes, which is quite an accomplishment. Lambda Team is a diligent, reliable, and respectful partner that delivers high-quality work quickly. Their team makes the development process much more manageable by providing clean code.

Are there any areas they could improve?

In a few instances, their team has not been familiar with certain technologies, and we have had to utilize other vendors. It would be helpful if Lambda Team expanded their capabilities.

Any advice for potential customers?

Be sure to define clear milestones and set short iterations.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Lead of Eternal

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

AI company focused on creating ultra-creative and compelling apps.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Lambda Team to accomplish?

• Web development
• Backend
• Technical Scaling

SOLUTION

How did you find Lambda Team?

Online Search

Why did you select Lambda Team over others?

• High ratings
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Lambda Team were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

• Entire web app 
• Backend infra 
• Messaging system

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Full-fledge functional web application

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

They execute the project on time, with incredible quality and excellent communication.

What was your primary form of communication with Lambda Team?

Email or Messaging App

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

Their quality of work was incredible. One of the first dev teams I've worked with that would deliver software almost entirely bug free. Excellent, excellent work.

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

A+ Experience.