Opinov8 Digital and Engineering Solutions

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of engineering at a cybersecurity company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Opinov8 Digital and Engineering Solutions?

We needed support to design and develop internal projects that required a partial revamp. Our existing product already had precise specifications, but we wanted to create a better UX/UI for users.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Opinov8 Digital and Engineering Solutions has provided a team of developers for custom frontend development and UX/UI design. The stack is based on Node.js, and they’ve provided QA services since February 2024.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with seven people, including five developers, one graphic designer, and one QA lead. Each team member has worked with us at different stages.

How did you come to work with Opinov8 Digital and Engineering Solutions?

They were a referral. When they began working with us, I was only the tech lead in our company before being promoted to the head of engineering, so I’m not exactly sure how they came to work with us beyond that.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since April 2023, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've been quite happy with them. Our company works in Agile, particularly Scrum, so we have all the ceremonies, including the retrospectives, where we review the goals' numbers and achievements. The metrics are mostly related to the Scrum documentation.

How did Opinov8 Digital and Engineering Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

The team uses GitLab for the code, YouTrack for tracking, and an internal platform for communication. They meet deadlines and stay on budget; whenever they haven't met a deadline, they've conformed to our department's general trend. They haven't slowed us down or caused bottlenecks.

Two of the five developers didn't meet expectations, and when we raised this concern, we were immediately assisted and supported with a replacement. Opinov8 Digital and Engineering Solutions' replacement process is very quick and responsive.

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

Three developers have astonished us with their superb performance and involvement. Julia, the junior, is very proactive and engaged in finding solutions, participating in meetings, and brainstorming. I'm very positively impressed with her.

However, nothing takes away from the other two developers. They're both excellent, and all three have excellent technical knowledge and skills that I can rely on.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their responsiveness has been impressive. They're quick to reply and always there. Their communication is also excellent, as they have taken the initiative to give us constant monthly updates. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing stands out in terms of areas of improvement.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Provide them with as much PDR documentation as possible. That way, they can assess better the capacity needed and the profile of the developers they want to provide you.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.
I'm the CEO of Kubeshop, a studio accelerator for software development tools in the Kubernetes space.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Opinov8 Technology Services?
We required staff augmentation. I was looking for the right caliber of talent at a reasonable price.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?
Opinov8 provided us with several engineers as outsourced contractors. As per my requirements, these engineers had Kubernetes, Go, and React frontend development experience. We have several teams within the company, so Opinov8's resources supported a handful of those teams remotely.

What is the team composition?
We worked together for close to two years, so the team increased and decreased depending on the period of time. Overall, we worked with anywhere from 6–7 senior software engineers from Opinov8.

How did you come to work with Opinov8 Technology Services?
I used to work with one of Opinov8's founders at a previous company. He had provided me with a similar service back then, so I reached out to him again.

How much have you invested with them?
We spent $200,000–$999,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together on this project from August 2021–November 2023.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
Thanks to their support, Opinov8 helped me save money and deliver the projects. We saw cost savings of around 20%. Overall, their work met and exceeded my expectations.

How did Opinov8 Technology Services perform from a project management standpoint?
Opinov8 delivered work on time. We used Jira, Google Docs, Notion, and Confluence to collaborate.

What did you find most impressive about them?
I would like to congratulate the whole Opinov8 team on their work. They had great talent, skills, and company culture.

Are there any areas they could improve?
I can't think of anything they could improve on.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?
Keep the communication channels open and work closely with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the Senior Director of Engineering at Musicnotes.com - We are a digital sheet music company. Over the last two decades, we have become the world's leading digital sheet music retailer, providing an unparalleled catalogue of content for every instrument and skill level. We make digital sheet music and technology that enables musicians. We have over 9 million customers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Opinov8 Technology Services?

We needed to modernize some of our core technology and utilize modern tools and processes to level up our platforms. We wanted to create a SaaS platform in the cloud using microservices technology and we contacted Opinov8 Technology Services to provide technical talent to augment our internal engineering team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Opinov8 Technology Services provides staff augmentation and development services for our company. We initially engaged with their team for an architectural review and a proof of concept of our platform’s modernization plan, which lasted about 2–3 months. After evaluating the plan with our internal engineering team and management, we decided to move forward with them as our partner on this project.

In terms of technologies, Opinov8 Technology Services’ developers use the latest .Net and are familiar with Azure. The team also uses other technologies, such as Kubernetes and Terraform, and helps us build on our continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) process and pipelines, getting our platform cloud enabled.

What is the team composition?

We initially engaged four developers from Opinov8 Technology Services who work with our internal engineers and QA team. This has expanded somewhat to include a DevOps Engineer and another Software Engineer to help us on a legacy platform.

How did you come to work with Opinov8 Technology Services?

I had previous working experience with Opinov8 Technology Services at a different company and that project went very well so I reached out to them to engage in this project.

How much have you invested with them?

We've invested considerably in our relationship with Opinov8 and will continue to do so for the duration of our project. That said, Opinov8 enables lots of flexibility and options making our engagements with them economically feasible.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Opinov8 Technology Services in October 2022, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Once we kicked off our Opinov8 Technology Services, engagement by setting up our Microsoft Azure environment. We’ve worked to get the scaffolding built for this project and our CI/CD process, pipelines, and infrastructure and had a few deployments to our new environment. Opinov8 and our internal team continues working on building out the microservices, which eventually replaces functionality our old legacy applications.

How did Opinov8 Technology Services perform from a project management standpoint?

Opinov8 Technology Services is conscientious about our overall spending and deadlines. We haven’t had any issues at all. Our engagement with Opinov8 has been very successful because they are proactive, and their work provides value for our company. We really enjoy and appreciate the relationship our company has with them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team’s engineers have contributed to problem-solving and troubleshooting throughout our project’s challenges, and their knowledge-sharing is good. Opinov8 is constantly available even though they work in different time zones, and they've been instrumental in helping us level up and work on this critical project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything for Opinov8 Technology Services to improve — we’re satisfied with their work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

As with any large technical project or digital transformation, I recommend having clear expectations when partnering with Opinov8. You will need to understand what the team can deliver and be willing to work with their talent to select the best profiles for your project. I recommend being part of the hiring process and working closely with Opinov8 to select the best people to fit your needs. Be sure to discuss budget flexibility and to be clear about expectations to establish a trusting working relationship. Working with Opinov8 will be a great experience.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CTO of an audiology company. We produce and sell audiology equipment. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Opinov8 Technology Services?

We’ve hired Opinov8 Technology Services for custom software development. We needed to complete some product development faster than we were capable of doing in-house, so we brought in Opinov8 Technology Services. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Opinov8 Technology Services is working on rewriting an existing solution that we have within our current domain. We have had about four updates to our software over the past 25 years, so their team is helping us rewrite the system with modern cloud technology. Key technologies include React, .NET,  and the software runs on Microsoft Azure. 

What is the team composition?

We work with developers and a project manager. 

How did you come to work with Opinov8 Technology Services?

We found Opinov8 Technology Services through a Google search. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about €3 million (approximately $3 million USD). 

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 measure success based on the scope delivery, documentation handover, and quality. We’ve been satisfied overall with Opinov8 Technology Services’ work. 

How did Opinov8 Technology Services perform from a project management standpoint?

They are able to answer questions that we have, and we communicate via Microsoft Teams. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve been really impressed with their operating models. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

We think they could do a better job of aligning their seniority requirements with clients. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Ensure your scope is crystal clear. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the VP Technology of LendInvest Plc

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Property finance made simple.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Opinov8 Technology Services to accomplish?

• Augment the team with React engineers, QA's and BA's

SOLUTION

How did you find Opinov8 Technology Services?

• Referral
• Worked with them at a previous company

Why did you select Opinov8 Technology Services over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Talented people

How many teammates from Opinov8 Technology Services were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

The Opinov8 team have worked on a series of key projects as part of the wider engineering team here are LendInvest. This has included front end development of our proprietary technology stack in React for our product engine and calculator service, as well as QA services across many projects including the launch of our broker portal and residential mortgage product.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Launch of our residential mortgage product on time. All website calculators are now powered by the product engine directly and the control centre UI for managing mortgage products.

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

They worked as part of a larger team whose responsibility was to deliver the work in an agile way using Kanban, so Opinov8 weren't solely responsible for the management of the projects they worked on.

What was your primary form of communication with Opinov8 Technology Services?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Access to talented and committed people. Their engineers are excellent, and I have worked with some of them across 2 companies, and for many years. The unwavering commitment to continue to do the best for their clients, even when Russia attacked Ukraine, and the resilience to work under stressful and uncertain conditions - often working late to make up lost hours - was incredible.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Opinov8 Technology Services could have done differently?

With the advent of war, the team has become more geographically dispersed and this is a shame, as it sometimes feels like we are working with a set of individuals from Opinov8 rather than a team. There are pockets of internal collaboration visible within the Opinov8 team, however it would have been good to have more especially across the Egypt and Ukraine teams.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of FDJ Gaming Solutions - UK and the CTO of Sporting Group. We’re merging these two companies, and I will remain the CTO of Sporting Group. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Opinov8 Technology Services?

We hired Opinov8 for development work on multiple platforms.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Opinov8 provided our website with a refresh and is continuing to build and add new functionalities. They’ve built and now maintain our app, and provide resources for our gaming system. Key technologies include React on the frontend and .NET on the backend. 

What is the team composition?

We work with a project manager, a business analyst, DevOps, and QA individuals. There are other individuals on our team, and we have about 30 people working with us in total. We're also in contact with the founder. 

How did you come to work with Opinov8 Technology Services? 

My company was working with them before I started.  

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested more than $1.5 million with Opinov8. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in January 2020, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We don’t have any specific metrics, but they’ve been very helpful, and allowed us to continue building a piece of our business without having to go out and find new people.  

How did Opinov8 Technology Services perform from a project management standpoint?

They don’t have the strongest project management. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have good developers, strong technical skills, and they’re flexible. They’re also very helpful and accommodating. They have developers in Ukraine, and even during the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, they've continued to show dedication to the project. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

We wish they were a bit more proactive and better about bringing issues to us. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about what you want them to do, and have daily stand-ups to ensure they’re on the right track. It’s true of most developers, but keep checking that they’re doing what you need them to do. If you use them as a development resource, you’ll get tremendous value from them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a manager at a marketing transformation company. I look after all the tools that we use.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Opinov8 Technology Services?

Some of our tools were great for use in a small way but weren’t scalable. We hired Opinov8 to uplift those tools and make them more scalable and available to more people within our business. Part of the challenge was that they’d inherit lousy code and wrong ways of working.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Opinov8 is helping us revamp a number of web tools. They’ve redesigned the entire development process and put together a new UI/UX. The team uses our existing tools to learn what we need. They do all our wireframes and imagery. 

What is the team composition?

I work closely with two people from Opinov8, the project manager and the account manager. Additionally, we also collaborate with business analysts to get through the requirements, the designers to see about the wireframes, and the senior-level developers so I can understand where we are in the project.

How did you come to work with Opinov8 Technology Services?

I’m new to the company, and Opinov8 joined about a month before I did, so I wasn’t involved in the selection process.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around June 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Everything Opinov8 has delivered has been great so far. The UI/UX they developed is excellent, and it makes a lot more sense. The team is very good at meeting our requirements. When it comes to budgets, they excel at changing team sizes, determining ways of working, and seeing who needs to have what and when. Working with them has been amazing.

Overall, they’ve been incredible. They’re based in Ukraine, and the first day of the Russian Invasion was the first release of my tool — they still delivered. This wasn’t because we were pressuring them; they wanted to deliver, which shows an incredible work ethic. I don’t foresee us stopping our relationship with Opinov8 any time soon. 

How did Opinov8 Technology Services perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very good at project management. With any provider, there's a challenge to understand how a company and its people work, which we’ve nailed down by now. For example, although their communication has always been amazing, it wasn’t in the way our company wanted, so the team made changes. 

We work in an Agile fashion with them and use Microsoft Teams and Slack to keep in touch. Overall, Opinov8 has always been transparent and in constant communication throughout.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Opinov8’s way of working is incredible. Many of them have never met each other, and their team camaraderie and morale are amazing. Even though some of them are still in Kiyv, they have a positive attitude all the time. With other providers, sometimes it seems like they’d rather not do the work, whereas Opinov8 will do anything we need them to do. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Due to a language barrier at the start, there may have been misunderstandings about the requirements and timelines. We both could improve in understanding and setting expectations. Our company was very intent on Opinov8 knowing everything very quickly, and that, unfortunately, wasn’t available. I don’t think it’s a negative, though.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to get someone in a room with Opinov8 and go through all your wants and requirements. We had a number of workshops with the account manager, which was really beneficial; they were engaged and understood the requirements. Ideally, we would have done the workshops before getting the whole team involved. However, that wasn’t available for us because of the COVID-19 pandemic. If you have the workshop at the start, you can paint a full picture and understand what’s needed.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of Hastee, an employee payment application. Through our app, we allow people to have access to their money at any time instead of having to wait until payday.

Most employees get paid monthly, but we allow them to receive money weekly or daily if they wish. We believe that they’ve earned that money, so there’s no reason for companies to keep hold of it for the whole month; employees are entitled to receive it whenever they want.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Opinov8 Technology Services?

As we were a four-year-old startup, we didn’t have a technical team to help us with this project. Our founder just had the idea, and we needed to build the technology and the platform to make it real.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Opinov8 created our mobile app and a whole backend platform that helps us manage the employees’ funds, cashouts, monies, earnings, wages, and payroll. They used .NET and AWS and implemented a microservices architecture, using multiple services such as digital wallets and more.

This platform has two sides, so we considered it a B2B2C (business to business to consumer) product. In other words, we engage with the employers to receive the employees’ data, and we also deal with the employees, who ultimately use our product to cash out their money.

What is the team composition?

Opinov8 has a full-service team dedicated to our project. This team consists of 15–20 people, including project managers, designers, backend and frontend developers, mobile app developers, and HR people. We’ve worked very closely with this team as if they worked for us directly.

How did you come to work with Opinov8 Technology Services?

We found them through an acquaintance of their co-founder. Initially, we looked at the market and got proposals from Opinov8 and another company. Rather than just putting a proposal together, Opinov8 wanted to know more about the solution and challenged our idea. They asked very inquisitive questions whereas the other company just gave us the cost, without showing much interest nor challenging our idea in any way.

How much have you invested in them?

I rather keep the cost confidential, but I can say that we’re paying a rate according to the market for a very good service.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in February 2017, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

One of our most important KPIs is comparing the amount of code created by Opinov8 versus the number of bugs resulting from that code. Less than 10% of the code deployed by them is being pushed back to their developers due to their very strong unit tests.

Opinov8 makes their developers do unit testing so that we’re not constantly going back and forth fixing bugs. They have great work methodologies and an excellent discipline to which the developers adhere.

They’ve also been instrumental in achieving all of the complex integrations that our platform requires, leading to our business transformation. Additionally, their delivery speed has been very good, showing a strong set of skills on their end.

How did Opinov8 Technology Services perform from a project management standpoint?

Opinov8 has daily scrum meetings to which we attend. We’re constantly part of the project and the solution because if we didn’t collaborate with them, the outcome wouldn’t be what we expected.

We have two-week sprints and work on an Agile methodology. Additionally, we have a Kanban board for integrations, and we manage the project daily.

We also have some in-house developers in Spain, and Opinov8 now manages that team simultaneously. Now, we have an extensive team with members in Kyiv, London, and Spain working on this project, and all of them are being managed by the project manager and business analyst from Opinov8 in Kyiv. It’s all working great.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Opinov8’s work ethic is impressive; they work hard, and they’re very responsive. I can call any of them on a Saturday afternoon if I have a problem, and they will fix it immediately for me.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would be good if they improved their communication because their language sometimes isn’t great and some things get lost in translation. However, we’ve already got used to it, so we know how to ask our questions.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be involved in the project. You can’t just expect them to deliver what you want based on your idea; you have to help them understand your requirements and plan the project. Additionally, plan upfront before starting the sprint cycle and ensure that the requirements are adequately documented. You have to be very clear upfront, and everything will be fine.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m responsible for software engineering at a logistics services company that’s in the process of merging with another company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Opinov8 Technology Services?

Initially, we hired Opinov8 to jumpstart the development of a mobile app for bringing greater efficiency to our tracking process for the freight that we managed. Then, we partnered with them to develop a new transportation management system (TMS), which is the core software system for our business process.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

When we initially engaged with Opinov8, our processes were somewhat immature. As a result, their team filled the gaps in our processes with theirs. That included meeting us face to face on-site multiple times and walking us through the business process to clarify requirements. This helped us establish a relationship between our teams. 

Since then, we’ve used Opinov8’s agile process in software design. We use Jira, and they work within our system. This has helped us accelerate our software development process, too. Moreover, we’ve already had product management tools in place, and their team has brought in their expertise in React Native, which is the primary technology we use for our mobile app. At the same time, they also adapt to our technical standards.

In other words, our contributions are pretty much split; they bring in their frontend experience, and we bring in our backend experience. They conform to our backend standards, and we give them free rein over the frontend. For the TMS project, our team has initially been dependent on Opinov8, but they’ve eventually led the way. As such, the Opinov8 team’s role is now more about augmenting our internal front- and backend team.

What is the team composition?

We work with 25–30 people. 

How did you come to work with Opinov8 Technology Services?

One of our former leaders and Craig (Co-Founder & Chief Commercial Officer) had a working relationship in the past, and they had achieved success. As a result, we reached out to Opinov8 and explored their services. We didn’t do any formal comparison between them and their peers; we simply gave them a small project to gauge how they would perform. Their strong performance in that initial project and their willingness to be our partner gave us high confidence in choosing them for a larger and more strategic project.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent somewhere around $2.5 million. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We kicked off the engagement in March 2019, and it’s ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

While there are no specific metrics that speak to the quality of their work, our team truly sees them as an extension of ourselves. There’s no “us and them” mentality; we see them as people who we can trust to do the work. Their resources are willing to do tasks and non-exciting work that needs to be done to move our projects forward. 

How did Opinov8 Technology Services perform from a project management standpoint?

There aren’t any clear project managers because there also isn’t any clean separation between our teams. Rather, Opinov8 members expand our staff, filling the gaps we have. They may assign a scrum master or a product manager that defines the user stories, or they may provide a business analyst to assist us. They also augment our actual software developers and engineers. Simply put, their team is meant to address our weaknesses as we matured as an organization; they’re not a standalone group. 

Moreover, in high-profile projects that take a long duration of time like ours, points of stress and weaknesses typically manifest themselves. Certainly, there have been points of stress, but finger-pointing and disgruntled emotions never manifest between our teams. There’s a strong bond between us, and we’re grateful for Opinov8’s support all the way. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Opinov8’s ability to listen and adapt to our needs are the best parts of working with them. A lot of software engineering and consulting firms pride themselves heavily on their processes. They usually offer turnkey solutions since they’re in control of every aspect of the development cycle. We understand that, but our company needs have been hard to define and somewhat nebulous in the beginning. Yet, through being patient with us and listening carefully, the Opinov8 team has found ways to help us. 

They’ve consistently brought high-quality resources for whatever our needs are, whether it’s QA testing, UX design, or front- and backend developers. Their resources have been willing to work with us as we evolve our processes as an organization. They’re always ready to help. Overall, they’ve never been a burden as a partner, and that has built our trust in them. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Bring the Opinov8 team as close to you as possible. If you look at them as a traditional software development team and keep them at a distance, you won’t get the most out of them. However, if you bring them in and trust them enough to treat them as part of your team, you’re going to get much more value out of the relationship.