Smidige

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of LearnWise AI

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

LearnWise develops AI software solutions for educational institutions around the world.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Smidige to accomplish?

• GDPR Compliance
• AWS Structuring

SOLUTION

How did you find Smidige?

Online Search

Why did you select Smidige over others?

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Smidige were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

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

The project involved a significant enhancement of our AWS DevOps infrastructure, focusing on improving security and operational efficiency. This involved activating AWS Artifact and CloudTrail, establishing AWS Organizations, and implementing IAM Identity Center (SSO). We created specialized AWS accounts tailored for different service needs. 

A major part of our effort was dedicated to strengthening security protocols. This included updating IAM policies, enabling critical AWS services like SecurityHub, Config, Macie, and GuardDuty, and implementing custom VPCs across accounts. We took steps to ensure the security of our AWS resources, such as configuring S3 buckets and enabling WAF. Our project also included restructuring ECS services, focusing on secure management of sensitive data and updating execution roles for better access control. 

We improved our system's scalability and performance by updating ECS services for operation in private subnets and enabling auto-scaling. Additionally, we managed ECR image storage efficiently through lifecycle policies and ensured secure handling of sensitive data in Batch job definitions. These measures were aimed at creating a robust, secure, and efficient AWS infrastructure, aligning with our goals of improved resource management and scalability.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The measurable outcomes from the project included enhanced security protocols, evident from the successful implementation of updated IAM policies and activation of AWS services like SecurityHub and GuardDuty. Operational efficiency was demonstrated by the streamlined ECS services and the effective use of auto-scaling. 

Additionally, the successful restructuring of AWS resources into private subnets and the efficient management of ECR image storage through lifecycle policies indicated progress in resource optimization and security. These outcomes collectively marked a significant improvement in the infrastructure's overall security and operational effectiveness.

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

Their project management was exemplary. They consistently delivered items on time, demonstrating a strong commitment to meeting our project timelines. Their response to our needs was notably fast and efficient, making them great to work with. Additionally, they provided a very clear overview of tasks, which greatly facilitated smooth communication and a transparent understanding of the project's progress. Their overall approach was highly professional and effective, ensuring the project's success.

What was your primary form of communication with Smidige?

Virtual Meeting

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

What stood out most impressively about this company was the exceptional fit of their team with ours and their profound depth of knowledge. They possessed a unique ability to explain complex technical concepts in a clear, understandable manner. 

This skill was particularly beneficial in closely mapping and advising our internal development and engineering team. Their expertise and communicative approach not only facilitated a smooth collaboration but also enhanced our team's understanding and execution of the project. This level of engagement and clarity in communication was both impressive and uniquely beneficial to the success of our project.

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

Nothing

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of APFusion, Inc.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

APFusion is an automotive business-to-business marketplace.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Smidige to accomplish?

• DevOps

SOLUTION

How did you find Smidige?

Upwork

Why did you select Smidige over others?

High ratings

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

1. Ensure the stability of our cloud infrastructure by transitioning from EC2 instances to AWS Fargate
2. Reduce the overall spend on AWS
3. Implement AWS WAF and other cloud protection necessities
4. Implement Terraform

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

1. Uptime
2. AWS bill reduction
3. [Qualitative] ~ Developer productivity

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

Their project management was elite.

1. Delivery was always on time and exactly as expected
2. Despite them being an overseas company, they responded timely and respectfully to our team's many requests.

What was your primary form of communication with Smidige?

Virtual Meeting

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

There was one instance where we set a specific AWS spend reduction goal for a given month. Unfortunately, that specific goal was not met. Instead of blaming things that were out of their control or trying to pass the buck, this company waived our entire month's invoice and then proceeded to do the following.

1. Applied for AWS credits on their behalf and passed them on to us
2. Reduced our bill over several months to ensure we were meeting our budgetary goals

Not to mention, even with them knowing that they were not going to get paid, they continued to provide elite service, and I continued to receive extremely high praise regarding their performance from our team of engineers.

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

This is truly one company I have nothing but positive things to say about.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CTO of ActivePrime

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

SaaS data quality

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Smidige to accomplish?

• Create provisioning API to stand up products on AWS
• AWS security
• AWS cost reduction

SOLUTION

How did you find Smidige?

upwork

Why did you select Smidige over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fits our budget
• Working style of our key contact

What was the size of Smidige’s team?

2-5 Employees

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

Created python APIs for spinning up AWS infrastructure for ActivePrime SeaS solution. Reduce AWS costs. Review and put in place AWS security.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Delivered python API for AWS infrastructure configuration. Reduce AWS costs (initial work). Maintained AWS costs to be within our requirements. Implemented security setup within AWS for new SaaS offering. Implemented AWS workspaces.

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

Project delivered on time, in sync with our internal development team. Very responsive via slack as needed. Very knowledgeable.

What was your primary form of communication with Smidige?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The commitment to a successful outcome for ActivePrime. They went the extra mile to ensure our success. Staff are very responsive and make themselves available as needed even though we are a distributed team and in some cases 9 hour time difference. Even our calls with AWS employees resulted in those AWS employees commenting on the skill level of Smidige.

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

Not at this time.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an executive at (a/an) Chemicals & Biotechnology

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Our company is bringing the power of high quality single-cell biology to every laboratory by providing scalable, cost-effective, and easy to implement scRNA-seq solutions

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Smidige to accomplish?

• Improve Data processing platform from MVP to being Production ready

SOLUTION

How did you find Smidige?

• Referral

Why did you select Smidige over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

What was the size of Smidige’s team?

1 Employee

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

The goal of the project was to advance the MVP to a state that was ready for production. This entailed accomplishing three significant milestones. The initial milestone was to ensure that the design was refined and polished, which involved improving the user interface and overall user experience.

The second milestone was to incorporate AWS Lambdas to streamline data processing. Lastly, the third milestone was to implement a system to manage users and their teams, guaranteeing a seamless user journey.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our primary focus is on customer feedback as the key metric for success. Even in the short time since the application was launched, customers have already processed several terabytes of data, and they are extremely satisfied with the platform's ease of use, reliability, and feature sets. This is a significant achievement for us as customer referrals are one of the primary drivers of growth for our company.

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

The items were not only delivered on time but even earlier than expected. As a result, we were able to make more progress than we initially anticipated and ultimately achieved a project outcome with an outstanding finish.

What was your primary form of communication with Smidige?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email
• Messaging App

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

After providing SMIDIGE with our initial project specifications, they were able to identify the ideal candidate for the job. Tim, our contractor, was a perfect match for our needs and was able to hit the ground running from the get-go.

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

Honestly no. We've had a great partnership.