What was the scope of their involvement?
Our company has three products, which we continuously improve and extend. AG04 is working on two of them. They help us develop the new features we add to the products.
One of the products, called XL Deploy, deploys software toward different environments. The other is called XL Release. They started building integrations. The product grew suddenly, so they moved into the core team. They’re now a mature contributor to these two products’ core engines.
All the features they build are great. We build a new feature, add it to the project, do first rounds, get some user feedback for about half a year, and then start adding more new features. They participate in the process. We use Java, Scala, React, and Angular.
What is the team composition?
They now have two autonomous teams working on our products. We use everyone, from junior engineers all the way up to senior engineers. The senior engineers usually lead the team’s progress in the role of Scrum masters. We don't use any project or product managers.
Those are located at our headquarters in Hilversum, Netherlands, but reach out often to the Croatian team. They run two independent software development teams and are responsible for maintaining our quality standards. They’re valuable contributors, and they also improve the core process and delivery. We just have engineers with different levels of knowledge and experience.
How did you come to work with AG04?
They were working before I joined the company. Even before they join my team, AG04 trains their junior engineers using our framework and process. That’s a great benefit. Another thing that distinguishes them is that they always have seniors in the team who onboard the junior engineers to our process. It’s not only the technology they own, but also the way of working which is helpful. People get used to how we work.
They’re happy to be a part of our team. They made a long-term commitment, which I really like. The teams and people are stable, and they participate in the events we organize. They’re a part of the organization, not just a contractor.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working together in 2014 and the work is ongoing.
The programs are still in development, but AG04 has fulfilled all original expectations and requirements thus far. As a team, they’ve provided unique ideas and strong skills to complete the two software platforms.