AgileEngine

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Partner of The Rational Heart

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Measure and analyze consumer emotional response to guide better marketing decision-making.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Automate data processing
• Create data files to enable further analysis

SOLUTION

How did you find AgileEngine?

AgileEngine Lead generation emails

Why did you select AgileEngine over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned
• Scope flexibility

How many teammates from AgileEngine were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Custom data-processing software development and output creation of proprietary dataprocessing formulas and processes. Deliverables of software code that would output formatted excel outputs files of all data including datacuts and a custom analyses. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Budget and timeline
• Output built to scope
• Successful data analyese from custom built tool

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

Very responsive team. They listened to our needs and responded very quickly. Our daily syncs provided real time opportunities for us to provide feedbacka nd ask questions. Anything we raised was addressed immediately and new code updates were pushed regularly and frequently for review and testing. The project chat also provided ways for us to communicate. The team responded quickly to anything raised and usually solved any questions or issues nearly immediately. 

What was your primary form of communication with AgileEngine?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

AgileEngine's has provided a very capable team and process. The Agile team became a part of our team. They learned about our goals and became well versed in our needs. It was clear they were just as invested as we were in the success of the project. 

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

We were very happy with the process and the deliverables, no recommendations to change. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Chief Operating Officer of TVEyes, Inc.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are a search engine for video and audio content / data.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Design a new web based User Platform
• Build components of the Platform

SOLUTION

How did you find AgileEngine?

Online Search

Why did you select AgileEngine over others?

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

How many teammates from AgileEngine were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

Agile has worked with our own Development team to design and build components of a new UX to access the TVEyes data set on a web based platform. They have contributed throughout the design and development cycle from defining key user requirements through QC testing of the platform and all steps in between.

In additon, they have provided extra development resources to bring the designs to fruition, collaborating with our own internal engineering team. They have been a "force multiplier" in this regard, allowing TVEyes to scale and accelerate the design and development cycles.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Tracking of the design and project plans as well as careful tracking of budget.

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

Agile has been efficient in their delivery of items and they have been very responsive to any modifications to the designs and development work as requested.

What was your primary form of communication with AgileEngine?

Virtual Meeting

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

The balance of global software talent and experience with an excellent project management team at aggressive price levels.

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

No.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the VP of an entertainment company.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are an entertainment company providing a subscription-based video streaming service.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Build a platform to support data warehousing and analysis
• Support ongoing business intelligence and data science

SOLUTION

How did you find AgileEngine?

Referral

Why did you select AgileEngine over others?

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

How many teammates from AgileEngine were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

We engaged Agile Engine to support development of a platform to manage data pipelines, support business intelligence and data analysis, and enable development and deployment of custom ML solutions.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The success of the project was assessed by the correct functioning of the developed platform and tools as assessed via a thorough UAT.

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

Agile Engine accommodated various project management motifs to support our needs including both agile-based Jira-ticket management as well as waterfall style projects as requested. They were responsive, flexible, and adaptable, completing all work to high standards and meeting milestones and project deadlines efficiently.

What was your primary form of communication with AgileEngine?

Virtual Meeting

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

AgileEngine works with us as a close partner, essentially an extension of our internal teams.

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

I have no suggestions for improvement, except possibly cloning our Agile Engine team so we can have more of them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CTO of Pull Systems

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

AI-powered technology suite for electric vehicle manufacturers and fleet managers to prevent failures, shorten feedback cycles and boost profitability.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Augment our world-class engineering team

SOLUTION

How did you find AgileEngine?

Referral

Why did you select AgileEngine over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from AgileEngine were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

Agile Engine augments our team with remote teammembers across several departments:

• Software Engineering
• User Experience
• Data Engineering

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

AgileEngine has worked side by side with our team to design, build, test, ship, and improve multiple versions of our software product.

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

We treat the AgileEngine teammembers like full-time parts of our organization, so they participate fully in all project planning and management rituals including standups, planning, backlog grooming, all-hands meetings, and demo days. A full-time account manager oversees their work to ensure high-quality deliverables and removal of obstacles. 

What was your primary form of communication with AgileEngine?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

AgileEngine is very engaged in our success. We get to hand-pick potential teammembers based on compatibility with our culture, and they stick with us for years at a time. They proactively understand and work to address anything that is not 100% optimal. The engineers do particularly high-quality work.

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

None

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior director of engineering for a cloud-based software company in the life insurance industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AgileEngine?

We needed software engineers with TypeScript and React knowledge, so we hired  AgileEngine for staff augmentation.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The team is using TypeScript on the backend and helping us to build our application suite of cloud software that runs on top of AWS. They’re primarily focusing on building out the front- and backend of our SaaS applications. The individuals from AgileEngine came in with a general familiarity with software development, but there’s been a little bit of a ramping-up period to get them more familiar with TypeScript. 

What is the team composition?

We initially spoke with Kateryna (Regional Client Success Lead), but we currently work with a team of four people.  

How did you come to work with AgileEngine?

They were a referral from someone in our company who had worked with AgileEngine previously. We were looking for individuals who could be embedded into our team that wouldn't just build software for us, but would build it with us. 

What is the status of this engagement?

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

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The main source of feedback we get is whether or not the individuals are completing stories in Jira and responses from peers who are direct employees in our company. The individuals from AgileEngine are meeting and exceeding our expectations, and they operate like members of our team. 

How did AgileEngineperform from a project management standpoint?

They stay within the budget and don’t go over their allotted time because they are timesheet employees. We primarily use Jira as a project management tool and use Slack, Zoom, and email for communication. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The individuals AgileEngine has provided us with have been able to pick things up quickly, and they operate within our team in an integrated way. They are communicative and collaborative, and it feels like they're a part of our core team. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing we can come up with; we just hope they keep up the great work they’ve been doing. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Know what you want and let AgileEngine in on that because they will tailor what they give you to make sure that it is what you’re requesting. AgileEngine has different models to choose from, and if you let them know what you want, they’ll deliver on that.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the director of software development for edsembli. We specialize in building administrative software that targets the K-12 education sector

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Full stack software development and testing for our HR management and Payroll solution. Our goal was to shift a hosted/on-premise software model to a SAAS-based model of operation

SOLUTION

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

I had selected Agile Engine (AE) as I had a successful experience working in partnership with the team to realize some short term goals. Pricing was favourable for the caliber of talent

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

Our relationship on the project began with the presentation of team members that our AE account representative felt was a good fit for our project. Candidates were interviewed by myself and members of the internal team. Those selected were made part of our development team, charged with meeting the goals for each sprint and ultimately realizing our overall project objectives. Our applications are built upon the Microsoft stack, combining C#/.NET, MS SQL and AngularJS frontend.

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

In total, we had at any time Agile Engine members on our team, with 2-3 developers and 1 QA analyst

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our SaaS conversion was vastly behind schedule due to a number of factors, chief among them was staff attrition. This not only meant a reduction of resources, but knowledge loss was also an issue. The personnel that AE provided was able to quickly ramp up, minimally impacted by a lack of knowledge in the application and the industry space. Very quickly, the project began to hit projected milestones and as of now, nearly 100% complete and ready for our first round of waiting customers

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

Our development cycle operates on 2-week sprints, with standard daily stand ups, sprint-by-sprint planning sessions, etc. Our primary communication tool was MS Teams, with project planning done through MS TFS. TFS also hosted our GIT-based source control

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

I was impressed by a number of aspects of AE, such as their vast global footprint, allowing us to draw talent from virtually anywhere in the world. This was particularly valuable in the last 2 years with the global pandemic and available software development talent was scarce.

In addition, recruited talent was also highly skilled, experienced and professional having gone through what must have been a rigorous screening process at AE. Finally, I was impressed with how AE looks after everyone on the team, providing clear career objectives and opportunities for everyone to grow with the AE organization

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

None that I could think of at this time

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and CTO for an organization that builds software for the industrial workforce to use wearable technology. This makes them more efficient and allows them to produce higher-quality products. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AgileEngine?

We hired AgileEngine to help us rapidly scale our team. Our company also wanted to reconfigure the team quickly to meet various challenges, especially since we worked in a developing market. In the process of doing this, we also wanted to realize cost savings in some components of our workforce over domestic resources. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our team initially met with AgileEngine’s leadership group to discuss our work. We learned about the resources that they provided and how they typically engaged with their customers. Eventually, it became apparent that we could engage them in a couple of ways. In the end, we chose a model where their team members became a part of our own team. Rather than giving them a set of requirements and waiting for a finished product, we engaged their members as if they were part of our internal staff.  

From that point forward, the engagement has revolved around meeting and interviewing resources from them beyond the initial team we set up. For the software development projects, they don’t necessarily build from scratch; some elements already exist. When we have to rapidly build a new subsystem or component, we provide requirements, and then they build it from scratch. Other times, the component is already part of the product, and they simply interact with it. 

What is the team composition?

The team composition has varied over time between 3–10 people. We have contact with the entire team, but we primarily work with 2–3 team leaders depending on the workload. Those team leaders are our main points of contact. That being said, we interact with all of them on a daily basis since they essentially are members of our internal team. 

How did you come to work with AgileEngine?

I found AgileEngine a number of years ago and reached out to their management team. They made it clear how much they focused on putting together high-end resources and teams. In other words, they focused on quality over quantity — we received that message loud and clear. Moreover, they had a development mentality and way of thinking that aligned with mine. As a result, the decision to give them a try was quite easy. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the partnership in December 2015, and it’s ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

AgileEngine has delivered excellent results over the years. They’ve allowed us to flex our workforce in different directions, and they’ve brought on talents that haven’t been represented before in our team. This helps us explore areas for future development. Moreover, they’ve provided incredibly high-quality contributions to our team year after year. 

We’ve used AgileEngine’s resources throughout the areas of our engineering team, which gives us extra capacity and specific expertise in multiple technologies. Overall, the engagement has been hugely beneficial to our business through the years. 

How did AgileEngine perform from a project management standpoint?

AgileEngine’s project management skills have been fantastic. The team-wide management is integrated within our team, but the management from AgileEngine’s side has always been excellent. Their resources have been incredibly proactive and organized when it comes to communication. They have beneficial processes that don’t stand in the way of development or create extra pressure. 

To communicate, we use phones, video calls, emails, and Slack. Most of the time, we talk to the team via video calls on Zoom or Teams. Our daily interactions happen through a combination of those tools. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality of AgileEngine’s resources differentiates them from other providers. By far, they’re the best nearshore developers that we’ve worked with in my career. The quality of everyone from the management team to individual developers has been truly a cut above the rest. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Start the relationship by thinking of AgileEngine as a part of your own team. Their resources are of high quality, so make them an intrinsic factor in your team. Think that way about the engagement from the get-go. You’ll be hugely successful if you leverage them that way. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a co-founder and CEO of All4Cure, and we’re a digital health technology company with an online platform for cancer patients, clinicians, and researchers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AgileEngine?

Our platform isn’t a great model to follow, so I started working with AgileEngine after we created the MVP with another company. However, the product needed to undergo an extensive iteration that was directed by my co-founder, with the implementation being mostly done by AgileEngine. We’ve been working together for over 3–4 years refining, optimizing, and improving the platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

AgileEngine has been implementing the software necessary to achieve the designs we directed them to make. There have been a number of modifications on the frontend, with changes in the way the website appears. Different users have different permissions that are associated with the different roles, and there have also been changes on the backend.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with a number of software developers for the last 3–4 years, with some being relatively short-term roles, and some being in the long-term. We’ve had two project directors over the course of our engagement.

How did you come to work with AgileEngine?

I’ve learned of them from a friend who founded an AI company. They recommended AgileEngine based on their experience with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve probably spent about $120,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our partnership started in March 2017, and it’s still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They implement the changes we ask and they consistently achieve what we aim for. My co-founder, Ricardo, has extensive experience in project management and he has a very clear list of things to do — which are all routinely executed by the people we work with. The clear communication that Ricardo provides, and the talent of the people at AgileEngine have been a good combination for us.

In addition, there have been times where things didn’t seem to be up to expectations, but they’ve been extremely responsive and immediately tried to resolve them.

How did AgileEngine perform from a project management standpoint?

Kateryna (Account Manager & Client Partner) and her predecessors give us realistic timelines and budget guidelines. If it looks like they can’t meet our specifications with respect to the time or budget, they’ll let us know and help us find the right solution.

Additionally, I meet with the program manager once every couple of months, and Ricardo communicates with the software developers asynchronously, through a project management tool on an ongoing basis.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I like that I can count on AgileEngine. If they say they can do something on a budget they provide, then they can do it. It’s obviously essential for me to be able to lay out a set of specifications, and feel confident that they can deliver. They've just been very strong performers for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m not sure that I have a specific suggestion for improvement — I think they’ve done a good job for us. Not every person who we’ve worked with has been equally strong on the software development side, but there are always variations on that front.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I believe that super clear communication is important to any sort of partnership that’s trying to build something new. With good guidelines, I think AgileEngine can consistently deliver.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of an IT management solutions company. Our main mission is to create a procurement automation platform for both the public and private sectors. We integrate all kinds of financial capabilities and requirements for customers and suppliers to do procurement and accounting within the same ecosystem.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AgileEngine?

We were a new company that couldn’t afford to hire our own developers yet, so we needed AgileEngine to help us with their development services.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

AgileEngine has developed our MVP from scratch. They’ve come up with the platform’s architecture and built all the necessary products and features to make the system work. Our platform’s 100% cloud-native AWS — AgileEngine used Node.js for our backend and JavaScript for our frontend. We use PostgreSQL to implement our database system and Amazon CloudFront for our CDN.

What is the team composition?

We work with four developers and one QA resource from AgileEngine’s team.

How did you come to work with AgileEngine?

We looked their name up and found that they previously worked with companies that we were very familiar with — it was important for us to hire a US-based team that had also established their name in our area through their reputation. AgileEngine had everything we needed from a risk management standpoint, so we reached out to their team.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend $450,000 for their services on a yearly basis.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in February 2019, and our work is ongoing. We’ve recently hired an additional QA resource from their team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

First of all, AgileEngine’s lead engineer has a great sense of ownership of the platform — he takes the coding standards seriously, and that helps us meet even our long-term goals for this project. We also appreciate how prepared he is to take over when our team is not there to supervise them. Their backend engineer seamlessly handles the integration work, and the two frontend developers are really good at building an intuitive interface to complete our platform.

Second, our application is pretty complicated because we take a variety of business processes that are really arduous — and try to make them easier. AgileEngine does a good job of making things easy for us. They really think about customer experience when they interact with the system, so they build features that are easy to navigate and operate. We’ve been working with them for the past two years because they are highly reliable in that sense. I don’t want to let them go — I want to keep working with their team.

How did AgileEngine perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very good — they always keep us in the loop. We have daily meetings with AgileEngine, and they’re very good with communication. They send frequent updates and queries through Slack. They don’t keep us waiting in terms of progress reports, so we keep the velocity of the project up.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m impressed with how their client support management team handles professional development — these are people we don’t directly pay for, but they always make sure that we are satisfied and that the team assigned to us progresses well to meet our business goals. They make sure that their goals for developing their resources are aligned with the goals of our company. I’d certainly want to have the same kind of experience if I were to go anywhere else. Since their resources are developed professionally, I am certain that I can transition them into bigger roles.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I always have a hard time thinking of other areas they can improve on. They’ve been very helpful to us.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you have your project design as early as possible, you can hit the ground running. We spent a lot of time figuring ours, so they had to do that for us and it took a chunk of time. The key step is always for you to spend more time on designing the base requirements.