Agilistry

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Mr Gofer is a platform when one can find a outsource resources for Lead Generation / Sales / Technical Support / Customer Support

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Engenious?

The outsourcing process requires a very careful and accurate process with a lot of people involved. We have a lot of recruiters, HRs and other employees across the world to find perfect executers for our client. Thus, we need a custom CRM that is sharpened for our needs.

SOLUTION

How did you select Engenious and what were the deciding factors?

I met Engenious' CEO at the conference. I described our pain and they made a free proposal with the system I was dreaming about in couple of weeks.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package.

Engenious projected and delivered the custom CRM that united all the roles across the globe to find resources for our clients faster and more efficient.

The CRM is implemented using Node.JS back-end, ReactJS front-end. There are plenty of different access roles there since we have to differentiate the functionality between different employees.

How many resources from the Engeniois team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We hired Project manager, 2 back-end engineer, 1 front-end engineer and 1 UI/UX designer. Also, we added a QA towards the end of the project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

All the current employees use this new internal system daily. We use it for leads, internal resources, time tracking, strategy planning, vacation tracking and many more.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We mostly worked with Project Manager Alex. He is very passionate and professional. The team was able to translate all our desires to the development team.

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

I liked the design approach. Project manager and designers think through everything to the smallest detail before the team starts to code.

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

The cost is a little bit above the average but we were trying to do a similar system with another vendor a year before we started with Engenious and that vendor failed. So we were ready to pay more due to the result is the most important for us.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Director of Operations of AwardLogic. The AwardLogic flight search service is a a one-stop shop for flight award searches. One can find an efficient way to spend their miles or points for tickets.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

There is a strong tech needs in this project. The system should scan over dozens of points/miles programs to find a perfect match to spend miles efficiently. Meanwhile, we search across dozens of other ticket platforms to get a deal.

SOLUTION

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

This was a recommendation from a CEO of big Enterprise company. They have an ongoing engagement with Engenious' developers, designers and QAs.

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

The website was built from the scratch. https://awardlogic.com/. There were dozens of sprints, deliverables etc. The hardest parts were searching module due to the search should be efficient, subscription module and points / miles matching algorithm. There are different microservices involved both in Java and NodeJS. We leverage Redis to process data fast.

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

The foundation team included: 1. Project Manager 2. 3 back-end engineers 3. 2 front-end engineers 4. UI/UX designer 5. QA engineer There were some other people like Business Analyst added ad-hoc sometimes for specific tasks

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

All stakeholder are happy with AwardLogic system. Our analytics shows users love UI & UX of the website, flows are clear. The search logic is fast and reliable. We still have a huge backlog of tasks to do to improve the service.

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

Engenious has very solid management. The PM that is dedicated to our project is very technical - however she has great communication skills simultaneously! It was always a pleasure to sync up with her & team. They follow Agile and always plan sprints. I personally loved bi-weekly demos that we enjoyed every other Friday.

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

The team has strong management and skilled developers. Very creative designer that is proficient in UX.

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

We have not had any problems with this vendor yet

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm an Engineering Manager at Grammarly. We strive to help people understand one another, whenever and wherever they communicate. Our writing assistant supports clean, mistake-free writing while offering suggestions that go way beyond grammar.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Engenious?

We were looking to automate regression testing on a number of tests.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Engenious created a test suite for us.

We communicated a lot with them on how we wanted to proceed with the task. They created a framework based on their experience with UI tests, writing hundreds of them for us. Engenious also ensured that the tests were stable and ran fast. They provided their tool for running tests in parallel and monitoring the health of test cases.

What is the team composition?

Two engineers from Engenious wrote the testing framework. We also communicated with the CTO and CEO.

How did you come to work with Engenious?

We talked to several companies and found Engenious through a recommendation from one of our colleagues. We chose them because this kind of testing was their expertise.

The other companies we talked to either focused on regression testing but not on mobile, or they were outsourcing engineering. Engenious was providing services that they were experts in, and that showed during our initial conversations.

They could answer questions and provide advice on how we should proceed. They also created a small proof of concept of what it could look like.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them on this project between November 2019–May 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We had a list of tasks for Engenious to automate, and that was completed. We kept reports on which tests failed and which passed, so we were able to gauge the stability of the test grid and how efficiently it can report any issues we have on the project.

We’re able to run tests efficiently and see where the issues are.

How did Engenious perform from a project management standpoint?

The team was excellent in this respect. Everything was timely, and we never had communication issues.

Despite having a lot of unknowns, Engenious always answered our questions, and they were proactive in coming up with solutions. The fact that we finished the project on time speaks a lot to their proactivity.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team is full of experts in automation. Secondly, I appreciate their overall approach to getting the job done. Along with being proactive, they made sure they understood our needs and did everything right.

All of their engineers shared these qualities. Overall, the quality of their work was outstanding. We’re happy with the results they provided. The framework is easy to support and understand; it’s easy to onboard new people to it, and it brings value to the overall stability of the product.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I wish they would expand as a business and would onboard more engineers. Engenious can bring a lot of value to other businesses as well.

We could’ve possibly done this project even faster if we’d had more than two engineers. On the other hand, we wouldn’t have been able to manage it efficiently.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Clients should listen to what Engenious is saying. They have lots of expertise, so the client shouldn’t hesitate to ask for their advice.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I act as a Project Manager at software development company . On the project where we interefered with Engenious I have acted as a Product Manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

At a certain development phase, I have realized that we are in need of extending the Team and I have considered the option to hire an external Team that will take all development related issues on their end. That is how we started to work with Engenious - they took over the control on the product development.

SOLUTION

How did you select Engenious and what were the deciding factors?

After the research of the potential partners on the web, we have shortlisted few companies and conducted the interviews. Engenious fitted all our needs.

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

After the kick-off meeting, we have started the knowledge sharing process. They took over the control over the development quite fast. As our needs are dynamically changing, we have decided to use SCRUM methodology and so, Engenious Team delivers us the functionality on a two weeks Sprints.

The product should be up to do date with the market requests and frequent updates developed on time and integrated into the existing codebase was critical to us.

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

They have offered us a Team of four senior employees: two backend and two frontend developers and that had completely covered our needs. QA engineer and designer services were offered on the ad-hoc basis as well. The core Team consisted of four employees with the option to extend to six.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

As we are constantly developing the product together with Engenious Team for almost a year, they have delivered valuable features for us like Stripe payment, informative dashboards, and so on. That helps us in getting new Clients onboard - that is the key metric of success.

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

It all started with the daily sync up calls and now we have weekly sync up. The Engenious Team appeared to be reliable enough to manage the development process on their own. Their Team clearly understands what is set behind a certain feature, they know how to evaluate the risks in advance by clarifying the information on the weekly calls.

Such an understanding of the product gives me the opportunity to concentrate on handling the product up to date, adding new features and leave the development issues on their end.

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

By the time we have selected them we already knew some information about Engenious that was proved in our final interview. They have absolutely met our expectations from working with the external team - accurate in estimates, attentive to the details and needs, always think several steps ahead, etc.

Are there any areas for improvement?

All seems to be good for us - within almost a year of cooperation, I can't remember the moment where I thought of changing the partner.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a business development partner at an IT company. We provide services across Europe and the US, which includes augmenting teams and hiring subject matter experts for our clients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Engenious?

One of our clients was looking for a team that could do a particular type of software testing. It was difficult to come up with the appropriate talent in-house, so Engenious filled the gap for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

While I can’t go into too much detail, I can say that Engenious has provided a team that had the right skill sets to architect a specific testing scheme. The project is for a high-volume solution that has around 50 million users.

What is the team composition? 

We work with 10 team members who have expert knowledge in this particular testing scope. They instruct us to help figure out the right approach and tackle our client’s problems. The team also comes across as very charming.

How did you come to work with Engenious?

We found Engenious through a referral from someone we’d worked with in the past. They had a positive experience, so we went with them.

How much have you invested with them?

It’s a monthly fee of $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve worked with them since April 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since outsourcing testing responsibilities to them, it’s been a seamless process. Engenious executes perfectly. They’re on time and on budget, and we haven’t heard any bad news from our clients.

How did Engenious perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been on top of project management, erring toward over-communicating to maintain transparency. We never have any questions about what’s supposed to happen or how things are being executed. Our main tools are email and Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Engenious is an absolute expert in this specific testing field. Their team gives us the time and patience to explain how we should approach a task, and it’s easy to digest their information because the outcome is always logical.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’s hard to say. I’d mention pricing since they’re a bit more on the expensive side, but you pay for what you get. In that sense, we have no issue with the amount of value they deliver.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Understand the general scope and deliverables of your own project so that Engenious can best perform. They’re great at chiseling down what they need out of the requirements.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior software QA lead engineer for AnchorFree, an internet company. My team does R&D.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Engenious?

We were looking for a company to help us learn the shift left testing approach and provide support. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Engenious helped us implement a new pipeline based on continuous delivery integration software. It reports to our database from actions on the client's side. They integrated an automation process into the new pipeline that connects the results of testing to TestRail, our test writing system. It reflects everything from the testing site and configures a report. 

When developers push a request to GitHub, that action initiates action on the continuous integration server, like Jenkins, and begins automation testing. The results send to TestRail, generating a report, which is delivered to the manual testers. Any test cases not finished will be completed manually.

They provided automation testing and a great structure of these automation testing based on their experience and our requirements.

What is the team composition?

For the initial pilot product, there were four people; two developers, a team lead, and a manager to monitor everything. We now have two full-time people and a part-time person that works with us as needed.

How did you come to work with Engenious?

I searched for information on Basecamp because I wasn’t experienced with shift left testing. I ended up connecting with Engenious, and they were able to provide the services we were looking for. They had experience implementing this approach in other companies.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began discussing and negotiating in October 2018. We began working on the actual project around February 2019, and it is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The quality of their work meets our requirements, and we are happy to continue the collaboration. We have saved a lot of time on manual testing as well as retesting. Engenious has advised and consulted us to make our processes easier and clearer. They optimize solutions and help during our monthly dynamic processes. We have learned from them through their interesting models and ideas. 

How did Engenious perform from a project management standpoint?

The majority of project management was done on our side by our project and product managers, but Engenious has done well in the areas they managed. They ask how they can improve and offer their help in any way we need it. They are very responsive, regardless of our time zone differences. Communication is very good; we have two weekly meetings, one that I hold with the team and another led by our product manager. They provide clear time sheets for their work, as well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Engenious understands our goals and expectations and communicates very openly. They’re flexible, adjusting to help us in every situation. Open communication helps the project move along smoothly and quickly. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any problems.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Work together to find what works for you. It’s a two-way street; the more communicative you are with them, the better they can work for you.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the QA manager at Fuel Cycle.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Engenious?

We had an idea. We wanted to speed up our creative and development process and make it cleaner. We don’t have automation in place for mobile application development like we have elsewhere.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have two POC projects with Engenious. One for iPhone, one for iOS. The main idea was how we could improve our processes in QA and development. They helped us decide to work on native frameworks. We used Espresso for Android and XCUITest for iOS.

What is the team composition?

We worked with one engineer for each project. We also worked with a DevOps engineer for a few days.

How did you come to work with Engenious?

A friend of mine recommended them to me. We did research and they showed us a sample project so we proceeded.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $25,000 and $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked from February–June 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They gave us very good suggestions about how the actual development flow should work. These started at simple comments on code reviews, to peer review, to further merging and branching. It was complex and we made changes and improvements because of them.

How did Engenious perform from a project management standpoint?

On our side we used Jira, but they managed their flow separately with their developers assigned. We structured the project and defined our scope, breaking the project into smaller pieces and started moving from there.

Everything went smoothly with Engenious. We faced no big delays or no issues in communicating what to expect.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They didn’t just deliver what was promised. They also gave very good suggestions outside of scope and helped us implement them. This was very valuable and I appreciated it. They went the extra mile.

Are there any areas they could improve?

If they entered new spaces, like API testing, that would be great. I’d hire them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Define all of your requirements. These guys can proceed based upon your requirements. Don’t think, just hire them!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was brought onto a new team to improve the automated testing of an internal MacOS tool used company-wide by 10's of 1000's of users. There was an existing test suite but it was performing very poorly. I was also tasked with developing an automated test suite for the iOS version of this tool, which had zero automated testing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Engenious?

We hired Engenious to help us re-architect our existing automated testing and to leverage as much as possible the same tools and approaches for both MacOS and iOS validation.

SOLUTION

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

We couldn't find the adequate level of expertise amongst our existing vendors to help me pull of the work of re-architecting a new testing framework and suites of tests while maintaining the existing suites, which provided some benefit in spite of being extremely slow and brittle. I managed to find someone in another part of our organization in Europe who had worked with Engenious in the past and I reached out to Engenious directly.

They gave use a presentation of the solutions they had already put in place at other companies and we were very impressed. They had already implemented what I knew I would have to implement myself and they had some custom tooling to help with parallelizing MacOS test execution. Seeing the architecture of their existing solutions and tools was enough to convince us to give them a try.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We started a brand-new testing framework engineered using all the best practices of the Swift language and a very well-thought out framework and code organization structure and approach. The new framework's performance was lighting fast compared to the old testing framework (UI Tests are not performant by nature, but badly written tests can be horrifically slow) We set some execution time expectations and our Engenious architect was able to turn them into reality. Using the framework and screen model they developed, it was easy to bring on other resources to help churn out the tests, which Engenious also helped us with.

We accomplished an amazing amount of work with a very small team of contractors provided by Engenious. It would have taken me so much longer without their help and I didn't have the proven experience of their approach that they brought to the table. Eventually we had enough tests to confidently turn off the old automation. We got the results in a fraction of the time and the tests have been much more stable. As our needs evolved, they provided more improved solutions. Since our tests focus on UI behavior we looked into stubbing the network responses to improve test stability and performance. Our Engenious architect made this happen.

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

We started with one architect and eventually grew the team to 3 additional test engineers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Our tests are much more robust, stable, and reliable, not to mention vastly outperform the existing tests we had in place.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Engenious delivered on all our expectations - some of our asks were fluid and changed over time but they came thru for us in a reasonable amount of time in spite of this. The team was onsite and very responsive to our requests and feedback and very committed to delivering on our expectations.

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

We have been unable to find talent with the same engineering skill level that they have brought to us. I know there are strong test engineers out there but they are very hard to find. Engenious's solutions and engineers are top-notch.

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

We have been very happy with their results.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Director of Operations of Flight Guru - online flight search engine that lets visitors search, browse and book cheap business and first class airfare instantly.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Engenious?

We have an engineering team in-house but since our company was quickly growing we needed much bigger engineering power. We needed a vendor who could handle out non-trivial ticket-search tasks. Engenious did the great job.

SOLUTION

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

We were looking for a vendor who can build the big chunk of complicated engineering work without a day to day management from our side. Engenious is a company with a great managed delivery services so we have chosen them.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package.

Engenious build us our customized dedicated team from scratch. Our CTO personally interviewed every member of the team and made sure all of them are experts. We decided to move on with a JS stack. Project Manager was amazing. He did a very detailed sprint plannings and presented me a personal demo regularly.

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

Project manager was the main point of contact. However, the team contained:

• 4 back-end specialists
• 2 front-end specialists
• iOS & Android Developers (they developed us the app for internal use)
• designer
• 2 QAs

QAs were very proficient as well and found a lot of good edge-cases.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

https://flightguru.com is the main outcome. The system is extremely popular. We have a lot of internal metrics of how fast different search inquiries go through and they indicate work was done very well.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Project Manager is almost native English speaker which was a great bonus. We had a sync with PM, lead developer and designer 2 times per week. In addition, we had a planning and demo show once in 2 weeks.

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

They have a very strong engineering team. The programmers at Engenious know their job for sure. Our CTO gave me a 5 star review on their work quality.

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

Overall, we were very satisfied with their services. It took a little longer than expected to assemble the initial team but the quality was worth it

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m COO for Ugears USA, official distributor in the US, selling 3D puzzles online, wholesale and thru distribution channels.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We were looking for better performance of our website as well as integration with CRM and all our media platforms, user Experience flow to make for a more convenient and intuitive shopping experience. Add Google Analytics for better tracking. Move site to AWS and optimize its performance for better user experience.

SOLUTION

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

This was a referral from another Engenious direct customer. We were looking for the company with a good track of record and fast performance and delivery.

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

Engenious team helped us to completely redesign change UX of our site for more convenient and more easy navigation during shopping experience. Added google analytics for tracking user behavior and collecting sales metrics. They also moved our site from GoDaddy hosting to AWS and optimized site performance.

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

We worked with:

• 1 UX/UI designer
• 1 front-end developer
• 1 backend developer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our site retention rate has grew by 30% since we have started working with ENGENIOUS team due to improved UX and site performance

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

Although we did not hire project manager from Engenious side, the entire team was accustomed to iterative development cycles. I have adopted an agile approach and the whole team was attending scrum rituals such as daily standups, sprint planning, retrospectives call mom and showcases

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

I am very impressed with the team and how diligent they are about the details. From the day one we have started working with Engenious team, I felt they are a part of our company.

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

Nothing I could of think at the moment