AMgrade

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

I am a developer myself and started my career as a QA [quality assurance] engineer working for other companies. When I received the results of the work, it made tests myself in order to see if everything was good. I was never satisfied with other providers because there were many bugs, and there was a lack of desire to create a feature in a good way. They could implement a task exactly as specified in the description, but didn’t try to understand what the client needed.

The number of bugs is very low with AMgrade’s work, and I haven’t spent as much time testing their deliverables compared to other companies. They’ve tried to deliver better results than what was asked. I like working with them because of these two aspects.

How did AMgrade perform from a project management standpoint?

We can work on a fixed price, project basis with AMgrade, delivering the full scope of work using project managers and QA testers, but I’ve mainly worked directly with the developers since I’m a developer myself. The estimates they provide are solid, and we can discuss why a task can take five days, rather than one. In most cases, I don’t have any issues with their justifications. From a development perspective, AMgrade has met deadlines and estimates in most cases.

I have a lot of experience working with remote teams, so I haven’t had a problem in this regard. I start my day around six or seven o’clock in the morning on New York time, when it’s the middle of the day in Ukraine. I have a chance to review what has been done so far, as well as provide comments and feedback which will be addressed by the end of the day. I receive finished results by 11 AM. I have also talked to developers from their homes, at 11 PM their time, which is 4 PM for me. Overall, the process works for me, and it’s simply one of the nuances of using a remote team. They won’t be available full time during local working hours, so I need to schedule my time around this. It can be a challenge to encounter a bug late in the afternoon after the working day has ended in Ukraine. Two or three hours in the morning, or even more, depending on how early I start, as well as additional availability over email and Skype later in the day, is pretty good for me.

What did you find most impressive about AMgrade?

For me, quality of work is important, and I feel that they’ve provided this as well as expertise. The technologies on my project are relatively new, and AMgrade has tried to stay on top of them.

Are there any areas AMgrade could improve?

There have been things which I needed to improve, but over time, I’ve gotten used to them.

The language difference is not relevant in my case since I speak Ukrainian. On one project, there was a need for one of AMgrade’s developers to speak directly to another one from the client’s side in English. That particular developer was not very good in terms of language skills. It also depends on the resources hired by the client, in terms of project management.