Avenga

Please describe your company and your position there.

I head engineering for few products within the company

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

We had need to expedite our product development. We hired Avenga to provide experienced staff for these projects.

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

We had reviewed 3 vendors and narrowed down to Avenga based on their track record and costs.

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

Design, develop and test the product features

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

The team size was around 30 including:

• project leads
• scrum masters
• developers
• architect
• testers

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

We were able to launch the product on time and have been able to get new features in the committed time frame.

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

Their project management was good, we had all meetings per scrum. We also had a short weekly status meeting to provide us with where the project stands, any risks that we need to be aware of, etc.

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

The team is easy to work with and, for the most part, keeps their schedule.

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

There is one area of automation where they should figure out how to speed it up

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a world leader in the Arts sector, based in London, UK. I head up the Digital Products team, responsible for all digital touchpoints with our global audiences.

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

We wanted to augment our in house team with an additional team of software engineers, quality assurance, delivery managers and designers. Initially we engaged with Perfectial on a small part of our digital offering to deliver a discrete piece of work. The relationship grew organically from there.

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

We looked at a number of vendors, eventually shortlisting four based on their responses to our RFP. We ranked them on a number of standard factors including technical skills and design capabilities.

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

The Perfectial team augment our in house team, aligning with our ways of working, led by our people. We try to work on products, rather than projects, so the team shift focus according to our needs across our suite of products. They are able to offer candidates to suit all of our needs but our tech stack largely consists of JavaScript (in various flavours) right now.

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

We have a standing team which consists of a mixture of junior, midweight and senior developers (some fullstack), QAs, a delivery manager and a UX designer. Occasionally this flexes up or down, based on our needs.

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

The deliverables are consistently to a high standard. The team's excellent support has helped us build our credentials internally with our stakeholders.

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

The team aligned with our existing ways of working, which was perfect. They also run their own internal stand-ups to make sure they are aligned and feel part of the wider Perfectial community. We use Slack and Jira as our standard toolset, with Teams for video calls within the product teams day to day. The combination works well. We also have weekly checkpoints with our project/delivery/account manager for service checks and general engagement.

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

Their talent identification and onboarding. We've never encountered a problem in bringing additional people with new skillsets on demand. They're also keen to push their internal talent pipeline and are always looking at effective ways to bring junior staff onboard.

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

They're a terrific partner but as the relationship grows we'll expect to see more technical and thought leadership.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the VP of Product and Engineering at Klara. I manage a team of 40 including Product, Design, Engineering, DevOps/SRE. We are a SAAS service that aims to improve communication between a doctor and a patient.

We are founded in Berlin, but our target market is 100% US based. We are funded by Google Gradient, FristCressey Ventures and Firstmark

For what projects/services did your company hire Perfectial?

We originally hired a team of 5 people to take on our EHR integration challenges. The intent was to build a team that would focus exclusively on integrating with these health systems

What were your goals for this project?

We started the project with the intent to build a team for the long-term. My business goal was to establish a staff-aug partner to assist our staffing efforts and provide additional options and flexibility for us as a company for engineering talent.

On the technical side, the goals were to build out an integration roughly every 3 mo.

How did you select Perfectial?

I did a vendor selection process. I had worked with Perfectial before, but only a small project. I narrowed this down to 3 companies.

At this point it came down to who could provide the candidates fastest that would pass our interview screen. Perfectial won this.

Describe the project in detail.

The project was mostly backend work in Ruby. the engineers h ad to learn proprietary apis from EHR companies like Athena, Allscripts etc. They had to learn the FHIR standard.

They build an initial integration (Nextech) and then followed up with one pretty much every quarter thereafter....

Since then, we've introduced partner apis and other integrations to this team and expanded their scope. Our stack was Ruby/PostGres with React front end. All webbased

What was the team composition?

1 project manager 4 backend engineers. (2 Sr, 2 intermediate) we now are at 1 project manager 1 TL 5 Sr 3 Intermediate 2 QA

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

Today, this team is fully integrated into our business, and every day they play a key role in the Klara team.

They have subject matter expertise and component ownership over a critical piece of our software: 5+ successful EHR Integrations have been key to this team’s success and Klara’s success.

Each one has been a revenue driver for us. Additionally, during this time, we’ve only lost one engineer (who actually decided to return to our team during COVID). This team also supports requests from our most strategic and important customers.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The team is fully integrated now. From a workflow perspective, they act like any engineer on our team and you wouldn't know they are part of Perfectial unless you asked them Early on, we had a separate track for them and a dedicated Product manager.

We had the Lviv team and the Berlin team and there was a clear separation with regard to meetings etc....We have evolved as trust was built, and the team has started making an impact in other areas.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Our project manager. She is totally totally awesome. Team cohesion. I think their team has a very positive attitude Support on business issues...like HIPAA compliance and security reviews

Are there any areas for improvement?

not really

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the IT manager for a banking institution.

What challenge were you trying to address with Avenga?

We run a few high profiles in the investment banking part of the bank. We needed staff augmentation and consulting help.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Avenga provides Java programmers and web developers.

What is the team composition?

They are supplying 5–10 consultants.

How did you come to work with Avenga?

They had a relationship with our company before I joined.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in August 2017, and our engagement is ongoing.

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

They provided us with quite a lot of people within a limited time. If I had to calculate the impact, it’s relatively high, especially on their high profile projects. They’re doing a good job, and they’re a high-quality partner.

How did Avenga perform from a project management standpoint?

We have project managers on our side. They’re managed internally by us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Avenga has good account management, and the team is top-notch.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am responsible for global delivery and software engineering taking place outside of our local markets. I am also the managing director of our Polish entity where we have an engineering center.

What challenge were you trying to address with Avenga?

They helped augment our staff. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Avenga found candidates to support our IT projects in Poland. We needed .NET and Java developers to support one side of our business. We also are looking at Microsoft Dynamics because we are building several solutions on Microsoft Dynamics in finance and operations, and also business central.

Avenga compiled profiles of candidates with either a general engineering background or more specific, niche expertise for us to consider.   

We also use their consulting services and asked for technological advice on products that we are rolling out internally. 

What is the team composition?

We have about 20 people on contract right now.

How did you come to work with Avenga?

We found them through recommendations.

How much have you invested in them?

We spend around $1.5 million per year (approximately $3 million in total).

What is the status of this engagement?

The first contract was from in February 2018.

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

We have found some really good people through Avenga; we now have some awesome people working on our account.

Overall, we're very happy with the collaboration with Avenga. There were two people that we had to get rid of and one person found another job. Apart from that, we retain more than 96% of the people they send us.  They hit the mark and are able to find the right consultant for us. 

How did Avenga perform from a project management standpoint?

It has been very good. The people we have had the pleasure of working with have all been very engaged. They've been very good at communicating, and have been open and transparent about various challenges.

They are very attentive, honest, and transparent which were all important factors at the beginning of our engagement.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We work with a lot of talented people and it is also a pleasure to see that a lot of females are sitting in higher management positions in Avenga. I think it sends an awesome message to the whole of IT because there are a lot of men in IT. I couldn’t be happier with the performance of the developers and engineers that are female.

I think it sends a strong message to everyone. Avenga does not only talk the talk about equal opportunity they also walk the walk which is super important for us. In our engineering center, we might not reach 50/50 men and women tomorrow. However, we are working hard to be an attractive workplace for girls in IT and it's essential that our strategic partners align with us strategically as we are rapidly growing the female ratio of our IT talent. Avenga is leading the way in this aspect.

Are there any areas they could improve?

One of our other partners has a pretty fantastic online administration system that we wish Avenga would use. The tool lets them manage all the consultants that we have on contract with them, view the data regarding their rates, and monitor the expiry of the contract. Everything can be called out electronically from this portal. 

When we ask, they will send all that information to us and it doesn’t take very long. Still, I believe in self-service so if I can log in to a portal a see all of that, then I don’t have to disturb anyone on the team.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be absolutely transparent about your needs, what kind of success factors you have, and the type of candidates you are looking for. Transparency will help them deliver what you want. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re an IT provider for a group of companies. We’re active across the globe and have about 500 tech employees in Austria. We provide software solutions and services to the group’s different organizational entities. In Austria, we’re developing a software system that provides all of the critical business processes for any type of insurance company. The system has been developed for nearly two decades, and it serves as a strategic solution for the entire group.

In Vienna, we have three different delivery centers. One provides the core solution, a generic version of the system that is adapted by different optimization units to the specific needs of our end-customer. I am involved in one of these customization departments, so I’m adding the delivery and cross-functional teams for our end-customer, a partner of the group. We are taking over the system’s core and are developing it, customizing it, and changing some requirements and features to enable the system to work for the end-customer, a global organization focused on travel, event, and device insurance as well as assistance services.

What challenge were you trying to address with Avenga?

We have a high demand for external contributors. We’re always looking to fill specific positions — sometimes on a temporary basis — for experts in various areas, such as business analysts, developers, testers, test managers, and specific specialty positions. Since we’re growing very fast, we have to react very flexibly to the demands of our end-customers.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Avenga has become one of our trusted service providers. They regularly work with us to fill the expert positions we have open. They work with us in the same way as our internal employees: they’re part of the team and contribute like all of the other team members. We have two separate streams of development for the different needs of our customers. We have teams that work on the travel insurance side and on the assistance business. However, they both work on the same code base. 

Our teams consist of both internal and external contractual partners that work closely with our product owners. Our product owners come from our customer audience partners and define the requirements for the teams. We’re currently working toward three major releases of our system per year. We work in two-week sprints, and we have intermediate, bi-weekly minor releases for the customer as well.

What is the team composition?

I’m responsible for staffing the developer side of things, so mostly Java and phase one developers. If we have a requirement for business analysts or project managers, another department handles that.

We typically have an extensive selection process with two rounds of interviews to ensure the consultant or specialist fits with the team. We currently have about 15 contractors that are distributed across different teams and projects.

How did you come to work with Avenga?

I can’t tell you how we originally came to work with them because it precedes my role in the project. However, they were one of the group’s first partners. The quality of their profiles impressed us, as did the experts that they came up with. We were also impressed by their communication.

How much have you invested with them?

I’d estimate that we spent about $1 million–$1.5 million per year.

What is the status of this engagement?

I believe Avenga has worked with the group for 3–4 years, if not longer.

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

They have fast reaction times and quickly resolve issues.

How did Avenga perform from a project management standpoint?

The account manager we work with is very helpful and diligent about coming up with solutions that work for us. We have a very open and honest atmosphere. If there’s a problem, we can quickly resolve it and find a solution that is beneficial to us.

The communication style, the experts they provide, and their management style is what has made us stay with them as a partner. They’re close by and can drop by for a face-to-face discussion.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very diligent with their preselection process. Sometimes, providers send all kinds of profiles that aren’t suitable or don’t fill your base requirements. Avenga makes sure that they preselect the appropriate resources that have the skills we need. In general, they have a very solid process.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing I’d have them improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open about any problems you encounter or if you’re not satisfied with one of your contractors. They will make sure that problems get solved, such as finding a replacement candidate. Work on building a relationship with them. Maintain communication and provide regular feedback on how the contractors are performing.

Introduce your business and what you do there. 

I’m VP software development at Instem, a software development house that works within the life sciences industry pharmaceuticals. My position covers all of the software development and testing.

What challenge were you trying to address with Core Value Inc.? 

We had a significant contractual commitment. We needed to augment our staff in order to help us deliver that software.

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Core Value Inc. provided us with supplemental development staff who worked as integrated members of our teams. They also provided a software tester to give us additional capacity to meet the contractual requirements. 

Their team used a mix of technologies, including Microsoft SQL Server and the .NET framework. On top of that, they used an application lifecycle management (ALM) Azure DevOps system. 

What is the team composition?

For the most recent project, we had two people working with us. We used a team of 6–8 people on a previous project. 

How did you come to work with Core Value Inc.?

Instem was already using Core Value Inc. when I joined the company. At one point, we moved away from contracting for strategic reasons. We brought them back on when we changed our approach because of the value they provide. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $250,000–$500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The most recent project started in January 2017 and ran for 18 months.

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

They've become an integral part of our team’s ability to actually deliver the work we need to do. Core Value Inc. met all assigned deliverables, which made them very valuable.

Judging their contributions as members of a scrum team, the feedback has always been that Core Value Inc. consistently provides top performers. Their employees are often the strongest members of the various teams. We've been extremely happy with the contributions they've made, and continue to see the benefits of having them on board. Because of their successful work to date, we just brought back the two people we used recently for a different project.

How did Core Value Inc. perform from a project management standpoint? 

We led the project management and oversight. We got weekly updates and reports so that we could understand where Core Value Inc. was in the project and what they’d provided us. We also integrated them into our communication systems. We used Skype, Microsoft Teams, and Azure DevOps. They were fully integrated as members of the team and using the same technology as everyone else. 

What did you find most impressive about them? 

Core Value Inc. was quite flexible in their availability. We've got a good working relationship. They've been able to accommodate us, even when we required additional resources on short notice. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, at the moment we're very happy with the people we've used. Their team is so strong. As a fundamental issue, I expect augment staff to be able to work as if they are part of our team and have been for a while. Core Value Inc. is absolutely able to do so. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers? 

I encourage you to work the way we do and incorporate them on your scrum teams. Give them the same tools as everyone else and treat them as if they're an FTE.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the lead developer for a company called vzaar, which is a London-based online video hosting platform.

What challenge were you trying to address with Solidbrain?

We had a lack of development resources, and also, relevant skills for that specific piece of work. The desk team at Vzaar was composed of ten developers, but they were only versed in Ruby. Because we had a public API, we needed to provide multiple SDKs [Software Development Kit] for our API. Our own team could develop some, but we outsourced the ones we couldn’t build to Solidbrain. At the end of the engagement, we wanted an SDK that accurately reflected our spec, and had great, if not full test coverage, and good documentation.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We gave them a very specific brief. While the Solidbrain developer built the PHP SDK for us, I was in parallel with him, building the Ruby SDK. The SDK was a pretty standard API wrapper. We wanted to make it much more user or developer-friendly. We also did a full re-build of our API, so when we moved to the newest version, we decided that instead of upgrading the existing SDKs we would do complete rewrites.

From the outset, we wanted a senior developer. Once they assigned the developer to us, for the second full week that he was on the project I went and worked with him in Poland for a week, where we did most of the run through of the spec. By that stage, the spec was pretty much done so that we could work through some of the more, relatively speaking, complex API endpoints. It was easier to explain things face-to-face rather than over the phone. During the project, we would speak every day.

How did you come to work with Solidbrain?

We found them based on a recommendation, because they’re based in Krakow, Poland. We had previously worked with a Krakow-based consultancy, and one of our remote developers was still living near Krakow.

How much have you invested with Solidbrain?

We invested about $6,500. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2016 and the collaboration ended in June.

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

It was a successful project—on time and on budget. I believe the number of support requests since the new SDKs have been generated has been very low. On all fronts, it was money well spent.

How did Solidbrain perform from a project management standpoint?

Everything was pretty spot on. I would estimate each ticket because I would have to do the same ticket myself in the SDK that I was personally building. We made the estimates pretty much the same given that there was a senior developer from Solidbrain building the other one. Given the system in place, we didn’t really need a project manager to be involved that much. It just involved coming up with a work breakdown. We had a good spec. Daily communication was on Slack, and occasionally we would have a voice call.

What did you find most impressive about Solidbrain?

I thought they were very professional. Especially when I got to the offices in Poland, it was a much bigger operation than I expected. They had taken over the old Google offices in Krakow. I forget exactly how many people they had working in the office, but it was probably about triple the number I had expected. The way that they handled my presence for that week was really good. So, apart from the good work the developer did, they were great. I would happily work with them again.

Are there any areas Solidbrain could improve?

No, nothing immediately comes to mind. I thought the prices they gave us were good and met our expectations, so we didn’t feel any need to negotiate it down. Overall, the whole engagement was fairly easy and smooth. There were no pain points, and I don’t have any criticism or constructive feedback for them.

Do you have any advice or recommendations for someone who is looking to potentially start a project with them?

It is not necessarily specific to Solidbrain, but I’ve found from working with remote developers that it is much more important to have developers whose English is strong, as opposed to those whose English is not, and their technical skills are very strong. If the communication is difficult, the whole collaboration becomes difficult. As such, my advice is to make sure that the communication is smooth and easy, and everything else will follow nicely. With Solidbrain, we made sure that the individuals they assigned were well versed in English. However, we also had a Polish individual on our team, so communication was never really an issue.