BlueRider.Software

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a tech lead responsible for implementing original credit risk model and internal reporting tools that is leading a blended team consisting of BlueRider.Software and other developer.

For what projects/services did your company hire BlueRider.Software, and what were your goals?

We hired BlueRider to be part of blended teams within our company. The overall goal of was to improve our Python best practices, build credit risk engine and improve endpoints based on Python.

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

The deterministic factor to choose BlueRiders was their broad pool of Python developers that are actively engaged in Bialystok Python community Pystok.

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

The scope of work included, but was not limited to creating credit scoring risk model build on AWS Lambda and Step-functions connected with AWS Sagemaker. Developers were responsible for modifying the existing infrastructure, improve test coverage and further develop it based on requirements from internal stakeholders. The credit risk model requires constant improvements based on new risk data, which ensures that it will not finish with single deliverable goal. Apart from the risk model the developers are responsible for creating connectors that will channel data to internal monitoring tools. Due to the fact that developers were intended to be a part of blended teams there was no clear goal of the project. Developers are integral part of the team and work hand in hand in agile framework with others.

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

I had a chance to work with 3 Python developers from BlueRiders that were developers with various level of experience.

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

Thanks to contribution of BlueRiders development we managed to channel 1000% more applications through our credit risk engine over the period of our cooperation. The developers showed high level of independence and willingness to implement best coding practices that were well perceived by the rest of the team. When faced with not clearly defined tickets during sprint, they can suggest their own good solutions.

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

We worked together in blended teams in Agile. We use Jira as our project management tool and BlueRiders didn't have any problems with adapting to it. In terms of timelines the developers do delivered the tasks mostly on time and were communicating clearly whenever there was a risk of delaying or working extra hours to deliver them.

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

Throughout my two visits on site in BlueRiders office I had a chance to see a very friendly atmosphere between the team and the management. I highly value their strive for excellence.

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

They could inform the partners better about developer availability and their schedule collision with other projects.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the CEO of Open Topic when I worked with BlueRider.Software. Our company focused on content marketing software and natural language processing.

What challenge were you trying to address with BlueRider.Software?

We needed an IT engineering partner.

What was the scope of their involvement?

BlueRider.Software worked as our company's official engineering team, and their technology stack was mainly comprised of Python and Sharp. We initially engaged them to generate a software solution that enabled our users to activate content curation for their marketing purposes.

Upon accomplishing both the front- and backend of this product, they built a machine learning tool connected to IBM Watson licenses. We also tasked them with handling the cloud storage and setting up the entire system. 

What is the team composition?

Our main point of contact was their project manager, but we worked with a large team of developers, engineers, and UI/UX designers.

How did you come to work with BlueRider.Software?

They were already working on a small project for my company when I joined — I evaluated their outputs and thought their skill set could fit our requirements for this bigger engagement.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our collaboration ran from January 2012–June 2018. BlueRider.Software worked on a few more minor tasks after that, but I wasn't part of the company anymore.

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

We were able to acquire close to 50 customers with BlueRider.Software's help, which represented good revenue for us. Additionally, they successfully pivoted our initial product into the AI direction. 

How did BlueRider.Software perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Basecamp, Confluence, and other internal tools for project management. BlueRider.Software impressed us with quick turnaround times and quality deliverables throughout the engagement.

What did you find most impressive about them?

What stood out about their team was their willingness to bring productive ideas to the table instead of simply following our instructions and requirements. BlueRider.Software refined our vision and transformed it into a reliable product that's even better than what we had in mind. It's hard to find a service provider with strong project management and noteworthy brainstorming skills, but they were that kind of partner to us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could benefit from a more precise approach in frontend development, but I'm sure they addressed that by now.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Take your time in identifying what outcomes you want to get out of the engagement. Once you know these, you can start by assigning simple tasks to their team to determine if you're confident in the quality of the work they produce. BlueRider.Software is a trustworthy and flexible team — they'll work closely with you to meet your goals.