CGS-team

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

PN is a platform where people can buy or sell their staff. It includes chat for customers and merchants, emails, and notifications for actions. Users can comment, follow one another, and rate products. We are the agency that worked with CGS-team. Our costumer was in Switzerland.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire CGS-team, and what were your goals?

The challenges are mainly bugs related to the notifications system, translations, image uploading, categories etc... Their challenge was also to work on a code that was previously done by another developper. They were WAY better than the other dev.

SOLUTION

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

Professional from the start, very clear quote, 2 calls of about 45 minutes to understand our needs. They had nothing but good reviews on the various platforms.

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

CGS-team fixed oneSignal notifications system, sending emails through the mailer feature, sending SMS through the Twilio feature, and auth with Facebook and Google. The technology stack used includes:

• TypeScript
• React Native
• NodeJS
• NestJS
• Social media AUTH /Google
• Facebook/
• OneSignal API
• WebRTC

The revision list was very big (more than 100 points) and point after point we managed to do them all and have a fully functional application (which is still very hard with a marketplace in 3 languages)

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

• Timur (Team lead)
• Sergiy (Mobile developer)
• Alexander (Mobile developer)
• Oles (Mobile developer)
• Olga (Backend developer)

All very professional and humans. Especially during the period of the war in Ukraine.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The team fulfilled the demands and expectations. They delivered all the tasks qualitatively and on time. We're happy with the final result, as all the goals set for the work are achieved, and the product works much better now. Real professionals.

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

They provided immediate feedback, no matter if it was PM or СEO. Slack was for fast communication, Jira was for task management, and Harvest was for time-tracking. There were meetings twice a week, daily team calls, weekly demo meetings, and retro meetings. Furthermore, I wasn't charged for project management services. They really took time to do things well and I appreciated that.

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

As I mentioned before, the communication was fast. We could fix all issues and clarify all the nuances immediately. The team also strictly followed the deadlines and was proactive in their work and suggestions.

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

If any confusion or issues appeared, the team was always available to fix and discuss them fast. Also, they were open to any changes needed and provided them strictly and fast.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I work at Lemon.io - marketplace of vetted software developers. I connect Senior+ level engineers with startups worldwide, based on their product and technologies background.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire CGS-team, and what were your goals?

At the time of late 2021 our company was facing a lack of full-stack engineers, who also had blockchain expertise. Our goal was to fulfill the rapidly growing demand for dApps developers (DeFi web & mobile)

SOLUTION

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

A solution was found fast, as the CGS team had proven production experience with Blockchain. Several developers among the team have already worked on dApps backed by Ethereum chain; combining that with modern tech stack - Javascript, Typescript, React, Node, React Native and AWS + awesomely affordable hourly rates - and we got a successful long-term outsourcing cooperation.

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

We've worked with CGS developers on 17 different projects, mostly involving full-stack developers with the following skillset: Javascript, Typescript, React, Node, React Native, Next, AWS, Solidity, Web3.js, GraphQL. Developers proved to have excellent communication skills, while also writing quality code, documenting it, putting under e2e and unit tests and helped with further deployment on server/cloud.

They have great architecture expertise, allowing them to build genuinely robust applications, which are able to scale anytime business needs it.

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

Those 17 projects I mentioned were covered by 20 different full stack web & mobile developers, who each made a significant impact on a projects' lifecycle. To highlight a few:

• Pavlo O. - truly hardworking guy with excellent mobile application expertise, who can work on low-level native iOS & Android modules with React Native;
• Nikita O. - amazing back-end engineer with production experience with smart contracts (Solana, Solidity), backed by deep expertise in JS and Node;
• Oleg R. - engineer with great architecture vision, who's really into Blockchain stuff. Very trustworthy person;
• Rostyslav S. - incredible expertise in AWS, knows ins and outs of succesfull DeFi app, can easily troubleshoot any problem

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

All you hear about Ukrainians' hardworking lifestyle - that fits to CGS team too. Given we've outsourced developers directly to US and Remote startups - guys delivered great results

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

I like how Oleksii (Founder) has settled management in CGS - it's horizontal, and everyone knows what they're doing and why. Being a full-remote team they are flexible in schedule, and sometimes that can result in putting not enough effort in the job. However, we haven't faced a single claim over the deliverable issues, or the communication.

The plank is set high, and they keep pushing to their limits, while also being completely transparent if something is going not to the plan. Additionally, communication is fast, my teammates and I can reach Oleksii easily to quickly find solution to the problem, because they know the price of everybody's time. And according to my experience, CGS don't waste any.

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

The most impressive thing - how easy is to communicate with everyone. They are all clever people with no bullshit background. I find their values to be wonderful in the modern tech industry. They stay up-to-date with latest tech trends, which is perfect if we're talking Blockchain. And again, I love how CGS value the time!

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

In rather rare cases, I faced communication timing issues. Yet, Oleksii brought that under the light, and solved the problem by adding an additional person into our process to communicate with.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a software solution company for B2B networking and supply chain management and optimization within the healthcare industry. We started the company about a year and a half ago.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Code Generation?

We’d been working with different developers that we found on Total and Upwork. Our goal was to get front- and backend developers to build our solution’s foundation and MVP.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Code Generation helped us build our MVP and rebuild the entire web-based software from the ground up after we got funding and support. We initially gave qualitative explanations about what we were trying to achieve. They urged us to build an information architecture map so they could understand better what we wanted the whole platform to look like. After working with them to give them a big-picture understanding, we started working with their CTO, who was one of their best developers.

They took on projects within this information architecture, specifically database projects. They built a substantial part of our database, including the customer address book. Also, they helped create an inventory system and some consumer-facing purchasing and checkout processes. We had a separate team to handle the design. They used Figma, and we’d hand off the frames to our frontend developers, including Code Generation.

They wrote code in JavaScript, specifically MERN stack. They did everything from MongoDB for the database side and backend structuring to React for the frontend and UI.

What is the team composition?

We had two people from Code Generation on our team. Initially, we were in contact with a business relationship manager. He helped to sort things out and understand the project’s scope. We mainly worked with the CTO. He became our primary contact for backend, middleware, and frontend developers. 

How did you come to work with Code Generation?

We found them on Upwork. At the time, we were an eight-person team. We were looking for someone with good work. Code Generation showed us all their work in the beginning, and we were impressed with what they’d done, so we brought them on. They didn’t have many reviews or experience in Upwork, but they could help us build out the project visually and were low-cost.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent over $60,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started doing business in June 2021 and wrapped up in July 2022. We stopped working together because they had more opportunities to get paid more money. We didn’t have the bandwidth to keep them on our payroll.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We find it hard to measure a developer’s work quantitatively. Still, Code Generation’s team could do a project faster than anyone else, especially when we told them when it needed to be done. Also, they were literal coders. If we gave them a Figma wireframe, it’d look exactly like it. Some of our other developers had their own ideas, so they’d influence the interfaces. We liked working with Code Generation because they took what we said literally and didn’t ask too many questions or put their nose to the grindstone.

How did Code Generation perform from a project management standpoint?

There was a bit of a language barrier, but they were always willing to smooth that over. We had a big time difference initially because they were working in Siberia. However, they ended up moving closer to Europe, so we were more on the same page and had fewer hiccups as the relationship continued. They were always willing to reroute the frontend to different backend data points when we asked and further explained.

They used Slack to communicate daily, ask questions, and provide comments. We had video conference meetings twice a week via Zoom or Google Meet. They were comfortable using both. Also, Upwork had a way to track when they were active. Moreover, they adopted all of our systems and fitted in pretty smoothly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Code Generation was fast and delivered one-to-one design translations of the product — they were identical replicas. They completed the projects perfectly. We were pretty blown away by them. Also, their CTO was probably the most efficient coder we had on our 16-person team, even by the end of our relationship. When he put his mind to it and was fully engaged, he was the most prolific and efficient team member.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The most difficult pain point in working with Code Generation was the communication back and forth. Sometimes there were misunderstandings because they’d finish projects so quickly that they wouldn’t be exactly what we wanted. For example, sometimes things wouldn’t be perfectly aligned between the frontend and backend as we’d hoped to present to our users.

On the other hand, they could’ve been more emotionally engaged with the product to the point where it became their baby as much as it was ours. However, that’s hard even for full-time employees or shareholders because motivating people is challenging.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Talk frequently and give explicit materials of what you want to develop. If you hand out materials and communicate with the developers, they'll be more capable of getting what you’ve described. It may not be exactly right, but you can talk to them so they can adjust it and fine-tune it until they get it right.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the head of software development at Pandemic Relief Supply and we specialize in creating software for supply chain optimization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Code Generation for a MERN stack project to help create new features for our existing supply chain solution platform. Our goal was to increase the services offered within our platform for both our internal team and external users. Code Generation helped complete multiple features to help expand our software.

SOLUTION

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

I ran an interview process with many candidates and chose Code Generation based on both the previous work they had done, an online interview I conducted with them, for the ability that being a team I was able to expand with them as needed and due to the fact that if my personal assigned developer ever had an issue he was able to get help from another team member to help resolve it.

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

We used MERN stack to create a leads tracking system, improvements to our order management system, improvements to an inquiry based system for product pricing, an area for tracking commissions and other general improvements to the application to become more optimized.

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

I worked with two members directly from their team one being the manager of developers and one being a developer themselves.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After introducing the features created by code generation our internal team was able to a lot of our operations to a more centralized location rather than having a lot of different software to handle different parts of our business.

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

We had constant communication back and forth being able to chat whenever was needed. They allowed me to set up the style I wanted for managing development. In our case, we set up a task-based system where I was able to assign tasks and monitor as each was completed and provide feedback.

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

What I found most impressive is their ability to meet the deadlines I set consistently, we are a fast-changing company and the team at Code Generation is able to meet us each step of the way.

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

When we first got started we had to find an effective means of communication and feedback, once we figured out a good method that worked between our two organizations it became smooth sailing.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Senior Product Manager here at Switch. We're developing a browser-based productivity platform to help improve the browser experience for knowledge workers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Code Generation as we were looking to outsource the build for a particular module. Our goal was to utilise the expertise of the company to quickly develop a module that could be directly imported into our current build, to rapidly improve our offering.

SOLUTION

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

We considered several other proposals, but the professional organisation and communication from the team were paramount in our decision-making process. We needed strong communication skills as the project was likely to need quick decisions made as it evolved.

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

We were looking for full-stack react developers with experience using MongoDB and Elasticsearch. The scope of work was to implement a new feature in our Chrome extension, which will enable our customers to centrally search through the history of applications they’ve used. The Chrome extension was implemented with React, TypeScript, Node and MongoDB. We required a deliverable that could be built as a private npm package, so that we could add to our extension as a module.

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

We communicated with Oleksii, the technical project manager, day-to-day, and ad-hoc with up to 3 senior developers depending on the specific conversations.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to implement the solution directly into our extension and launch within 2 weeks of delivery. We are still waiting on result metrics from the launch.

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

The project management was perfect - always accessible, and ready for a call if ever needed. We communicated through Slack day-to-day, and used Github as our code repo.

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

There were two things that really proved impressive about working with Oleksii and the team.

1. Their communication was impeccable. Whenever we had queries, questions, or needed updates, Oleksii would get back to us immediately and then update as soon as he could. When managing timelines with outsourced work, this made such a difference as we could run our internal development perfectly in parallel.
2. Time was not charged for troubleshooting or tweaks required from the developers. This gave us real confidence in the quality of the delivery, and gave us confidence that we could simply 'plug-and-play' the module on delivery.

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

We had one small piece of confusion on the timesheets, however, this was handled expertly by Oleksii ensuring that they were correct. Moving forward, we simply agreed to be more explicit with time-estimates/logging, to ensure each piece of work was confirmed before started. As I said before, this was never really a concern though, as the communication and quality of delivery meant that this was dealt with immediately.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are an entertainment and social startup, I am a co-founder and designer with the founder and senior developer CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Code Generation?

We had an idea that we improved and structured it better and wanted to make it happen, so we hired Code Generation for develop our mobile application.

What were your goals for this project?

As a startup we wanted to make a functional good app to be launched on the app stores and have active users that enjoy and engage using it. It is still a job in progress but we are very confident about it.

SOLUTION

How did you select Code Generation?

We interviewed some professionals and we decided that a company such as Code generation could provide more flexibility and professionals for the job in a quicker time, also easier to manage.

Describe the project in detail.

We use NDA so cannot disclosure much information.

What was the team composition?

we had a senior Developer in managing the whole team, one designer and 2 to 5 developers as needed for the project pace we wanted to achieve.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Within 3 months of work, we were able to make a project very close to our expectations that will attend the user needs and meet out proposition. The app still have some bugs and flaws to be ajusted but the team is fixing them and it was somewhat inevitable to not have bugs due the scenario of being a startup and the project had some changes while we were progressing. The team did not measure efforts to make things the best as possible.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The project manager that was assigned was easy to communicate with and provided us frequent updates. We connected over Zoom calls and used Slack most communications. The workflow has been effective we also keep improving it. Overall we were impressed by the timelines of the team, we received ample warning if the deadline wasn't going to be met and we understood what were the causes.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We are impressed by the knowledge the team has about mobile app development, user experience, and optimization we felt safe that he would manage the team well, the developers were also very impressive, had a lot of experience and could handle pressure. This was a very positive experience and we will certainly engage with this company again for any other mobile apps needs we have in the future.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Everything can always be done faster, but we were vert satisfied with their work. In the end Quality is more important than speed and we ended up with a beautiful and easy to use product that make us proud of.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CTO of Technology Nonprofit

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

technology nonprofit

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire CGS-team to accomplish?

• We utilized CGS-team to create custom coding and process flows to improve user experience and large scale collaboration between organizations.

SOLUTION

How did you find CGS-team?

Clutch Site

Why did you select CGS-team over others?

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

How many teammates from CGS-team were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

They designed and developed a new logic based assessment and intake model, allowing clients to choose their own journey and select appropriate resources based on location, demographic information, and reviews.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Wehave aunch the project , and it has be a revolutionary for our industry.

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

Their project management skills were fantastic, and they had great accountability. We communicated through JIRA, stand ups, and email

What was your primary form of communication with CGS-team?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Their talent pool is really impressive.

Are there any areas for improvement or something CGS-team could have done differently?

no

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Owner and COO of Shawn Manderscheid Team + eXp Realty LUXURY

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

 Real Estate team 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire CGS-team to accomplish?

• I needed support to design the prototype of my web app.

SOLUTION

How did you find CGS-team?

• Referral
• Clutch Site

Why did you select CGS-team over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from CGS-team were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

CGS-team helped us brainstorm and create a mock-ups of our web app. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

CGS-team helped us save time by brainstorming ideas. They helped us  put things down so we could envision them more clearly. They delivered great quality work.

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

They delivered work on time and on budget. The team communicated well via Zoom, email, and and we collaborated through Figma and Basecamp.

What was your primary form of communication with CGS-team?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

I'm impressed with their design skills.

Are there any areas for improvement or something CGS-team could have done differently?

I can't think of anything CGS-team could improve; everything was good.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of Recycle NOW

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Recycle NOW provides industry leading doorstep trash and recycling collection for apartments.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire CGS-team to accomplish?

• Optimize performance
• Add new features
• Stabilize our app

SOLUTION

How did you find CGS-team?

Referral

Why did you select CGS-team over others?

• High ratings
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from CGS-team were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

They did an amazing job stabilizing our app across multiple platforms. I would highly recommend using them! 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The loading pages on our website loaded considerably faster, our team members were consistently able to login, and our AWS costs dropped significantly.

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

They used Jira for project management, and did a great job with emails, calls, and Google Meet.

What was your primary form of communication with CGS-team?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

They genuinely seemed to care and solved our problems.

Are there any areas for improvement or something CGS-team could have done differently?

Not that I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Founder of Ashore

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Ashore is an online proofing software that gets better feedback faster on artwork, video, websites and audio files.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire CGS-team to accomplish?

• Increase frontend development velocity

SOLUTION

How did you find CGS-team?

• Online Search
• Clutch Site

Why did you select CGS-team over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from CGS-team were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

We hired the CGS-team to increase our development velocity and hit our stretch goals. They supported our company by developing new features on the frontend of our product, as well as entirely new product offerings including Adobe plugins. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are shipping new features nearly every day on a product that is very difficult to build. The quality of the work is very high and the communication between our teams is very strong.

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

There are multiple layers of quality assurance before we receive new PRs. The communication from the team on Slack is also very good: we receive clear status updates on our tickets every day.

What was your primary form of communication with CGS-team?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Everyone has horror stories working with offshore teams. I don't. I've found the CGS-team team to be incredible in the term of quality, communication and speed.

Are there any areas for improvement or something CGS-team could have done differently?

I'm very pleased with our relationship with CGS-team