ClickIT DevOps & Software Development

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO at Strike Graph, where we help companies meet and manage cybersecurity compliance requirements. By delivering solutions that simplify the security landscape, we help organizations attend to critical security issues, not just security theater.

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT DevOps & Software Development, and what were your goals?

We initially hired ClickIT to replicate the infrastructure in our development environment in upper-level environments. Since completion of that initial project, we've retained a software engineer from ClickIt to help manage and update our infrastructure to improve and maintain site reliability, security, automation, and performance.

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

Unknown - selected before I joined the team.

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

The initial role of the software engineer on the project was to launch the infrastructure in our development environment into upper-level environments. While the development infra was functional at that time, it was not automated or production-ready, and there was no infrastructure documentation. They improved some of the Terraform templates, making the infra easier to maintain and more reliable. They added automation using Gitlab pipelines and later helped us implement Terraform Cloud workspaces. They also helped us integrate monitoring and logging solutions both within AWS and using New Relic. They added helpful documentation and collaborated closely with the rest of the engineering team.

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

1, Infrastructure Engineer

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

ClickIt has been invaluable to helping our small startup manage our infrastructure needs. From the beginning of the project, they were communicative and responsive. It was a challenging project at the beginning because the infrastructure workflow wasn't documented, and they quickly jumped in a developed an understanding of the current state. They created helpful documentation, and the engineer's knowledge about Terraform has helped us improve existing templates as well as create new, automated infrastructure when the need arose.

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

We have daily standups with the infrastructure engineer and recurrent 1:1 meetings to discuss progress and next steps. The collaboration and communication with our tema has bee smooth, and they are available and responsive when questions and issues arise. 

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

The Infrastructure Engineer effectively navigated an existing infra codebase and helped adapt processes to better meet our needs.

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

With any new and changing startup, there are hiccups along the way. At times, we needed to provide unexpected guidance to ensure that outcomes were robust and met our requirements.

We eventually realized that, to meet our long-term needs, we would benefit from hiring a staff engineer with a strong infra/devops background to support and expand the capacity we had with our ClickIt contractor. The collaboration between these two engineers has provided additional support and guidance for the ClickIt engineer. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO of a venture studio where we focus on building multiple Software companies

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT DevOps & Software Development?

We hired ClickIT to work on staff augmentation on DevOps and Software Development projects. This involved working with cloud providers such as AWS and also writing frontend and backend code using a variety of technologies

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

We selected this agency after making multiple reference checks. The references were all great and we echo the same sentiment after working with ClickIT for about a year.

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

The projects involve multiple greenfield development opportunities as well as managing DevOps

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

Our recruitment process is fairly simple. ClickIT presents us with prescreened candidates (providing us an idea of their level of seniority and communication skills). We interview the candidates (multiple rounds) for both technical expertise as well as culture fit and proceed after that.

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

We have been about to build multiple products leveraging engineers from ClickIT. In some cases, it was in launching the MVP and in others it was continuing to build on top of it with additional features.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

ClickIT team members feel like an extension of our team.

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

The company follows US holidays and works in central time zone which helps a lot with logistics and overlap. They also have a dedicated account manager (for us) that is proactive and helps resolve any issues quickly

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

NA

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the DevOps Manager for Geoforce, an Asset Tracking business that provides Hardware and Software.

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT DevOps & Software Development, and what were your goals?

ClickIT helped Geoforce by providing a great resource for the DevOps. The goal was to augment our internal DevOps team and make it part of our daily work and operations.

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

ClickIT showed up while researching for partners over UpWork. The deciding factor was the underlaying team that ClickIT has when you hire them and the competitive pricing.

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

ClickIT has helped us in several areas including, Kubernetes support, deployments with Spot Instances, Terraform IAC for AWS and a great attitude all the time.

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

One DevOps Engineer

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

The quality of the work given by the ClickIT team was great. The team member was really fast at catching up with all the technologies that we use. He was able to understand and deliver concrete work in the first week.

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

Since this is a stuff augmentation engagement, we don't have management from the ClickIT side for the moment.

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

We are impressed with their great attitude, proactiveness, and high productivity.

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

None that I can think of right now.

Please describe your company and your position there.

As VP Enterprise development I seek partners that can assist us design and deploy more meaningful solutions to our clients.

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT DevOps & Software Development?

The click it team partnered with one of our software dev teams to provide the leadership in DevOps / Infrastructure as code asepcts of the project(s)

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

They demonstrated knowledge in their field and also the fact that they are certified consultants provided with extra validation for me to decide to include them on our projects.

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

Click it has functioned as a key ally for one of our transportation industry projects. There have been web and cloud based projects where our team and theirs have partnered together for the design, development and implementation of solutions.

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

Mario and Alfonso were very helpful in ensuring their team grasped the project's needs and assigned one of their Dev ops engineers.

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

The client has succesfully completed implementation of solutions constructed in conjuction with Click it dev ops personnel

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They are very flexible and easy to work with. It's like having an in-house person from our own team.

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

Their effort to be flexible and adhere to changing challanges.

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

Nothing I can think of at this time.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Head of Product

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT DevOps & Software Development, and what were your goals?

We hired them to audit and improve our current platform infrastructure, they provided us with valuable insights of what needed to be done in order to improve our security, performance, availability and scalability, always keeping everything within our budget. Our main goal was to improve the current infrastructure so it was easy scalable and maintainable.

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

They found that we needed to implement DevOps practices in order to improve our current infrastructure so we made it more resilient and secured.

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

They helped us to create our Terraform templates with all the sources needed, they configured the CI/CD flow along with New Relic, IAM, Cloudwatch, CloudTrail, AWS secrets, and other services. They also took the time to improve our docker files and separated our project in different repositories.

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

1 DevOps Engineer 1 Project Manager

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

We maintained our cost even though we are using more services. We have alerts and logs when something fails or needs attention and that has improved or response time to fix bugs by 20%. We have identified flaws in our queries around the platform thanks to the new monitoring we have, so we can work on improve that as well.

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

We communicated using our company tools, mainly slack, and google meetings. They did a kickstart meeting and presented us the timeline later on they did a couple meetings to present us the progress around the project.

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

They adapt to your needs and always try to solve any issue that might present during the project in a timely manner.

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

More meetings to get updates, and more further testing of what was implemented so we didn't need much after project done support.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO and Founder of cutting-edge Cloud software BeBop Technology. We have a Managed Services division that was instrumental in migrating OTT Channels for Sony to the Cloud away from Satellite distribution.

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT DevOps & Software Development?

We need to support Developmental Operations (Dev Ops) for a major Studio in the US. We hired a broad range of Developers, engineers, and ops people that were high integrity, reliable and talented in their fields. The quality of their services was excellent.

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

We worked with several groups, but settled on two vendors exclusively for this work, ClickIT was one of the two vendors we chose because their price was competitive and the Mangement works closely with our management to find the right fit, and pricing for each group. We doung ClickIT to be easy to work with, and great quality people just about every time.

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

Our client was migrating highly valuable Cable Channels, to streaming OTT platforms, and this was a highly expensive transition, with a high amount of risk and liability associated with making broadcast deadlines and contractual obligations. We had very little time to train the new teams, and we had allot of customer service issues due the large audience for some of the Channels. ClickIT was awesome in delivering the right people every time.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

We had an existing relationship with the ClickIT management, so they were our first choice. We sent them the job spec and some background and they turned the options around quicky. Customer was really happy, so we were equally happy!

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

The contract was extended twice because the quality was excellent.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Our two teams worked seamlessly, it was made easier because ClickIT's management makes it easy to work with them...... they are extremely accommodating.

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

The fact that they are in Mexico vs. India had more advantages than I expected! Truly a great bunch of humans.

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

They are constantly expanding their roster of talent. This was the only challenge as with all off-shore dev groups. They are dependent on who is available at the time of engagement.

This review was published on January 26, 2021

Elon Avisar

VP Support Operations, Bebop Technology

IT Services

11-50 Employees

Los Angeles, California

$200,000 to $999,999

Jul 2020 - Ongoing

Project summary

A custom software development company urgently needed to expand their and add three more DevOps engineers. They partnered with ClickIT Smart Technologies to provide the necessary support.

Feedback summary

Though the company can't share much of the details of the project they do appreciate how the ClickIT Technologies team was quick to learn the particulars of the partnership. This resulted in the team presenting impressive candidates to the company.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the VP of Support Operations for Bebop Technology. We provide custom software development, DevOps, and support for cloud based applications primarily for the Media & Entertainment industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT Smart Technologies?

We had the need to quickly expand our DevOps Managed Service team with 3 DevOps engineers dedicated to an existing project. The project is for the continued support and updating of the software development and DevOps CI pipeline for a cloud based OTT Web app.

What were your goals for this project?

SOLUTION

How did you select ClickIT Smart Technologies?

I had worked with Alfonso prior to the start of ClickIT and we have maintained contact since. He was great to work with before & that hasn't changed since we began working with ClickIT.

Describe the project in detail.

The project scope is limited to the setup, support, and 24x7 monitoring of cloud infrastructure, CI pipeline, and Backend services for the customer's custom OTT Web App.

The customer provides all the planning (weekly meetings), task assignment (JIRA), and other 3rd party teams that work together to develop, deploy, & support the OTT platform that reaches close to 1M subscribers.

What was the team composition?

After the initial introduction of the 3 ClickIT team members to our customer, the task assignments were directed to the ClickIT team directly. We have 2 weekly status calls; one just with the ClickIT engineers and Bebop Management for internal discussion & one with the customer to plan the week.

The ClickIT team has 3 DevOps engineers that manage/split the tasks between the group members.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I am limited in the specifics I can discuss as the work is under NDA but I can say the team was quick to learn the particulars of the project and has met all expectations on troubleshooting and deployment deadlines since day 1.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow has been simply and easy. We use a combination of Slack/Jira for most DevOps related discussion with a sprinkle of MS Teams for meetings.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was most impressed that on the 1st round of candidate selection we had 3 amazing talented people to work with. ClickIT found exactly what we needed... and fast.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I really enjoy working with the ClickIT team. The engineers are great to work with. I really cannot think of what could be better.

RATINGS:

Overall rating: 5

Quality: 5

Cost: 5

Schedule: 5

Willing to refer: 5

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am VP of Cloud & Network Operations, for Freecast, Inc., we are a Media and Entertainment company based out of Orlando, FL.

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT DevOps & Software Development?

We are working with them for DevOps Personnel.

What were your goals for this project?

I needed experienced assistance because of additional responsibilities I had to take on.

How did you select ClickIT DevOps & Software Development?

I had worked with Alfonso back in 2017, and knowing Alfonso, and his abilities, gave me confidence in hiring his company to assist us in our need.

Describe the project in detail.

Staff augmentation, Clickit first supplied us with part-time DevOps support, then this changed to full-time support about 4 months ago. The primary responsibility is working with AWS.

What was the team composition?

Initially part-time support, but we now have a full-time DevOps person working 40 hours a week.

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

This has worked well, and given me the time needed to assist in other areas in the company.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Clickit worked diligently to help our Full-Time Dev-Ops person was acclimated to our need quickly by offering the assistance of the previous part-time person to get them up to speed.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Alfonso is constantly asking for feedback on where I think they can improve, they have very effective communication from the top down.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There are always things that can be improved on, and they understand this. I look forward to a long term relationship.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Switchboard is an integration provider delivering turn-key, multi-tenant connectors to e-commerce SaaS vendors and their customers. I serve as the founder/CEO of Switchboard.

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT DevOps & Software Development, and what were your goals?

I hired ClickIT to assist with DevOps and system design needs. I needed a development partner with enough DevOps experience to help me solve for any blind spots we have in the org related to complex challenges related to distributed systems.

How did you select ClickIT DevOps & Software Development and what were the deciding factors?

I selected ClickIT based on the combination of cost and their ability to deliver development help as an extension of my team.

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

There wasn't a single key deliverable as ClickIT was working alongside the rest of the team to deliver against the product roadmap on a continual basis; however, major features delivered included exchange functionality for reverse logistics use cases and load testing our APIs (plus the resulting optimizations).

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

1 Senior Python/DevOps Developer

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

We've delivered integrations faster than all other competing SIs.

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

ClickIT is very engaged throughout the project work. We communicate primarily over Slack and do short syncs on a daily basis. We use Trello for our product roadmap.

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

Ease of engagement! They're fantastic to work with, and they take the burden out of ramping up development muscle within Switchboard.

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

None come to mind.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a software architect at a company that provides on-line wholesale vehicle auctions.

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT DevOps & Software Development?

We needed a proper CI/CD pipeline and AWS infrastructure set up.

What were your goals for this project?

To allow our software engineers to quickly build and deploy new features.

How did you select ClickIT DevOps & Software Development?

Recommendation from someone who knew them.

Describe the project in detail.

The project was to create a ci/cd pipeline for deploying code out of GIT and into various aws environments - dev/staging/production. And also to create those environments in the first place, and to guide the software engineers in how to use them. We looked to ClickIT for all best-practices in setting this up and they did a great job

What was the team composition?

ClickIT provided a project manager and a dev-ops engineer.

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

We went from having no place to test to having a development and qa environment, and from being able to deploy new code maybe once a week to multiple times a day if needed.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We integrated the DevOps engineer with our team. He attended daily scrums and was able to clearly answer our questions, give progress reports, and get feedback and direction from the team.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They were always on top of things, and whenever we had any questions they worked to get them answered quickly. Likewise, anytime we had any trouble understanding how to get something setup or configured, they would jump right in, figure it out, and show us how to do i.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a SaaS company that provides an embeddable blog to our customers for their website. I am a co-founder and cto.

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT Smart Technologies?

Our network is built in AWS. We wanted to bring them in to help optimize our network and make sure we were following best practices.

What were your goals for this project?

Our primary goal was to address some instability with our network during traffic spikes. We also wanted them to review our general architecture to make sure it was optimized and secure.

How did you select ClickIT Smart Technologies?

We heard good things from a networking group we belong to and were impressed with our initial conversations.

Describe the project in detail.

ClickIT started out with an audit of our network and provided suggestions. We prioritized these suggestions starting with them setting up auto scaling to handle network spikes and implementing some different security measures. During the second phase they helped us get our backup procedures in place.

What was the team composition?

We had a project manager and engineer helping us.

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

Since auto scaling has been put in place we have not had any downtime.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was very smooth. The three of us were able to communicate through Skype for the most part. Once in a while we would jump on a call to discuss things in more detail.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their knowledge of AWS was very apparent from the start. They quickly understood our network issues, came up with a plan and executed flawlessly.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No