Code Poets

Please describe your company and your position there.

As Senior Director of Engineering at L7 Informatics, a fast-growing life sciences enterprise software company, I am responsible for providing the engineering and engineering support teams with everything they need to keep up a furious momentum, including additional staffing resources.

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

Planned expansion and maturity of our software suite required fast expansion of our team, and because we prefer to pepper our team with resources that have experience in our customers areas of operation (biotech, manufacturing, etc.) often finding ideal resources is a huge challenge.

What were your goals for this project?

This is very much a staff augmentation engagement rather than a 'project'. Our goals were to find talented resources that could work well with our US-based staff. We were open to a workable timezone delta even with its potential challenges and merits.

How did you select Code Poets?

CodePoets and our CEO crossed paths in early 2020, and with our strong preference for resources with experience in our customers' areas of operation (biotech, life science, manufacturing, etc.). CodePoets' focus on tech and science sounded like a good fit, so we kept them in mind in case we had a need for staff augmentation. Mid-year we developed that need so we gave them a ring.

Describe the project in detail.

Again, this isn't a project but staff augmentation in support of a product suite and implementations with many wide scopes.

What was the team composition?

We started with a couple of very strong resources who hit the ground running and produced solid results quickly with minimal training. They have been stellar at taking assignments and parsing them, asking excellent questions, and producing excellent work. We've since expanded our team at CodePoets and expect to continue doing so.

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

I would assert that the fact that we've continued to expand our team with CodePoets on a pretty regular cadence since starting with them is pretty good evidence of progress and success.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Active communications and jira-centric workflow between L7 and the CodePoets resources can only be as effective as L7 enables, and the CodePoets resources have been very proactive in their communications and very understanding of our need for them to work relatively independently at times.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

CodePoets had and has found excellent and appropriate resources for us, all of whom have been talented, reliable, responsive, and nimble.

Are there any areas for improvement?

To date I have no complaints.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the general manager of a fintech startup.

What challenge were you trying to address with Code Poets?

We needed to build the backend for our Bitcoin payment solution.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Code Poets built an MVP and is now building out more functionalities and features in the backend. They also created interfacing for our partners, solving Bitcoin onboarding issues. Their team integrated it into their current payment structure as well as solved security, backup, and accounting issues.

What is the team composition?

There are five people working with us.

How did you come to work with Code Poets?

A friend referred them to me.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested between $60,000–$70,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in April 2020, and the engagement is ongoing.

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

We have a working MVP. We’ve done some low testing on the backend, performing roughly 1,200 transactions per hour. There will be automated testing, but it’s important that it works with real people. We’re satisfied with the collaboration so far.

How did Code Poets perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Jira and have daily standups to discuss and assign daily tasks. The communication is smooth, and they’re good with documentation. Any missed deadlines have not been their fault.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their developers are open to suggestions and different ideas, embracing the challenges I present. They’re also flexible with changes that occur. I appreciated the ease of contacting them initially when I visited their website to get an estimate for the project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I communicated directly with them if I ever felt something was amiss.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the team lead for a software company. We’re working on a project that is building a compiler for a programming leading.

What challenge were you trying to address with Code Poets?

We partnered Code Poets to build a specific part of the compiler. We wanted to grow a bit faster than we were, and were having difficulty hiring people.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The project was a utility that allows us to tweak the way that the compiler generates a program from the source code. It was a utility that uses genetic programing or evolutionary algorithms to find a better sequence of how to apply certain steps during the work of the compiler. They wrote a specific copontent that was embedded in a more general part of the optimizer, whos job is to modify the output of the compiler so that its more efficient.

What is the team composition?

I worked with just one person.

How did you come to work with Code Poets?

We worked with them in the past and had a good experience.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested €14,000 (approximately $15,000 USD)

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked January to March 2020.

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

They had full freedom to work on an isolated module, but the task wasn’t simple. It involved a lot of research. They did a deep dive into the area and I think they did a great job. It’s too early to add this module into the compiler, so I can’t give stronger feedback.

How did Code Poets perform from a project management standpoint?

They did regular check-ins and were great — the only issues were on our side.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their independent research on the topic and finding all the details on how to solve all the problems impressed.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’re happy so far.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of the cheminformatics, technologies, and business unit of a pharmaceutical company. I oversee organic chemists, computer scientists, and developers.

What challenge were you trying to address with Code Poets?

We needed help with our web development, particularly our frontend work.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Code Poets collaborates with our internal team, translating our vision into actual code. They mainly work on the frontend of our web app, but they’ve also done backend work, like refactoring our code to make it more commercially viable and updated it to support more features.

Beyond that, they’ve also built quite a bit of the app’s original architecture. such as tokens for the client-server. In the build, they changed the design and colors to match our brand.

What is the team composition?

We work with anywhere from 15–20 people, depending on the project load.

How did you come to work with Code Poets?

The person we bought the software from was already working with Code Poets, so we continued the relationship because their work was good.

What is the status of this engagement?

We partnered in June 2017, and the work is ongoing.

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

We’ve continued our partnership with them because the quality of their work has been sufficient.

How did Code Poets perform from a project management standpoint?

They spend quite a bit of time and effort on project management, which is one of their strengths. They’re organized and meet our specific needs, especially when we were transitioning from a rough startup to a bigger organization. We communicate every day and have a sophisticated system of sharing proofs of concept and mockups.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They do well compared to other vendors. In general, we’re pleased with their work and see them as a high-value provider. They’ve gone a good job of hiring talented software developers.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could do better at bug testing—that causes the biggest bottlenecks at the moment.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Be clear about the deliverables and have a consistent way of sharing documents and communicating. If they know what you want, they’ll be able to deliver it.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was the CTO of Admitster, an admissions tool.

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

We needed them for backend and frontend development of our product.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to update the backend with new data and new features and we wanted a total overhaul of the frontend.

How did you select this vendor?

The CEO had chosen them before I started, but they quickly showed me that committing to them was the right decision.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We used them for our entire project. They did development for our data-centric backend, which used some machine learning and web services. They completely redeveloped the frontend, which was an expert system for a unique and popular college admissions tool. It was a continuous effort on their part.

What was the team composition?

I oversaw their work for a year. They provided five developers who wrote code and did some data science work. One of their developers acted as a team lead. They were mostly remote, but they also worked at our site for several weeks at the end of the complete overhaul.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

Our product was far better after they worked on it. Our usage numbers increased several times over following the complete overhaul. Our investors and potential investors were impressed by the capabilities of the product and the technology behind it. We did more than one service for clients, but the product they worked on was the crown jewel of our company.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

I managed them online and in person when we brought them on-site. They all were very good at managing their own tasks and risks. They needed very little management.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was impressed at the consistent quality of their work. They really knew what they were doing, and could execute well without much direction.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, we’re completely satisfied.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was publishing my own book about teaching in Norwegian.

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

Code Poets was responsible for developing a webshop for my book with corresponding dictionaries.

What were your goals for this project?

My goal for the project was to receive a fully functional online store to integrate within my website.

How did you select this vendor?

They were recommended to me by the graphic designers who contributed to my book.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Code Poets built a simple web shop translated into three different languages. It includes a feature for credit card payments.

What was the team composition?

Code Poets assigned me one dedicated person who was responsible for my entire project. I was also in contact with the owner of the company.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

Code Poets delivered a web-based shop that made it possible for me to sell my books to people who want to read it.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The team’s methodology for project management worked effectively. Code Poets stayed in communication with me all the time.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Code Poets delivered exactly what they promised.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, there are none.