CodeCoda Ltd.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of YOU INTL Ltd. We create backends for accommodation businesses. For example, let’s say a hotel needs to communicate a specific availability to online booking engines like Booking.com and Expedia. For customers looking to work on multiple distribution platforms, the process becomes hard to maintain. Our engine integrates with all big providers and gives customers a single-entry point for their accommodations. 

What challenge were you trying to address with CodeCoda?

We have a lot of API functionality in the backend, and we’re talking to thousands of hotels at the same time, which can result in hundreds of thousands of concurrent requests. We needed help balancing the load of our API.    

What was the scope of their involvement?

CodeCoda reworked large parts of the API when we started. They worked on the backend platform used by hotel owners, including its API implementation, cloud infrastructure, and the whole DevOps part.
 
We’re using Java on the backend, and PHP for some smaller parts. We’re using Apache Cassandra as a database. We have chatbots and a couple of cutting-edge technologies that aren’t commonly found or provided by developers.
 
What is the team composition?

We worked with 12–13 people from CodeCoda, including two project managers.
 
How did you come to work with CodeCoda?

One of CodeCoda’s business developers got in contact with us while we needed their services. We got in touch with other companies as well, but CodeCoda’s offer was the best.
 
How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $200,000.
 
What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with CodeCoda in January 2016, and they provided ongoing maintenance. We’re planning to start a new project with CodeCoda this autumn, and they will continue to maintain the original part—mainly the cloud infrastructure. 

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

We have a fully working business, which is a measurable outcome in itself. Using their experience, CodeCoda helped us improve on our originally planned functionalities, making them more logical for hotel owners to use. They’re a team of smart people with broad experience in several industries. They’ve helped us a lot when our requirements weren’t 100% clear or when we weren’t completely confident with our ideas.
  
How did CodeCoda perform from a project management standpoint?

CodeCoda uses Jira for task management, and we have full access to the boards. They also have a proprietary platform for time tracking linked to the committed code. We can see what the developers and background people are working on currently. If we need to give an explanation that isn’t clear in the requirements, the project managers put us in touch with the developers straight away.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Our last outsourcing experience didn’t pan out as we hoped—we felt that we overpaid and the company underdelivered.  We haven’t had that feeling with CodeCoda. I come from a development background, so I know what good-quality code looks like. CodeCoda continually delivers high-quality code on time or even faster than we expect. I can trust their team to know what they’re doing and to seek clarity when our instructions are vague or incomplete. We’re not getting just what we ordered; we’re getting something that works. 
 
Are there any areas they could improve?

The team tries to communicate a lot, but I’m quite busy, so it can be too much for me. I do understand that CodeCoda needs my approval to do things, but they can overcommunicate. This is a personal thing, and I don’t think it should be used against them. It might be a good trait for some clients.