CodeFutures

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of reThought Insurance in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We sell commercial and residential flood insurance.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CodeFutures?

CodeFutures is mostly helping us with DevOps. We run an insurance application, which includes climate modeling software that quantifies and computes risks, and that’s used to underwrite risk.

We’ve built a data center to run this software, and we’ve made lots of architectural changes, including new capacity. We needed help setting up and maintaining systems.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

CodeFutures resources are augmenting our in-house team, helping us build new hardware and network that hardware. They’re also providing general maintenance of that infrastructure. 

They’re helping set up server racks, wiring, switches, and so on in our data center. They’re helping us manage the entire fleet of servers and the services running on it. They’re helping us with PagerDuty-called issues as well.

We are mostly hands-on with Linux using command-line interfaces. We use KVM, the built-in virtualization product within Linux. We run a Kubernetes stack that they built on bare metal. And then we run FoundationDB database servers in a cluster in our data center. CodeFutures has been using Ansible for DevOps.

What is the team composition?

We’re working remotely with two people from CodeFutures. One is senior, and the other is junior. The senior resource has been with our business since its inception. Because of their historical background and context, this person is especially knowledgeable about the existing setup that we have.

How did you come to work with CodeFutures?

We came to work with CodeFutures via referral.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in December 2018, and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’m extremely happy with the way they’ve taken responsibility and executed. CodeFutures has put in extra effort by traveling to our data center in Denver, performing onsite work over multiple days — which is hard work. 

How did CodeFutures perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been good to work with. I currently manage the two people from CodeFutures myself, though — they haven’t managed projects independently yet. 

CodeFutures has been highly responsive via Slack, even late in the evening. We manage projects in Jira using the agile approach. We use Kanban in the DevOps area, and Scrum in software development. CodeFutures has been proficient in these systems and frameworks. We use the Google Business Suite for email and shared storage. We’ve coordinated and collaborated using a variety of other software including Azure CMI, Azure Bicep, Zoom, Asana, Monday.com, and HubSpot.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m happy with the way they’ve executed their tasks, and they’re very responsive. It’s been a good partnership so far.

Are there any areas they could improve?

As our partnership grows, I would like for CodeFutures to start managing their projects as a service so that we don’t have to manage their tasks hands-on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

CodeFutures has the right people and the right attitude. We’re a small company, but they’re giving us attention, and we appreciate it.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of Recht Associates, a manufacturing sales company that provides technical sales and marketing support to the high-tech industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CodeFutures?

We receive an overwhelming amount of data from our manufacturing clients, so we needed someone to help us build a sophisticated and intelligent software that can track information with precision.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

CodeFutures is developing a sales tracking and commission system so we can determine if the data we’re receiving from our clients is accurate. This intelligent software analyzes data on the front- and backend to see if we’re being properly credited.

What is the team composition?

We’re working with a project manager and two software engineers.

How did you come to work with CodeFutures?

I already have an established relationship with the project manager through another entity he was consulting.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership started in November 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We don’t have an official scoreboard but based on our biweekly meetings, CodeFutures is on track in terms of our goals and accomplishments. They keep us updated and they implement new features and upgrades based on our feedback.

How did CodeFutures perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been doing an excellent job when it comes to communicating and adhering to our schedule and budget. They’re also very time-sensitive and we typically meet through Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re extremely impressed with their experience, knowledge, and technical capabilities.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything they could improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would encourage them to have a really good idea of what type of software they want to implement and to have representative examples of the challenges they’re currently facing.

This is so CodeFutures can have a good understanding of their dilemma and identify solutions quickly.