Codete

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm Technical Director at a digital agency of close to 300 people. We mostly focus on custom mobile & web development, as well as design.

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

Our company is growing rapidly, and we're having a hard time upscaling our internal development teams for new projects we have in our sales pipeline. Codete came in like a savior to increase our delivery capabilities toward our clients.

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

We found them on Clutch, while we were conducting the research of digital agencies on the Polish IT market. Our deciding factors were the level of satisfaction their customers have, Clutch ratings, and a list of reference projects.

It was also really important for us to find a partner, who shares the same work culture as us in the sense that everything is based on performance. Their team understood that it was important for us to be able to trust our partners in terms of both the quality of work and atmosphere, and they matched those needs.

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

We typically send them an overview of the skill sets that we need for a specific project, and they respond if they have suitable candidates. From there, we do a short interview to see who’s a good fit for our team before signing them on.

Key deliverables are usually measured on each sprint, where we are both trying to deliver the features, which were defined on the sprint planning sessions. Up to this point, we were mostly cooperating on the area of backend development (Java, Rails and Python), but we're hoping to expand this further in the next couple of months.

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

We're currently cooperating with 3 developers - 1x Java, 1x Rails and 1x Python, all of them on Senior level.

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

It’s hard to put direct metrics on their success since they change from project to project. Usually, the most important this for us is that both our clients and our internal development teams are happy. Each quarter, we conduct satisfaction surveys on their work, and they are usually performing at 4.8, out of five. It’s clear that our clients are very satisfied with the work Codete has done.

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

We usually do project management from our side and have direct communication with their developers. We're using the standard set of tools here, like Slack and Zoom. Their developers fit well into our own organizations and deliver all requirements without missing a deadline. If a deadline was moved, it was mostly due to the clients’ own restrictions.

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

Their willingness to learn constantly is commendable. We’re an agile company that regularly works with new technologies, or is experimenting with new processes of platforms. They never had any problems with this, even when they had to step out of their comfort zone. When we combine this with their proactiveness on the projects, it all results in a great partnership.

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

No, I’m very happy with the way they perform. They’re always responsive and are never shy about suggesting improvements. It’s an awesome relationship.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and CEO of YouCanBook.me, an online SaaS scheduling tool.

What challenge were you trying to address with Codete?

We were looking to expand our web development capacity.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Codete provides us with React development and project management support on an ongoing basis. They work on the frontend of our client-facing applications, augmenting our in-house team. Codete has also been part of a really important refactoring job, and they’ve done some of the heavy liftings in that project.

What is the team composition?

Codete provides me with a full-time React developer and a part-time project manager, and we’re planning on expanding the number of developers.

 How did you come to work with Codete?

I believe I found Codete on Clutch. We contacted about 15 companies and sent them a form to fill out about our requirements — we basically treated it like a recruitment process. Codete was one of the successful companies that we spoke to. They sent us their CVs, and we interviewed the team and their developer. They were able to meet our requirements and weren’t too expensive. We liked the fact that all of their developers had the same employment protection as any other developer — they weren’t freelancing. We also liked the way they were prepared to work with us.

How much have you invested with them?

The contract is worth around $100,000 per year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Codete in December 2020, and the engagement is ongoing.

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

Codete completed the first pilot project on time, as promised — we’re really happy with the quality of their development work. We’ve been able to complete our refactoring projects on time thanks to Codete’s involvement. We haven’t set metrics for them. They’ve just come in and done the work with us.

How did Codete perform from a project management standpoint?

Codete has used their own tools to help manage their work. I believe they use Miro and Jira, and they’ve also joined our Slack channel — they’re naturally collaborative.

The developer resource has stayed the same during our engagement, but they’ve had a lot of staff changes on the project management side. The project manager has changed several times, but the communication about those changes has been good.

We wanted Codete to handle the project management themselves because we identified that our capacity to grow the team relies on more management. We realized that we couldn’t hire more developers from them unless there were people managing that team. If they can’t get the project management sorted, we won't be able to get more developers from them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The communication with Codete has been very good.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

We researched whom we wanted and did a proper, thorough review. There needs to be a lot of conversations with the people we’re potentially going to hire to make sure that they know and understand our needs. That’s what we did with Codete, and we’re still working with them because they met our requirements.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CTO at a company that runs an online marketplace for booking cleaning services in several countries on three continents. We’re based in Germany and currently have 120 employees worldwide.

For what projects/services did your company hire Codete?

Our marketplace is available in different countries as a web and mobile apps platform. We hired Codete to speed up the development of our dedicated mobile application for one of our target markets. Time was of the essence, and we couldn’t find relevant specialists on our own fast enough, so we decided to opt for extending our team with external engineers.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to arrive at a made-to-measure app for one of our target markets that up to this point can only use our online marketplace through the web platform. The project also included improving the functionality of our page for ordering cleaning services. We wanted to create a more efficient, but also a more user-friendly funnel.

How did you select this vendor?

We were looking for a trusted software company that could quickly provide us with software engineers with hands-on expertise in project-relevant technologies.

Describe the project in detail.

At the beginning of our collaboration, we held a couple of meetings to discuss our business objectives and expectations, and to work out the best solution. In the end, we settled for hiring a full-time frontend developer for our team.

Project management was on our side, and the tech stack of the project included React Native, Redux, and PHP. Throughout our collaboration, the vendor kept their finger on the pulse and asked us for frequent feedback to ensure their work meets our expectations.

What was the team composition?

In the end, we augmented our project team consisting of 3 people with Codete’s frontend developer. He was the only frontend developer in the team, worked for us full-time, and proved to be a skilled specialist whose knowledge was much broader than we expected (he provided us with fullstack expertise). The project manager, backend developer, and QA engineer were our employees.

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

The COVID-19 situation forced us to alter some of our plans, so it’s hard to say that we’ve met our initial goal. But, for sure, Codete’s services and know-how helped us to progress with our application.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We’re very satisfied with the workflow that we established. For daily collaboration, we used Confluence and JIRA. Overall, the Codete team and the engineer that we worked with on a daily basis are very communicative and easy to get along with.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We particularly appreciate that Codete takes the effort to understand their client’s perspective. Our collaboration took place in a difficult time, in which understanding and certain flexibility were especially important. Their client-first approach is phenomenal. We’re satisfied with their technological expertise, agility, and openness.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing to add, Codete met all of our expectations.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the HR director and head of research of a global on-demand printing platform. We offer cost-efficient and environmentally-friendly print solutions for global companies.

What challenge were you trying to address with Codete?

We were looking for good engineers to support our platform and contracted Codete.

What was the scope of their involvement? 

They complement our internal engineering capabilities, dominating the B2C part of our organization. We mostly have Codete engineers, several of whom have been with us for several years.

What is the team composition? 

We have approximately 15 people from Codete, including junior and senior resources.

How did you come to work with Codete?

This was before my time, but our procurement department looked over several tenders, speaking with each company. Since we have offices in over 10 countries, we collected local recommendations, too. Ultimately, we decided to go with Codete.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2015, and it’s an ongoing relationship.

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

We’re very happy with them, which is why we’ve continued to hire engineers from them for years. We view them more as team members rather than contractors.

How did Codete perform from a project management standpoint?

I only have positive things to say about them. We’ve worked tightly as a single team, and all are satisfied with their project management, from their admin roles to the corporate functions. In terms of communication, we use Slack, Basecamp, and Jira.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve really taken our culture on board. Our company doesn’t just speak about our culture but lives by it. That has sometimes been a point of difficulty with other contractors but not Codete.

From a leadership and recruitment perspective, they’re able to find people who are a good cultural fit with us. It’s their spirit — they see that we’re all in this together as one team, so they’ve truly blended in with our organization.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m sure each engineer’s direct manager or hiring leader might have individual feedback to give, but, as a whole, I’m very pleased with how professional they are. Not only do they understand us, but they also see when we don’t understand something. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Our teams work so well with each other because we’re all very transparent and respectful. If we have an issue, then we just talk it out, find a solution, and move on. So, don’t be afraid of speaking honestly with them because they’re good-hearted people.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the former director of e-commerce and digital marketing for a hotel group.  We were responsible for selling rooms online and running digital advertisements.

What challenge were you trying to address with Codete?

They were responsible for creating a digital ecosystem for our group.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their main responsibility was to rebuild our entire technical environment. We wanted to lift the website to more modern, updated technologies as well as implement an agile development methodology across the company. They handled everything from infrastructure design to UI/UX template creation to development and project services.  

What is the team composition?

They’re a large team, but we interacted with six of their teammates. Four were with us on a full-time basis, while two were part-time. 

How did you come to work with Codete?

They were recommended to us by a mutual connection. After two introductory meetings, we knew they were the right team for us.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $100,000–$200,000 on their services. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since around April 2017.

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

Since working with them, our company has become much more flexible and agile in our development methodologies. Additionally, they implemented much more cost-effective technological solutions that have modernized our company.  

How did Codete perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re everything we could want from a project management standpoint: agile, flexible, and transparent. There aren’t any surprises when working with them, which is ideal. We communicated through Jira and Confluence. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality of their work was impressive and well-tested. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company was founded in 1995 and is since then engaged in consulting services and development around the HCL Notes/Domino platform.

We were one of the early partners of BlackBerry in Germany and has been developing middleware to bring enterprise data and processes to mobile devices. I am one of the founders and managing directors and still active in development.

For what projects/services did your company hire Codete?

Our company developed a mobile application builder bringing enterprise data to mobile devices. Our development focus had been on BlackBerry devices (Java OS and BlackBerry 10), but BlackBerry in 2015 decided to switch their own branded smartphones to Android and let their own OS phase out.

In order to fulfill customers demand, we needed to port our application builder to Android and iOS. Due to limited resources, we decided to keep Android development in-house but searched for a reliable partner to do the iOS development and maintenance for us.

What were your goals for this project?

Porting the feature packed mobile client from BlackBerry 10 into a native iOS app that reliably replicates data from a Domino server via SOAP web services and stores this data securely on the device. The new app should interpret the existing XML used to define a custom application and display views and forms without the need to redesign web for iOS. The time schedule was tight.

From business negotiation, first workshop in Kraków and a stable beta it took only six months. For us it was important to work with the partner long term as we expected new features to be implemented in future as well as necessary adaption to new versions of iOS and new Apple devices.

How did you select this vendor?

A partner in our network of companies did extensive research to find suitable partners for near shoring and outsourcing development services in Poland. Poland is known for highly qualified software developers with great knowledge in mobile development.

English skills and work ethics similar to ours make Poland the ideal destination for our plan to outsource parts of the development. We decided to work with Codete as they offered broad range of services and their business was set up for long term partnership as ours is.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

After a packed two-day workshop in their offices in which we gave an insight into the current client and the documentation of our web services and XML based application, they started work immediately.

Codete was responsible for the whole development process including suggestions for UI. Developers had to find a solution for securely communicating with our SOAP based web services, storing data in a secure was and find out workarounds for some restrictions the iOS platform had.

Especially the generation of dynamic forms and views at runtime based on a XML definition had been a challenge. In the last couple of years Codete implemented change requests and new features at least once a year.

What was the team composition?

Team composition depends on the phase of development. Usually one senior developer had been assisted by a junior developer and/or a UI designer.

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

The cooperation with Codete allowed us to concentrate our limited resources to Android development and advancing the functionalities of our solution on the server/backend side.

We were able to present a functional iOS client to those customers actively seeking alternatives for their BlackBerry 10 devices in 2015.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Because of the very technical nature of this project with lots of micro decisions, we are providing the project manager.

The direct communication between our head of development and Codete´s senior developers worked fine for us. Tools were Trello, Skype, our own ticketing system.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Broad range of knowledge. They have an excellent understanding of customers' needs.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We all should constantly improve. Estimations are always an issue in development.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP for R&D in the digital area of the leading manufacturer of residential storage batteries. We’re also an energy utility that operates worldwide, selling hardware and energy contracts to private homes.

What challenge were you trying to address with Codete?

We wanted to ramp up our engineering headcount and QA speed to build digital products.

I found that Codete was quite good in this regard, so I signed an agreement with them for several people from their team, working on our projects within our existing teams.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’re building digital products for our B2B and B2C customers. We have mobile apps and web portals for end customers and installing companies.

Our batteries are high-tech products, and they get installed by electricians and professionals. There’s a triangle consisting of our company, end customers, and B2B partners. The best customer experience can only exist if there’s constant information flow between all parties.

We’ve built those apps and portals to assist with installations and servicing. Codete was involved with the backend development through APIs, and they made product recommendations for end customers.

The engineers took care of test scenarios and QA.

What is the team composition?

Our project involved around 100 people, but we’ve worked with three people from their team.

How did you come to work with Codete?

I met their CEO at the Intersolar fair in Munich two years ago, and we had a great talk about technology.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost of their work has been €100,000–€200,000 (approximately $112,500–$225,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with Codete started in the first quarter of 2019.

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

We were looking for a company that could not only deliver products but provides QA engineers that could write test case scenarios to ensure efficiency. Our sales depend on that, and Codete delivers.

Since we’re selling internationally, the services we provide have to be highly available. Codete’s job is to make sure that the team’s output is at a high level.

How did Codete perform from a project management standpoint?

We have monthly management meetings, which I call our “second line of defense.” The engineers work agilely within their team. The teams have dedicated channels to report challenges and different topics to others.

During our monthly meetings, we report on what’s going on, what’s good, and where we have room for improvement. This works out well when someone is struggling, so we can come together and discuss how to overcome challenges. We communicate with the engineers, but we have also established a way for management to speak with each other, to align if there’s room for improvement.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Everyone I’ve met from Codete has been encouraging, open, and caring about our business relationship. They understand what we’re looking for as a company, and they’re always asking if they can do more or get better. Their team is open to our suggestions and wishes.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing I would mention. There’ve been things we’ve talked about, but we were able to figure out and overcome challenges together.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s essential to have different lines of communication within any business relationship where we’re working across different companies. Clients shouldn’t just buy time from engineers but have a healthy business relationship by speaking with each other.

If a problem arises at one end, there should be different roles and people there to help with various insights and abilities. This advice relates to all contractors, not just for working with Codete.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a leading online education provider, focusing on corporate education for employees. We provide an efficient solution to train employees critical skills for digitization.

For what projects/services did your company hire Codete?

The Codete is working as embedded part into our web development team (Backend, Frontend, DevOps, iOS).

What were your goals for this project?

We are, as a fast growing startup struggling to accelerate the development of our platform. The Codete team helps us to scale our development effort dramatically. The Codete team has been working on platform maintenance, bug fixes and the development of new features.

How did you select this vendor?

We have worked with many different partners before Codete but never were happy. We usually terminated the other companies affect 2-4 months. As you can see from the length of the partnership with Codete this is different. Codete really fullfills our needs.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Web development: Frontend, Backend, DevOps. iOS App Development. Services rendered are from conceptual support (e.g. for a new platform infrastructure) throughout feature definition (incl. UX design), feature implementation (some of the major releases in the last years were developed by Codete) all the way to bug fixes and maintenance tasks.

What was the team composition?

The team size has changed over times, depending on our need. We have had between 2 and 6 full-time developers working for us and usually have 2-3 resources that support us part-time or on an hourly basis.

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

The cooperation with Codete has fulfilled and exceeded our expectations. The length of the engagement (and no end in sight) speaks for itself. We are a happy customer.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We alway had clearly defined, very responsive counter parts at Codete to discuss changes and (if it happened - rarely does) problems. All perfect.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Good quality of engineers. They're very reliable at all times, and they hold to what they promise. Flexible to cater to our needs.

Are there any areas for improvement?

At the moment the model works perfect for us. So not sure what to improve.

Please describe your company.

Our business is helping students find language courses abroad. We have the largest database of language schools in the world. We are like an online travel agency for language study programs abroad.

What are your role and responsibilities?

I’m one of the co-founders.

What was your goal in working with Codete Software House?

We were looking to improve both the quality and speed of our website development at an acceptable cost. We had worked before with an in-house team, and we wanted to see if working with Codete would be a better fit for us.

Please describe the scope of their work.

Our website, plus a CRM [customer relationship management] system that our staff uses, and a content management system that the schools use, were all taken over by Codete. They do all of the development for these three systems. It’s a PHP MySQL setup using a framework called Symphony, and they have taken on the entire development.

What was your process for selecting Codete Software House with which to work?

They actually found us. They contacted us at just the right time, because our internal team was moving too slowly. We didn’t conduct any kind of comparison with other vendors; we just gave them a two-week test project. Their productivity per team member was about three times that of our internal team, so we decided to go with them.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

Last year, we paid Codete around $200,000.

When did you start working with them, and is the relationship ongoing?

The relationship began in April 2013 and is ongoing.

Do you have any statistics, metrics, or general feedback from the project?

Their performance is excellent – really fantastic. We also started working with them to provide system administration help, but that didn’t work all that well because that’s not one of their core competencies. It’s been better recently since they hired a new system administrator but, for some time, it wasn’t that great.

We’ve done a lot of functional changes to the site, so a lot of functionality that wasn’t available before is now available because of Codete. We also worked to a certain degree on performance, where we cut down the load time on pages by 60 percent or so. We continue to do more with them in this area. Since we started working with them, our traffic has roughly doubled. We get a lot of unpaid search traffic, and that’s definitely something they’ve helped us with.

Is there anything unique about Codete Software House that really makes them stand out compared to other companies?

The quality of the people that they put on our project was really good, which leads to good communication, high productivity and high output. They’re very flexible in arranging the process so it works for us. We moved from a haphazard to a much more systematic process as a result of their work.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or something that you might do differently?

The system administration area is not really their area of expertise, and we had some issues there. But, to be fair, they never sold us on that as being one of their core competencies. The cost is increasing in that area as well, but we still feel we’re getting good value for our money.

What advice would you give a future client of theirs?

I think it’s really ideal if you can do a test project with them, because then you can see if Codete will work for you or not. If you plan on working with them long term, it’s good to actually visit them and get to know their people. Also, work with them on continuously improving the development process.

I work for a high-tech company in Europe that produces customized e-commerce software solutions. I am the vice president here, and I manage the work with Codete.

We have a development team here in Switzerland, but we wanted to augment our team with some offshore resources. We want to work on the core product continually to improve the UX/UI [user experience/user interface].

We found Codete through a recommendation from one of our colleagues. We knew a member of their team. We decided to work with them a couple of years ago to provide offshore developers for the UX/UI on our core product.

They provide developers, but we manage the project. The project is ongoing, and we have spent more than $250,000 on their services the past three years. They have also worked on smaller projects in the past but, mainly, it's UX/UI work.

Codete is not perfect, and we have had some issues with them. However, the good outweighs the bad, so we have stuck with them and are happy overall. They provide good development resources with very strong costs.

They are no perfect, of course. They make mistakes like everyone else, and we must focus on project management. That is probably their weakness because we must manage their resources more than our local team. We are very pleased with their cost and speed of delivery.

I would recommend this company to others, but make sure you plan out the project in advance very well. If you lose track of Codete's work, problems can arise. I would recommend this company though.