COXIT

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CTO of DeepStructure

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

ChatCraft.org is an open-source web companion that enhances coding with Large Language Models (LLMs), designed specifically for developers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire COXIT to accomplish?

• To support the core engineering team with the implementation of new features.
• To accelerate current development processes without increasing HR and hiring costs.
• To maintain and improve the existing codebase.

SOLUTION

How did you find COXIT?

Referral

Why did you select COXIT over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

How many teammates from COXIT were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The project focused on expanding the capabilities of ChatCraft, an open-source platform for coding with LLMs. 

The detailed scope of work included:

• Enhancing system capacity to support more concurrent users and higher transaction rates.
• Transitioning to OpenAI's native library version 4.0.0 to enhance AI interactions and capabilities.
• Refining the codebase to improve performance and maintainability, which included removing outdated features and improving response handling.

Key Deliverables:

• An updated infrastructure capable of handling increased user loads and data demands.
• A fully integrated OpenAI library v4.0.0, enhancing the robust AI features and functionalities within ChatCraft.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• A 25% increase in test coverage.
• Implementation of over 20 new features, enhancing platform functionality.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

• COXIT operates with a unique model where their engineers integrate directly in our team. 
• Upon my request, they provided a list of engineers to interview and select for the project. Project management is client-handled, supported by COXIT’s project coordinator and account manager, who ensure the engineers have all necessary resources for productive work and respond promptly to our needs.
• All deliverables were completed on time. After a few months, when only one engineer was needed instead of two, COXIT accommodated the change within a 30-day notice period.

What was your primary form of communication with COXIT?

Virtual Meeting

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

The technical acumen of their CEO Iryna is particularly notable. Having founded COXIT following an engineering career, her deep understanding of project demands and technical requirements significantly contributet to the overall effectiveness.

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

Initially, there was a mismatch in the skills of one of the engineers, which caused some early challenges. However, COXIT promptly addressed the issue by replacing the engineer in a short time frame.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Senior Manager, Software Development of Xperi

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We make technologies that make entertainment experiences extraordinary.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire COXIT to accomplish?

• Rebuild a legacy on-prem system in GCP.

SOLUTION

How did you find COXIT?

Referral

Why did you select COXIT over others?

• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

How many teammates from COXIT were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Vendor was required to reverse engineer on-prem system C#/.NET application code and SQL Server scripts and understand legacy database schemas; and then work with architects to design and develop and validate a new system performing similar functions in Python with Postgres databases running on the Google Cloud Platform. 
Required knowledge of Docker, Kubernetes and required developing BigQuery and other GCP skils. Also performed migration of data from on-prem to cloud storage. System was required to operate continuously without user or customer impact during the migration to the new system.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

High quality code delivered in alignment with estimates.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

• Items were largely delivered on time and with high quality. 
• Engineers responded positively to feedback. 
• One engineer turned out not to be a good fit for the project and COXIT worked very collaboratively to find a replacement as quickly as possible.

What was your primary form of communication with COXIT?

Email or Messaging App

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

My management contact at COXIT is very responsive. After the one mismatched engineer, COXIT also has worked hard to screen candidates to ensure they are good match, preventing me and my team from wasting time interviewing unqualified candidates. As a mid-sized company, we found that we received second-class treatment from the big well-known suppliers. With COXIT, we feel like we get the attention we need to bring on the right talent quickly and get the job done.

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

No, nothing comes to mind.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Continuous Improvement Manager of Stevens Industries, Inc

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Design, build, and install commercial casework and millwork products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire COXIT to accomplish?

• Evaluate the technical validity of our project.
• Design a plan of action to develop the software for the project.
• Support the development and deployment of new software.

SOLUTION

How did you find COXIT?

Referral

Why did you select COXIT over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Referred to me
• Best understood the concept of the project.

How many teammates from COXIT were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We needed them to take an existing, manual process and design software automation to help replicate the current business process at a high speed and level of error proofing. Scope involved: 

• manipulating large PDF based files
• deploying a custom model library for object detection and recognition
• backend data architecture to manipulate and reconnect data to drive value back to the end user

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Time study data from the current business process compared to the time study data with the new software deployed.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Yes. They have done a great job of communicating both the high-level details (timeline, budget, and milestones) as well as the technical details (next sprint topics, current roadblocks, creative solutions).

What was your primary form of communication with COXIT?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

COXIT provided a great partnership approach where they have started to feel like an extension of our company. With their ability to provide not only high-level support for complicated IT and computer automation projects but also their ability to understand the business value, we feel like anything is possible with their support.

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

None at this time.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Tempest has today 4 products: search engine, browser, phoner and VPN. All of them has one common core: respect the user's privacy. I am Senior Software Engineer, working for the search engine department, more specifically on the Back-End side.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

To deliver the best possible experience to our users, we developed rich infocards, and among them the "wikicard": a service that brings wikipedia data to our Search Page. This is a complete solution that works and that we want to maintain, and take to the next level:

• increase the data coverage by continuously enhancing the parsers
• maintain the project: recurrent bugs fixing
• extend the service to other markets
• and more ...

SOLUTION

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

I went on a couple of interviews with different people. I based my choice on several criteria:

• the candidate professionalism
• his english level
• his coding skills & knowledge
• his capacity to find solutions, ask the good questions about a given problem

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

The development process is based on Github project dashboard. From there the developer has a couple of tasks assigned to him, pre-defined at the beginning of each sprint. The developer workflow are then:

1. assign points to each ticket is has. The number of points define the difficulty and the length (time to solve it) of the task
2. solve tickets by priority order
3. review other works when needed
4. test and make sure what he did is working as expected

Based on the agile approach, using points, we are able to know the efficiency of our developers. The tools we are using for this project are: python, redis, docker, bash scripting, git, aws tools

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

There is 1 engineer working in the team, as a Software Developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The work done until now is very good:

• quick understanding of the codebase
• good number of tasks solved every sprint
• able to detect bugs and propose ideas of improvement on the project
• serious while reviewing, making sure that the pushed code has a high quality standard

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

The developer is using the provided communication tools: slack & mails.

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

COXIT has put in the necessary effort to make a comfortable environment for their engineers.

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

Not that I am aware of now.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Software development for the language industry. Position: CEO

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire COXIT?

We urgently needed to find a developer, that really fits our needs regarding competences in coding, but at least even important regarding communication and soft skills in working together. And someone who is interested in a longterm work relationship, because for our software it does not make sense to work together with someone new every few months.

Volodymyr did take this challenge and did manage to find someone within a few weeks time. Also he did advise us in the process in a very good way.

SOLUTION

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

We got to know them through another development project, on which one of their staff is working for us since a year. I asked them, if they could also find someone working directly for us on our pay role for our core team (the other project is not core team). Since we had good experiences so far, we went that way.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package.

In personal talks between Volodymyr and me we did sketch the profile of the developer - hard and soft skills. He preselected a number of candidates and we had together interviews with them. Then I selected one.

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

For this project only one person, Volodymyr, Business development at COXIT, worked with me.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We now train the new developer in our software and are optimistic, that he will become a very valuable team member.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The communication and response times and the ration of invested work vs outcome was perfect.

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

We were impressed by their flexibility in helping me find someone to directly work for us, despite being first of all an outsourcing company for IT development.

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

No.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for Internet Archive, a nonprofit library featuring millions of books, movies, software, music, websites, and more. I am a software manager and I manage the creation and maintenance of software used to digitize books.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with COXIT?

We have a software suite called Scribe, which we use for book digitization, that is comprised of one main Python app that runs on Ubuntu and is used for firing DSLR cameras to take images of books. This software and its ecosystem were maintained by a single developer.

We needed a company that could help us scale our development capabilities to make it easier for more people to work on the project and not have knowledge confined to a single person.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired COXIT to maintain and develop new features for our book digitization software. We did not have documentation for the software’s development, so they had to learn how it interacts with various other software components, APIs, our Python library, and other systems. Within a month, they were up and running and producing quality work.

COXIT has helped us through four major software releases in the span of about a year — they’ve developed over 40 new features, implemented various improvements, and fixed bugs. They’ve also handled other projects outside of book digitization software.

What is the team composition?

Our main point of contact is Iryna (Founder & CEO), who manages their team. We’re currently working with two full-time developers and one part-time developer from COXIT.

How did you come to work with COXIT?

I came across COXIT on a freelancing platform. We ultimately decided to work with them because it seemed like their developers were really skilled, and I found the fact that their developers are all working closely together in the same office to be advantageous in terms of collaboration.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2020, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our team's goal is to facilitate the digitization of books. With COXIT’s support, we’re able to digitize thousands of books per week from our stations around the world.

How did COXIT perform from a project management standpoint?

COXIT does a really good job in terms of project management — they’re very proficient in performing individual tasks as well as breaking down a larger project into smaller tasks. 

When we first started working together, I usually broke their tasks down into a certain level of technical detail. As they came up to speed on the project and became more acquainted with the software, I started giving them a broader goal to achieve and letting them work out how to divide the work into individual tasks.

We primarily communicate through Slack, but we also have sprint meetings via video calls every two weeks to discuss progress and plans.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m really impressed with how quickly COXIT was able to come up to speed and learn about our software. I also like how communicative and receptive to feedback they are, especially because they deal with feedback from the people in our book development team as well as 100 other people in the field doing the work of digitizing books.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t really have any complaints about COXIT’s work — they’ve been a really great addition to the team. One thing that we’ve been working on is trying to get better at adding unit tests and streamlining our software testing cycle but that’s not necessarily due to any fault on their part.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure to meet with them through video calls regularly throughout the project. This is a really good way to get to know and have enough face time with the people that you’re working with remotely.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Engineer of Optima-Klassic

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Optima Klassic is the official representative of Franke Coffee Systems in Ukraine. We install, operate, and support both automated and semi-automatic coffee systems throughout the country.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire COXIT to accomplish?

• Support the core engineering team in developing and integrating new features for a comprehensive coffee sales software ecosystem.
• Expedite development cycles and integrate advanced functionalities like QR code scanning, beverage machine interfacing, and banking transactions without additional HR expenditures.
• Enhance and maintain a multifaceted codebase, ensuring seamless operation across various devices and services.

SOLUTION

How did you find COXIT?

Online Search

Why did you select COXIT over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Great culture fit

How many teammates from COXIT were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The project concentrates on broadening the functionalities of a complex software system used for coffee sales. The scope includes:

• Implementing features for seamless communication between the web dashboard, QR code scanners, coffee making machines, and banking terminals.
• Configuring software to support cross-compilation from Windows to ARMv7l, ensuring compatibility with multiple beverage dispensing machines.
• Enhancing the database management system and incorporating the MQTT protocol for efficient data exchange.

Key Deliverables:

• A versatile software ecosystem capable of interfacing with diverse hardware and services, tailored for efficient retail operations.
• An adaptable, scalable infrastructure with enhanced capabilities for different operational modes in the coffee sales industry.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Implementation of over 10 new features
• Continuous support and bug fixing

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

COXIT assigned an account manager and a C++ engineer to our project. Communication was conducted through messengers, allowing us to work directly with their engineer. The account manager was involved primarily for invoicing and feedback purposes.

What was your primary form of communication with COXIT?

Virtual Meeting

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

They managed to take over support for our project in a very short period of time. We faced a specific scenario that required immediate assistance from a skilled C++ engineer, and they handled things perfectly.

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

The invoicing process was somewhat complex since COXIT typically supports US-based companies and structures its processes accordingly. As a Ukrainian company, we encountered a few issues, but their account manager successfully addressed them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company supplies products for automotive infotainment industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Design, development and maintenance of a C++ SDK under Linux environment.

SOLUTION

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

We initially discovered them through Upwork. Main deciding factors were technical knowledge and communication in English.

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

C++, RabbitMQ, Boost under Linux

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

1 - Lead C++ Developer 1 - Senior C++ Developer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They consistently produced good quality code.

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

Github and Zenhub are the primary tools that we use.

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

Consistently supplying quality developers.

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

-