Datum Brain

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the VP of Software Development at Testing Solutions Company

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed a new scheduling service that utilized AWS serverless technology.

SOLUTION

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

We found them through Up Work. We were looking for Go developers that knew AWS lambdas and could trust to work independently.

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

The designed and developed several new AWS services for us

1. internal scheduling system
2. a custom api for a large client that allowed tight integration with their system and a general use api for clients that have their own IT staffs. All 3 services are AWS server-less technology using Golang.

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

I worked primarily with 2 people.

1. Fahad the owner and
2. Faison the lead developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to launch all the projects on time or early. Within the first three weeks of each launch Fahad and group were available during US hours which helped with support. I am happy to say that we rarely ever have production support concerning their 3 services.

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

The project management was great. They regularly met deadlines, and we were always very responsive when changes inevitably occurred. We communicated through Teams and Emails.

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

We had direct access to Fahad and his lead developer. They clearly understood our issues and were able to quickly turnaround all of our requests.

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

Working with them was great any areas of improvement would be nitpicking.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Ardent Growth, a marketing consultancy firm. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Datum Brain?

We developed an algorithm and needed some engineers to help us with software architecture, production, and deployment to turn it into a custom web app. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Datum Brain handles our development needs. The technologies they use include Python, JavaScript, and various APIs. The frontend development is done through React, while the deployment is on Snowflake. It’s connected to BigQuery, Google Cloud, and other Google services. 

The app has a prototype, but the Datum Brain team has done the heavy lifting for it. In terms of features, we’ve built the product for internal use. We do research on our end and feed the data into the product, which processes said data and finds matching information. Then, we analyze the output it gives us. 

So far, Datum Brain continues to provide ongoing maintenance for the app through sprints whenever we need bug fixes, updates, or new features.

What is the team composition?

Two core people work with us, but the team comprises around six people whenever we do our sprint standups. My most direct contact is with their CEO, a Python developer, and a project manager.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested between $120,000–$250,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the partnership in January 2021, and it’s ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our company has reduced the time needed for our core processes from eight weeks to about a week. 

How did Datum Brain perform from a project management standpoint?

Datum Brain meets our time and budget requirements. In terms of tools, we use Asana on our end, while they use Trello on theirs. I manage the product team in Asana, and they take the tasks to Trello for engineering. To communicate, we primarily use Slack, Zoom, and emails. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re great at thinking of use cases and scenarios I may not have considered whenever we’re looking into new features or mapping out ideas. This saves us a ton of time. It’s nice to have a team that understands what we’re trying to accomplish and provides feedback to us throughout the development lifecycle. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have good documentation about your needs. Provide them with as many details as possible, and have regular standups. Make sure you know what you want whenever you engage Datum Brain. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

My company provides proctoring services for the education, professional accreditation and certification marketplaces.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Our existing video platform was a bit old and not modernized to take full advantage of WebRTC capabilities for monitoring and responding to events to ensure a quality session.

SOLUTION

How did you select Datum Brain and what were the deciding factors?

I had hired Datum Brain at a previous company and found their work to be superb. Their team engages like a true extension to my core teams, providing options and top-notch code with on time deliveries.

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

The work entailed created a microservice to manage the life cycle of video recording rooms, from inception to managing deleting the assets when the SLAs warranted. The service monitors the health of the room, automatically adjusts recordings to the changing Internet conditions, and monitors the activities of people in the session

. A web SDK was also included for communicating with the backend, as well as a reporting/administrative internal website.

How many people from the Datum Brain team worked with you, and what were their positions?

There were 4-6 people at any given time. Fahad (owner/manager) lead the development team and there was mix of backend/front end developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The solution provided is currently being retrofitted into the existing platform. The real-time monitoring capabilities are a long awaited capability that we believe will reduce support calls by at least 50% and increase user satisfaction with their experience.

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

We communicated daily over Zoom to track progress and work through any open issues. The team has delivered on time and exceeded expectations, delivering quality and functionality -- it was very obvious that they invested in the project as truly their own, not just a job for a customer -- the results were excellent.

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

The team consistently rises to exceed expectations -- they listen to the requirements and come back with fantastic feedback for improvements and possibilities -- they truly engage as a partner in trying to produce the best possible solutions. Communications were excellent, never any negative surprises and consistent quality.

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

As with all development teams (internal as well as external), there can never be enough code comments and additional automated tests. For the most part, the work was high quality.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the solution architect for ReportBrain, a SaaS provider.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Datum Brain?

We needed to build a crawler for one of our client’s websites. We hired someone, and the crawler wasn’t scaling well. It took too much time to crawl so we needed another partner who could develop a distributed web crawler.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed an Apache Spark-based web crawler from scratch.

What is the team composition?

Fahad (Co-Founder, Datum Brain) worked on the project.

How did you come to work with Datum Brain?

Our founder found him on Upwork.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $2,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from December 2019 until January 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The crawler is part of a much bigger data pipeline where we needed to crawl the website, get the data, process it, expose it, and send it to our customer so they can see what had changed in his data. Without the crawler, we couldn’t build inside this pipeline.

Datum Brain developed a wonderful distributed web crawler that scales how we wanted and has all the features we wanted. We’re very happy working with them and are going to hire them for another contract. The finished solution is reliable and functional.

How did Datum Brain perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management was good. Fahad kept me informed whether things were going well or not. If any issues came up that could affect delivery time, he quickly communicated it. They delivered on time and budget.

What did you find most impressive about them?

When we first hired them, I clearly remember Fahad telling me he has a plan A, plan B, plan C, and plan D, and that I didn’t have to worry. He applied Plan B and it worked well.

Are there any areas they could improve?

He could communicate more. Most of the time, he gave us enough information to see how things were going. Sometimes I had to go to him to ask for details about certain things. Overall, it wasn’t a big issue.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Trust them. They respond very well to trust. If a client wants to micromanage them and have them say exactly what line of code they have written and when, then I don’t think it will work out.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Head of Product for a web analytics company that focuses on detecting online advertising fraud.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We had an existing application that needed new features built and we needed our documentation/github updated to reflect the current status of the application. The prior developer did a poor job managing documentation so it was hard for a new developer to pick up the project but Datum Brain did a great job.

SOLUTION

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

We posted a job on Upwork and Datum Brain had experience with large data sets and the language our application was built it. They were good communicators and had positive reviews already.

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

- experts in golang -mysql / queries with very large data sets -writing / maintaining unit tests in Go -experience writing cli tools, REST apis -general linux/ubuntu administration -strong understanding of javascript to maintain/debug existing JS code

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

2 back end developers and 2 front end developers

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They have been able to complete all additional features requested in a time effective manor. They have improved our documentation/git and improved the overall efficiency of our product.

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

We have a weekly team call and manage tasks in trello and github issues. Good communication through slack

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

They have a well rounded team of good developers which gives them experience in a lot of different languages/products. They made it easier for me by being available during my work hours even though they are in a different time zone.

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

We have had some minor issues with communication of specific developers but the Datum Brain team lead quickly noticed this issue and fixed it.