ivy tech

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief of staff of a payment orchestration platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ivy tech?

We were looking to support our engineering team so we hired ivy tech to provide software engineers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

ivy tech serves as our externally allocated development team, and we treat them as an extension of our internal employees. They use several software technologies to augment our staff, and they provide offsite services. Essentially, we use them to employ people legally. We also use them for logistics management and for providing equipment.

What is the team composition?

We have a team of 35 people that we employ through them.

How did you come to work with ivy tech?

They were referred to us.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in January 2016, and we continue to collaborate.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have a very positive relationship with ivy tech, and it’s the reason why we have been working with them for so long. They are based in Ukraine, and they are setting up a team in Poland. We intend to continue working with them in these locations and hopefully elsewhere in Europe. Overall, they’re the team we can rely on when setting up teams across Europe.

How did ivy tech perform from a project management standpoint?

They have great communication skills, and we have regular contact with ivy tech. In fact, we have weekly meetings and monthly reviews, and we use email and Google to keep in touch. Everything is also organized and allows us to meet our budget.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their local knowledge in Ukraine and the personal experience that we have with them have been impressive. They’ve gone beyond our service provider relationship and have closely worked with us to maintain our company culture.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’re working on hiring more technical researchers on their team because that’s the kind of skills we’re looking for right now.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Establish trust and transparency between your teams and Ivy Tech to get the most out of the relationship. Build positive relationships with their operational teams to grow a strong collaborative environment and enable positive long term solutions and support.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm working as Director of Engineering at Ethic. Ethic is a New York based Asset Manager specializing in socially responsible investing. In my role at Ethic, I spearhead the development of the Platform which is used by our clients to create and maintain their sustainable Stock portfolios.

In my position, I work closely with the Client team who interact with the Advisors to identify the needs and convert them into product specification working with Designers and Product Managers and then lead the Engineering team to get the features delivered. The Platform is Ethic's core offering to its clients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Ivy Tech is primarily hired to help Ethic with the development of the Platform. Platform's technology is cutting edge using latest web technologies with an amazing user experience. So we needed someone very tech-savvy while having a good eye for a great design and user experience. Platform consist of one primary Angular web application at it's core and supported by a stack of multiple applications and micro-services.

Our goals were to find engineering partners who can help us building high performance web applications in a fast paced environment while having fun and respecting each other.

SOLUTION

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

The Eastern European talent is something that the founding team at Ethic have highest regards for. We didn't have direct experience working with Engineers from Ukraine though. The decision to engage Ivy Tech was primarily driven by 2 factors:

1. The lack of good front-end engineers in the local market (NYC area) who would be interested to work in an early stage start-up.
2. The confidence that we got engaging with Ivy Tech in our early meetings. Ivy Tech's UK based leadership team was a major plus. Plus Ivy Tech came through a referral.

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

Ivy Tech's Engineers engage with the Ethic team on a daily basis. They are involved in almost all phases of the software development cycle. We do have a daily standup call with the team to give them direction and review their ongoing work. Here are few examples of projects rolled out by the Ivy Tech's team.

• Platform: A suite of Angular applications developed on top of NX mono-repo with continuous code deployment and automated test coverage using Cypress and Applitools. A tool to run healthcheck of clients current stock holdings, ability to create a new portfolio and ongoing reporting some of the core offerings of the Platform among many others.
• Automated Decks: An engine to create automated Google Slides deck with programmatically generated content and embedded screenshots from Platform web application. This engine used Google Slides API and cuts down 40 minutes of manual work to 10 seconds with 3 to 4 clicks.
• Sustainability for Everyone: Built a community site in a break neck speed of 7 - 8 weeks from ideation to rollout. Using Angular, the team was able to leverage some of already built components increasing code reusability and reduce maintenance in long run.
• Survey engine: Custom built engine to author a Survey with rich user experience while delivering personalized content. Developed using Angular in frontend and Java on the back-end. The survey is the first application that Ethic's prospective client use and sets the first impression. I have only picked a handful of projects. There are many more amazing things that this team has produced.

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

There are currently four engineers working for us in Ivy Tech's team. One of them is lead engineer and 3 other senior engineers. Account Manager from Ivy Tech is engaged with us for any ongoing team maintenance and team expansion. We are in the process of hiring a fifth engineer from Ivy Tech.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The Platform application and the team behind it, primarily Ivy Tech Engineers, have earned highest recognition inside Ethic. They are an inspiration for rest of the company. Not only for their ability to deliver high quality feature but also for their humility. Ivy Tech engineer's contribution is instrumental in growth of Ethic.

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

We have daily stand-ups with the team to clarify any questions and review their ongoing work. The ivy tech team's work ethic is exceptional in committing to a deadline and working towards without compromise in quality. The availability of the team through Slack and other communications channel is on point.

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

They are very accommodative in terms of work hours to match with the US time zone. This involves lot of sacrifices from the team's personal life and we are highly appreciative of it. The team is open for feedback and takes them in with positive attitude. As rest of the Ethic team, people from Ivy Tech treat their work seriously but they don't take themselves seriously.

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

The team vacation management could be more transparent. Providing ongoing support to improve team's soft skills could be helpful. Both in terms of verbal and written communication.