Jiratech

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the administrative manager at Learning Architect, a human resources technology company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Jiratech?

I needed help with development as it was expensive to hire someone in-house as a startup, so the best way for us to move forward was to hire people on a per-project basis. I started working with a number of vendors and had to change the technology quite a few times due to being an inexperienced product manager in IT. I had started out with a fancy technology without looking at how many people I could find that can use that technology. After several changes, I ended up with Firebase, which is very nice.

Things weren’t working out with the people I was working with after deciding on using Firebase, so I decided to look for a professional company to help me with the actual development work.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Firebase was a new technology for Jiratech, but I was quite impressed with how they approached the project. They took their time to learn it and didn’t bill me for that. Jiratech was open to the idea of learning new technology and never tried to persuade me to do something different. Seven months in, they were quite proficient in Firebase and picked up the development work where it was left off.

Specifically, Jiratech is helping us develop an invoicing app with a large database and a heavy frontend. They’re building the frontend and the backend simultaneously. It’s a cloud-based app that’s able to keep some information in the browser on the client-side. It’s quite seamless and has several frontend capabilities.

What is the team composition?

The project manager is my main point of contact, and he’s awesome. There’s also a guy who interprets things for me when engineering gets too technical. He’s very good at that.

How did you come to work with Jiratech?

I reached out to people through Facebook and Reddit and even posted something on a Romanian development group. Jiratech got in touch with me and we took it from there.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent €20,000 (approximately $22,300 USD) on their work so far.

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

Jiratech built a backend that’s easy to understand and with clean code. Before working with them, we would fix something and another bug would pop up. Jiratech has fixed most of the bugs that were there before and haven’t created any new ones. I’m pleased with their work.

I would always blame the code when any friend of mine used the app and reported bugs to me. This was up until a month ago. Now, I’m confident with Jiratech’s code and know that any issues are probably on the user side. The code works very well now and it’s quite impressive.

How did Jiratech perform from a project management standpoint?

We work in sprints, so if I find a bug that’s annoying, I put it into the current week’s sprint. Jiratech is very responsive, especially when I find bugs. We use Trello, Slack, and Google Hangouts to communicate and they’re extremely flexible, which makes them a great match for me. I’m very happy with how they work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m most impressed with how clean and bug-free their code is. If I want something done, it gets done without any issues. Jiratech’s flexibility helps me out a lot.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing that Jiratech needs to improve. I haven’t worked with anyone else that’s better than they are when it comes to coding. I’m not extremely happy with their design capacity, though. Their skill in that regard is adequate, and I know it’s hard to find good designers in Romania.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Take the time in the beginning to clarify everything. For the first two weeks, we met once every two days and had four-hour meetings. We took the time to understand each other, the project’s needs, and the desired results.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder, managing partner, and the CEO of Envisage. We focus on software for artificial intelligence and visual machine learning. We work in conjunction with another product called the Knosis, which takes input from several users before feeding the data as a valid example in a machine learning process. 

In most machine learning projects there’s no quality assurance or measure of quality on the input of the data. Our two products, Envisage and Knosis, deal with this problem together. Envisage is focused on running algorithms in production and Knosis is focused on harvesting inputs from human users where the algorithms fail or don’t provide enough confidence.

We started out in face recognition, but we’ve been expanding toward other branches of computer vision such as tracking objects and reading license plates.

What challenge were you trying to address with Jiratech?

The main challenge any startup faces is scaling the team. I was looking not just for a vendor that understands assignments, but for a partner who understands objectives.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They are augmenting our staff, but they’re more than just a development team. 

For example, we were reviewing one of our sprints, and I was in Radu’s (Founder & Managing Partner, Jiratech) office. After we finished, he said, “Okay, now let me show you what else we did.”

They built some filters into our continuous improvement pipeline so that if there’s an error, the guy who introduced that error is contacted.

It’s an integration between systems: the production system knows from the log exactly what went wrong in the code and where and the code management system knows who made that change and when it happened.

What is the team composition?

The formally assigned team includes Radu, Andrei (Technical Lead, Jiratech) and one other specialist. They are on and off, depending on the tasks. 

I think there are two more people helping with design, but that's more episodic in nature. You need it for one sprint and then you just don't need it for three sprints.

How did you come to work with Jiratech?

It was a leap of faith because I just had a recommendation about them. We were in some groups and accelerators together, but we weren't very closely acquainted. What started off as a first project turned into a very close partnership between our two companies.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them around February of 2019, and the project is ongoing.

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

They understand our needs to reach objectives, not just to tick some boxes. Also, they have a level of autonomy. When there was an issue, there wasn't just an issue. There was also a solution. 

They're also proactive, and this makes me relaxed. It gives me peace of mind because they understand that we need to have a sellable product, and they act accordingly. 

Radu isn’t just there to tick boxes from a to-do list. He has the mentality of clearing the path. If something might be a problem, he wants to fix it before finding out if its a problem or not. 

How did Jiratech perform from a project management standpoint?

All the activities are broken down by Radu and his colleagues into their actual assignments. We only zoom in on any divergence between what is written down and what actually has to be done if there's a discrepancy. But, most times that really isn't the case. For day-to-day communication, we use Slack because we don't share an office, and we meet two times per week.

They have a flexible payment plan. We structure our work into two streams based on dependencies per-day. Basically, on the stream that’s more unpredictable, they track their time. We have an agreement about a batch number of hours. Basically, we sign off on 200 or 300 hours on each continuation of the contract.

Within each of these periods, they keep their own time tracking, and I do some reviews, but there's never been any significant divergence. On the Knosis team, they have more autonomy internally and they don't depend on external things. We have a similar agreement for that team, only they deliver a fixed price exhibit. 

One thing that was very important for me and them was to have at least a three-month horizon of visibility on future work. We want to know exactly the order of the functionalities and the priorities. They always know the future scope of the work at least two, but preferably three months in advance. 

The principle between us is to always to keep a balance and visibility. For example, if they know that they’re going to need to bill more, they tell me in advance so I can take on a new customer myself. If you know that you're going to have two colleagues free for the next two months, tell me in advance, so we can do something about it. This sort of mutual flexibility makes things run smoother. The downside is that maybe they won't be able to scale as fast as is needed.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think that one of the areas of improvement is that sometimes they're too optimistic. But, that is more of a piece of potential than a liability (if it’s managed correctly). 

Sometimes, especially because all the machine learning technologies are new and the frameworks are undocumented, they assume with optimism that there's a solution. They assume ideal conditions. Or, they assume that the solution will always work or that it's always documented. This optimism makes them sometimes underestimate how hard it will be to solve the problem. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The clearer the requirements and the expectations of a potential customer, the more likely it is for Radu and his team to be able to deploy the full scope of what they can do. 

Basically, if they get a little bit of context and they are put in a story with an objective in mind, not just a list of functionalities, they can really think outside the box. So, that's what I would emphasize as a recommendation.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Co-Founder & Product Designer at Nautil Solutions, a startup focused on delivering helpful apps for seafarers working on commercial ships.

For what projects/services did your company hire Jiratech?

We needed development for our first app - Nautil Voyager - a mobile maritime course planner.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to create a stable and fully functional app that seafarers can rely on.

How did you select this vendor?

Based on the flawless communication and knowledge base. They understood our needs and helped us in achieving our goals by providing us with clear and fast solutions at a fair fee.

Describe the project in detail.

We presented our initial designs and user flow to the team for proper examination and they came back with a state of work 1 plan and time-frame for development. We've kept an open communication line with the developer so that we can go through all the steps needed and ask for clarification or advice, where needed. The project went according to our objectives and the team managed to deliver on time.

What was the team composition?

We were assigned a main point of contact, a project manager and a senior developer, perfect for the size of our project.

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

We received promising feedback from our testers.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Frequent updates were provided and we had constant contact with the developer to solve any problems that occurred with the functionality of the app. There were moments when we needed some advice on which solutions to implement and Jiratech didn't hesitate to help us.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I appreciated their vision and the desire to get involved in our project where a different knowledge base was needed. They understood our needs and delivered on point.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We ended up with a very functional app with a clear user flow. Just a little more attention to the UI design elements can be improved.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Accelerator, CEO.

For what projects/services did your company hire Jiratech?

Mobile app built in React Native.

What were your goals for this project?

Test an MVP hypothesis.

Describe the project in detail.

The Jiratech team delivered periodical builds until the whole backlog was implemented.

What was the team composition?

We were assigned a project manager and 3 developers.

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

The project was successfully delivered.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Jiratech worked seamlessly with our engineers like they were part of our team.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The drive to complete the tasks as requested.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of an accounting and business consulting company.

For what projects/services did your company hire Jiratech?

Our company needed a new software allowing faster and more efficient registration of invoices.

What were your goals for this project?

Minimise time, errors and human ressources used for a specific client using a specific billing system.

How did you select Jiratech?

Word of a mouth through an acquaintance.

Describe the project in detail.

The software developed by Jiratech unabled us to extract invoices from our client's software and register them automaticaly in our own. After sorting them according to G/L accounts, our accountings are able to work and to frame faster the balance sheets.

What was the team composition?

I was in constant dialogue with the team manager assigned to this project.

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

After 1 month, the software did in a few hours the job of 2 people for a week. This unabled us to have quicker and diminish the number of errors.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The project manager was easy to communicate with and provided us with constant updates. I appreciated their responsiveness and they showed no fear to challenges.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their knowledge of coding/software developement and their ability to face challenges. They quickly found solutions to every problem encountered.

Are there any areas for improvement?

They have to show more communicatioon regarding their pricing policy and strategy. In the end we appreciated their transprency and price-quality balance.