Leo Coders Private Limited

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Partner

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are a real estate start up in the SaaS industry. Providing avenues for the real estate industry professionals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Leo Coders Private Limited to accomplish?

• Build our website SaaS
• Maintain our services

SOLUTION

How did you find Leo Coders Private Limited?

Upwork

Why did you select Leo Coders Private Limited over others?

Pricing fit our budget

How many teammates from Leo Coders Private Limited were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

The scope of work for the project with Leo Coders agency was focused on developing a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform, leveraging a microservices architecture to enhance scalability, maintainability, and flexibility of the application. The project encompassed several key components and technologies, detailed as follows: 

1. User Account Services**: The platform was to feature five distinct user account services, designed to manage various aspects of user interaction and data for the Real Estate Industry and these professionals. These services included user registration, login procedures, profile management, security settings, and user support functionalities. Each service was to be developed as a separate microservice, allowing for independent development, deployment, and scaling. 
2. Front-end Development**: The front-end of the application was to be built using React Native and JavaScript, ensuring a responsive and user-friendly interface across both web and mobile platforms. React Native was chosen to facilitate the development of a native-like mobile experience, while JavaScript was to be used to create dynamic web pages that could interact seamlessly with the back-end services through API calls. 
3. Back-end Development**: The back-end was planned to be developed using Django, a high-level Python web framework known for its rapid development capabilities and clean, pragmatic design. The choice of Django was aimed at leveraging its "batteries-included" approach, which provides a wide range of built-in functionalities for database integration, authentication, and admin interfaces. The back-end structure was to be organized into multiple microservices, each responsible for handling specific aspects of the platform's functionality. 
4. Microservices Architecture**: The entire application was to be structured around a microservices architecture. This design choice was aimed at breaking down the platform into a collection of small, loosely coupled services. Each service was to be independently deployable, scalable, and focused on executing a specific business function. This architecture was intended to facilitate easier updates, improve fault isolation, and enhance the scalability of the application. The project with Leo Coders agency was scoped to harness the strengths of these technologies and architectural principles to build a robust, scalable, and user-friendly SaaS platform.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We initially engaged with the understanding that Jira would be utilized for project management, providing transparency and structured oversight throughout the development process. This tool was expected to facilitate clear communication, task tracking, and milestone achievement, ensuring that all parties remained aligned on project expectations and progress. 
However, after an initial period of engagement, it became apparent that the anticipated use of Jira, weekly meetings and the consequent organizational benefits did not materialize as expected. Despite assurances of its implementation, tangible evidence of active project management, task completion, and progress tracking through Jira was markedly absent. 
This discrepancy has led to concerns regarding the transparency of the project's status and the effectiveness of project management practices in place.

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

The project management approach adopted by owner, Raul, was initially communicated to involve structured processes, including the use of Jira, a manager and communication with lead backend for task management, milestone tracking, and overall project oversight. This setup promised a transparent, collaborative, and efficient management style, conducive to timely deliveries and responsive adjustments to project needs. 
However, in practice, the project management execution diverged significantly from the outlined expectations. The anticipated transparency and structure, did not materialize in a manner that was accessible or visible to us as clients. This divergence has made it challenging to accurately gauge progress, adhere to timelines, and assess the completion of project milestones in a reliable manner. Regarding the timeliness of deliverables, this deviation from expected project management practices has had a palpable impact. 
The absence of clear, demonstrable progress through an organized platform led to uncertainties and long delays around the completion and delivery of key project items. As a result, they never held to an adherence of any agreed-upon timelines and would be apologetic for all coding issues, In terms of responsiveness to our needs, the lack of a transparent and structured project management approach has complicated communication. 
Without clear visibility into project status, task completion, and upcoming milestones, fostering a responsive and adaptable project environment has been challenging. This situation has necessitated additional efforts from our side to seek updates and clarify project details, impacting the overall efficiency and adaptability of the project response to evolving requirements. Additionally, a significant deviation from our initial agreement was observed in the architecture of the delivered software. 
Despite the explicit requirement for a microservices architecture, aimed at ensuring scalability, flexibility, and independent service deployment, the agency provided a monolithic build. This fundamental difference in architecture design has profound implications for our operational and developmental strategies. During the course of the project, we encountered several challenges with the coding standards and practices employed by the agency. 
The performance of the delivered software was notably impacted by bugs and inefficiencies, which seemed to stem from the complex and unstructured nature of the codebase, often referred to as 'spaghetti code.' This not only made maintenance and future enhancements more challenging but also raised concerns about the overall reliability and scalability of the application. 
Most critically, we discovered significant lapses in the handling of sensitive data, particularly concerning the storage and protection of our clients' credit card information. It was identified that this sensitive information was not encrypted and was stored in a manner that made it accessible through public-facing code. This practice not only contravenes standard data protection protocols and best practices for secure coding but also places our clients' data at substantial risk of unauthorized access and breaches. 
Such findings are deeply concerning, given the paramount importance of data security and privacy in today’s digital environment. They highlight a need for immediate rectification measures and a comprehensive review of coding practices and security protocols employed by the agency. The discovery necessitates urgent action to secure the stored data, rectify the vulnerabilities, and ensure compliance with data protection regulations to safeguard against potential legal and reputational consequences.

What was your primary form of communication with Leo Coders Private Limited?

Virtual Meeting

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

In reflecting on our engagement with Leo Coders, and Raul, despite the challenges encountered, one aspect that stands out is their ambition to undertake complex and multifaceted software development projects beyond their capabilities and effectively convince the client how skilled and routine these projects are for their agency.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Leo Coders Private Limited could have done differently?

We urge companies to exercise extreme caution and conduct thorough due diligence before engaging with service providers in the tech space. The potential consequences of such security oversights are not only damaging to your time and resources but could also lead to serious legal repercussions. Our experience, regrettably, serves as a case study in the critical importance of vetting partners who hold the keys to your digital kingdom.