Lineate

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the manager of data science and analytics at InnVest Hotels. I oversee the entire data spectrum, from data engineering to data science and analytics. InnVest Hotels is Canada's largest hotel owner and operator, with roughly 100 hotels in our portfolio.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with InnVest Hotels?

We started our data initiative a year and a half ago. We wanted to break down the data silo and consolidate as much data as possible to make it work better. This way, we could serve each department more efficiently, and they wouldn’t have to jump through hoops to get their data. We didn’t have the capability in-house, so we hired Lineate to help us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Lineate has helped us develop our data lake house in the AWS environment. We’ve identified some critical data sources we want to bring in. Our biggest ask is to bring the data into the AWS lake house environment and establish that architecture. They’ve also done some data visualization, but most of their work has been on the data architecture and engineering sides.

They’ll provide maintenance services in the future. We might also work on some data science-related tasks and AI implementations — these are on the roadmap, but Lineate haven’t done them yet.

What is the team composition?

I work closely with Lineate’s data architects, solution architects, QA specialists, a project lead, a sales team, and a data director. I’ve also briefly interacted with their C-level executives. Overall, I work with 7–8 teammates from Lineate, including Eugene, Levan, and Anton. 

How did you come to work with InnVest Hotels?

My boss had an initial conversation with Lineate before I joined the team, so the engagement was passed to me.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $400,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement started in May 2023, and it’s ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve accomplished 80% of the initial project plan, and everything is under budget control.

How did InnVest Hotels perform from a project management standpoint?

Lineate uses an Agile project management approach and Jira to track all the sprints. We communicate through Microsoft Teams and email. We have weekly touch-base meetings and ad hoc meetings regarding issues. Overall, their project management is good. 

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

Eugene, Levan, and Anton are great to work with and proactive. I don’t need to chase them for work, and they implement whatever they learn from other projects and proactively let me know their worries.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their attitude towards work is impressive. They treat the project as one of their products instead of just doing work for a random company. They’re also proactive and treat the work seriously. Moreover, the quality of their work is pretty decent, and I barely see any alerts from AWS.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their project management can be better. They can give us a report on how we’re doing. To be clear, the developers are doing a good job, but the way the project management team communicates can be improved. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have your own project management team if you can. This way, you can communicate well with your counterpart and be as transparent as possible. They’ll give you the best answer if you provide the necessary information.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an executive of Sovrn

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Provides advertising software tools and services to content creators.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Maintain existing bidding platform and fix bugs
• Implement machine learning algorithms for traffic management

SOLUTION

How did you find Lineate?

Referral

Why did you select Lineate over others?

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

How many teammates from Lineate were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Lineate stepped in to help support our primary ad exchange, and Open RTB platform handling 10's of billions of requests per day. Initially we brought them on to provide maintenance, repair and operations of the platform but quickly recognized they could do more. Over time, we started prioritizing feature work related to the core bidding operations to accelerate the development of our roadmap. In addition, we asked them to refactor code to clean up some prior technical debt. Key deliverables included scalling up the performance of the exchange and integrating the machine learning models to manage traffic shaping.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Maintain 3 x 9's of system up time and availability
• Operate within boundry of acceptable revenue gains/losses
• Bidding response times within millisecond constraints 
• Features delivered on time (within sprint boundry) and within budget

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

We had a technical project manager that was available during check-ins. Given the timezone difference between the US and East Europe the TPM would faciliated conversations when necessary. The Lineate team was especially responsive working off-hours to ensure as much overlap with US mountain time as possible

What was your primary form of communication with Lineate?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Our team was immersed within the culture of our engineering team(s). They participated as part of the team, not as outside consultants. Lineate engineers came up to speed very quickly on a complex legacy product and delivered value extremely fast. We initialy intended to use them for 6mo - 1 year but ended up keeping them on as long term partners. We also increased the scope of what they could work on and expanded their footprint to other teams within our engineering organization.

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

Nothing immediately comes to mind. We had a few developers that didn't fit our needs but Lineate quickly adjusted when requested.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an executive of Moove.ai

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

DaaS company contextualizing raw automotive movement data for Insurance, Logistics and DOT customers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Google cloud infrastructure / dev ops
• Data engineering
• AI / ML pipeline development

SOLUTION

How did you find Lineate?

Other

Why did you select Lineate over others?

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Lineate were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Developed Google Cloud infrustructure and software to ingest, manage and process billions of records from streaming / real-time sources.  Batch process the data with ML / AI pipelines to produce derivative product.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Production DaaS system

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

Very proactive team.  Delivery ontime.  Expectations met.

What was your primary form of communication with Lineate?

Virtual Meeting

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

Engineering first approach.  Integrated into team vs "consulting" our "outsourcing".  Highly skilled and capable of contributing to overall architecture and design. Lineate provided efficient development practices.

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

no