Mad Devs

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Executive of Propellerheads.xyz

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We design markets, build infrastructure, and publish open source to keep defi simple and decentralised.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Mad Devs to accomplish?

• Refactor CI/CD Pipeline
• Refactor AWS Account IAC

SOLUTION

How did you find Mad Devs?

Referral

Why did you select Mad Devs over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Mad Devs were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Infrastructure Modernization and Migration:

Analyze current requirements through stakeholder interviews and Terraform code review.
Plan and set up a clean AWS account for component migration.
Kubernetes and Compute Resources:

Provision and maintain a modern autoscaling Kubernetes cluster with high-performance CPUs (comparable to Apple M-series performance).
Database Management:

Set up Postgres RDS instances with automated daily snapshots and a rollback process.
Static Frontend Hosting:

Host static frontends via a CDN.
API Gateway:

Configure AWS API Gateway for high traffic (~2000 RPS+), including setup, maintenance, and best practices.
CI/CD Pipeline and Build Server:

Provision and maintain a build server for GitHub Actions CI/CD pipelines.
Provide reusable pipeline templates to:Build and test Rust crates.
Test Python packages.
Build Rust binaries and upload to S3/GitHub on release.
Build Docker images and push them to ECR.
Monitoring and Alerting:

Implement a robust solution for alerting, logging, and monitoring, with a preference for Grafana Cloud.
AWS Roles and Permissions:

Establish two developer roles with configurable action permissions, including Kubernetes operations.
Create an admin role for elevated permissions when necessary.
Technology Preferences:
Work primarily within AWS.
Reuse Terraform for infrastructure provisioning where possible.
Engagement Model:
Initial Setup: One-time effort to implement the above deliverables.
Ongoing Maintenance: Monthly retainer for support and updates, aligned with Kubernetes release cycles.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Turnaround time for deployments
• Infrastructure cost

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

Their project management was exceptional. They consistently delivered items on time, often exceeding expectations by proactively anticipating potential challenges and addressing them before they became issues. Their responsiveness to our needs was outstanding; they maintained clear and open communication, adjusted priorities as needed, and ensured that our feedback was incorporated effectively. Working with them felt seamless, and their ability to stay organized and deliver high-quality results made the entire process a success.

What was your primary form of communication with Mad Devs?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

What impressed me most about this company was their deep expertise and resourcefulness. Their ability to leverage a profound knowledge of available resources was unparalleled, consistently helping us navigate complex scenarios with well-architected, efficient solutions. Additionally, their strong grasp of blockchain technology stood out, enabling them to offer innovative and cutting-edge approaches tailored to our needs. Their combination of technical acumen and solution-oriented mindset truly sets them apart.

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

Honestly, there’s nothing significant that comes to mind for areas of improvement. Mad Devs demonstrated exceptional professionalism, technical expertise, and responsiveness throughout our collaboration. They consistently met and exceeded expectations, delivering high-quality results. If anything, maintaining this level of excellence over time is the best challenge they could set for themselves!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the co-founder and CEO of a Self Custody Mobile Wallet that makes it simple to invest in DeFi protocols.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Mad Devs, and what were your goals?

We hired Mad Devs to augment our engineering team for the development of the app. We had an MVP in place and our goal was to bring in more engineers with DeFi expertise to fast track development of the next version of the app.

SOLUTION

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

Mad Devs came strongly recommended through an investor who had previously worked with them.After an initial conversation, we were convinced that we were looking at a strong and capable who could help us accomplish our objectives.

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

One of our main goals was integrating with Balancer protocol and enabling NFT usage on the platform for referrals. Ulan and Belek helped us do that using Python language (Fast API framework). Moreover, they supported us with tests (covering a lot of code with it) and improved error visibility enabling alerts through Sentry.

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

We had two backend developers (Ulan & Belek) working for us full-time and later in the project development we onboarded a project manager Ruslan who helped us with general processes, planning & documentation. Also, we were always in touch with Mad Devs delivery manager Tony solving issues when we had them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The team provided the following outcomes:

• Integrated Balancer Protocol (http://balancer.fi) for depositing/withdrawing fiat to liquidity pool and further staking and swapping tokens
• Leveraged NFT to increase the percentage of users who initiate referrals
• Completed SendGrid, SendWyre, and Firebase integrations
• Integrated Sentry.io to send alerts directly to the slack channel
• Configured CI/CD using GitHub actions for running unit tests
• Covered 95% of the code with tests using pytest

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

The communication was smooth, done mainly asynchronously via Slack. The team was always in touch and communicated in time in the common chats and tickets. We had sprint planning sessions and retrospectives, which were also very helpful in communicating issues, blockers, and ideas.

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

Mad Devs went beyond what we had expected. They worked closely with us in understanding the product, the ecosystem, and the current business priorities. They are very structured and process oriented but at the same time were flexible to the fact that we were an early stage startup and were ok working with the right set of processes and tooling that worked for us.

While our agreement was for support on software development, they helped us set up processes around sprint planning and tooling on Jira. The engineering quality was really high. And their senior management were very accessible and helpful.

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

One area where Mad Devs struggled with was in hiring a React Native Developer. But we can understand that market is incredibly competitive and hence hiring can take time.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO of RociFi labs. RociFi is a decentralized credit economy with non-transferable, blockchain-native credit scores designed to facilitate zero and under-collateralized lending. At its core, the protocol leverages on-chain data, machine learning and loan risk-management to effectively and profitably facilitate under-collateralized loans via the blockchain.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Mad Devs, and what were your goals?

We had internal development team which we wanted to support to maintain the pace for our release. The goal was to add 1-2 extra developers to help us keep up with all the functionality and, at the same time, implement needed enhancements to already existing code.

SOLUTION

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

While searching for extra hands, I asked some good friends from Lido.fi if they know a good company to work with. They referenced Mad Devs team and assured me that Mad Devs could help and assist with pretty much everything related to crypto development. After I met Pavel & Anton and interviewed them, I was sure we would get along quickly.

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

Within these few months of work Mad Devs team worked on the following tasks:

• Cover our code base with unit & integration tests
• Fix bugs & implement needed enhancements found by the tests
• Write & Maintain documentation on the system
• Implement different automation & CI elements to the pipelines (such as deployment scripts, protocol checklists, etc.)
• Assist with protocol architecture improvements
• Assist with protocol deployment to testnet and mainnet Mainly the project is written in Solidity. There is a good portion of Node.js code for the supporting services and scripts.

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

We worked with a small team from Mad Devs that consists of 3 Solidity developers

• Anton worked full time and implemented most of the tests and functionality based on the tasks
• Pavel worked part-time and mainly consulted our team & Anton on how to implement various components and, at the same time, insisted on architectural changes, automation, documentation, and processes
• Alexey worked as a part-time developer, assisting us to go live and proposing different tools to improve the code’s quality and automation

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project's main outcome is that we are now live and working, testing our hypotheses. With the help of the Mad Devs team, we have established working processes, secured ourselves with checklists, integrated linters, and covered the code with unit & integration tests. We were able to release the platform as planned, and I feel great about the deliverables from Mad Devs team.

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

Mad Devs team quickly adapted our instruments and management style. They implemented everything on time and luckily helped us with things we could not cover since our main focus was features and the platform’s launch.

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

One impressive thing I would like to point out was their gentle approach to the changes they brought to our team. Even though we had a lot of arguments about the importance of tests, documentation, automation, and working processes, now I see that we have changed our attitude to development. It happened seamlessly, almost without any resistance from our side, yet, I am very happy that it happened. I know that I can always rely on them, which is fabulous.

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

We would be so happy if Pavel could work full-time for us, since being part-time limited the amount of tasks and responsibilities we could just delegate him and devote ourselves even more to other product-related activities. Other than that, I can’t think of any so far.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a partner and senior analyst at a London-based long/short investment fund. We primarily focus on European equities and our investors are primarily US institutions (endowments, pensions funds, etc).

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Mad Devs, and what were your goals?

We wanted to implement a tool that would help us automate our daily routine and allow a better data-analysis onward. We collected and analyzed data from different sources manually, which was a big time-wasting. Also, we used spreadsheets to organize and visualize data, and we had to constantly look for ways to save previous data to get a sense of all the changes that happened over time.

SOLUTION

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

knew Mad Devs from previous projects, and since we have managed to work well in the past, I considered hiring them for this project as well. We also negotiated the model of work and decided to go with Time & Material so that I could make sure I do not spend more funds on the project, only those which are needed to build the tool

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

We started with planning sessions with the Delivery Manager from Mad Devs to better understand the requirements for the tool. After that, we listed core data sources for the tool and prioritize them. Mad Devs assisted us in deciding on the hosting solutions and guided us through the process of tool creation (essentially a road map) Finally, closer to the end of the project, a team helped fix some of the issues that arise due to changes in the data sources, and the tool is still operating well without any major issues.

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

I worked with several professionals from Mad Devs:

• Anatoliy, a delivery manager, was responsible for the end-to-end delivery of the project
• Anton, a backend developer who implemented the actual solution and helped me to polish it so that it fit perfectly to our needs

The team did a really good job staying in touch all the time and helping me figure out how to use the tool and hosting solution. Now I have full control over the project and its deliverables

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I have received what I really wanted. In addition to it, I see that the solution is quite flexible, and I can play around with numbers and data. Moreover, I have learned some more tools that can help me further in my professional life. If I need to make changes to the project, I know that I can always relate to Mad Devs, and they will do it all correctly and within appropriate time limits.

Since the tool still works properly and does exactly what we wanted, I am truly satisfied. What was also good is that the team set up an alerting tool (Sentry.io) to alert about any errors that might occur within the project. That was and still is a great help

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

Mad Devs then started to implement the tool with a 1-week sprint, and at the end of the sprint, we had demo sessions where I was looking at the deliverables and could ask questions and propose changes. I could see the project's progress on the Jira board and communicate with the team via a Slack channel.

Each day the developer wrote standups describing what he did yesterday, what he would do today, and if he had any blockers. That helped me to keep track of the progress even better They also log their work very detailly in Jira, so for me, it was clear what I was paying for

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

I was amazed by the communication style. It is very open and transparent. They were implementing a project as if they were the owners of it. Transparency leads to quality of work and well-managed expectations.

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

Of course, every company has room for improvement, yet I think they have done an amazing job on this project, and I don't see much to suggest at this time.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a founder of Kuprik LLC. Kuprik is the one-stop shop for indie authors to find vetted vendors.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Mad Devs, and what were your goals?

I wanted to empower my current development team with more professional developers to better prepare the platform for a major release and implement certain functionality needed for the users. I also felt that we needed more established processes & project visibility and, at the same time, avoid manual work.

SOLUTION

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

We had some poor experiences with several previous agencies, and I wanted to find a reliable team that I can work with to make my platform go live with all the needed functionality. Contacting Mad Devs, I have got an instant response, and their Delivery Manager Anatoliy helped me to identify the right people for the project. He also explained how they would work and if they are capable of assisting us at that moment.

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

The team started with the code & infrastructure audit to identify issues and points of improvement. Then we had a bit of planning to introduce JIRA and its roadmaps. Anatoliy listed out all the work to be done, and we started the work. The team was able to fix bugs, adjust functionality, introduce more documentation to the project, communicate with my current team, and introduce the automation in our deployment pipelines.

The team also helped me test the platform’s functionality, saving my time. After their work was finished, they also helped me to transfer the project to further support from another developer.

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

I am thankful to the following team members that worked with me from Mad Devs:

• Ilgiz K., a backend developer, managed to implement needed changes and communicate with my frontend developer
• Bekmyrza D., who served as a QA engineer and helped me test the platform and find unexpected behavior in the system.
• Anatoliy F., who was both a delivery manager and a PM. He was always in touch, listening to my concerns and requests, consulting me on Stripe integration, and forming the team for my requests.
• Vitalii V. & Dmitrii K., DevOps specialists who were in charge of our AWS accounts and pipelines implementation.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Here is what I see as outcomes from Mad Dev's involvement:

• We were able to make several important decisions about our Stripe integration and identify further work on that matter
• Now, we do not spend time deploying services manually. That prevents many errors and saves the developer’s time
• We were able to identify & resolve several issues on our platform that we need to resolve before we launch massively
• We have got documentation about the project and how it works to easily onboard new developers.
• We introduced JIRA to manage project activities and track developers’ work.
• The team introduced us to the Sentry.io tool to help us see errors that appear when the project runs on production.

With all that and many more, I feel satisfied with the Mad Devs involvement

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

We had one communication channel in Slack, and much of the communication was placed in JIRA tickets which was really convenient. The team managed to do most of the assigned tasks on time and with no bugs. As for the management style, it was agile, and we used to have Scrumban to finish all the needed tasks. I liked that the team was always in touch and had many calls with me and my team regarding obstacles and questions.

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

They were able to quickly identify important aspects of our platform that needed to be improved. When I spoke about the problems, Anatoliy seemed to know it all already and quickly reacted with tickets and their implementation. Their communication was on a high level, and I was sure that if something unexpected happens, Mad Devs will help my team to resolve the issue. The team also asked me lots of questions that made me think about the UI/UX of the platform and work in that direction as well.

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

Every company has room for improvement. We did not spend enough time with Mad Devs so that I could properly advise anything. One thing I would mention though, is that sometimes I felt that the code was more important than development processes, but maybe we should have communicated more on that to identify if it was really so or not.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm Product Head at MegaUni - an Edtech company. We're a subsidiary of the number 1 private company in the Education Section in Vietnam. MegaUni is an educational platform for Vietnamese universities based on the Open edX open-source platform.

We cooperate with universities, and educational organizations and provide them a platform for online classes and certified courses.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Mad Devs, and what were your goals?

With the onset of the pandemic, we realized the extreme need for an online platform for Vietnam to enable students to take online courses while being at home. We’ve researched and tried many different options and realized that it is better to build our own platform in the Vietnamese language and customized by our wishes and needs.

To make it convenient for everyone, we wanted to develop it with four components: - Learning Management System for students - Studio for teachers - Admin Panel for school administration - E-commerce for payment transactions

SOLUTION

How did you select Mad Devs and what were the deciding factors?

I have worked with Mad Devs on other projects and I know that they are capable of building complex projects.

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

Together with Mad Devs, we divided the scope of work into 3 milestones for the MVP version. Shortly speaking of each milestone: In the first milestone, we set up basic project environments for platform development and communication channels. In the second milestone, the dev team completed 60-70% of stories that were set up by basic Open edX configurations.

They were able to set up live classes integrating and LTI consumers without making any changes to the Open edX codebase. During this milestone, the team has also successfully connected online payment gateway and drafted front-end works of main, course category, and auth pages. 

The third milestone we devoted to MVP launch and implementing the most relevant stories. By the end of the milestone the following work was done: - Stable workflow in LMS, Studio, and eCommerce environments - Necessary features to create content in the Studio - Three auth flows - Vietnamese localization of the platform - Micro-frontend services - Live classes - Payment flow - Integration with third-party services as online support, emails sending, and infrastructure monitoring.

The MVP of Megauni was successfully launched on time and 30 students were able to start studying a few of their courses online by the end of March. The team has continued their work further on and the rest of the work was completed before the start of the next semester as planned.

During the last month they have completed: - Preparing the customized course page layout - Trial period for paid courses - Save course function with the Favorite courses section - Notification module via emails - Certificates and certificate share functions via social media - Organization management - Categorization of the courses via admin panel

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

Throughout the project development process, the team composition varied depending on the development phase. In the beginning, there were only DevOps engineers involved and further, the team has expanded. Overall we worked with a team consisting of: The delivery Manager was responsible for the end-to-end delivery of the project and was in touch with me throughout the whole project.

Project Managers who set up smooth workflow both for the development team and the testing team from our side. One was constantly involved with product managers helping with a better understanding of features implementation and user flow, while the other was concentrated on working with developers.

Backend developers (in total) conducted deep research on the Open edX codebase, set up the basic features, and developed additional functionalities according to the requirements. Frontend developers (in total) prepared the user interface based on the design provided by our team - Qualified DevOps engineer has set up solid infrastructure, deployment flows using CI pipelines and infrastructure alerts.

We also had two Open edX consultants to get help when needed The team was constantly in touch with us helping with testing, presenting demos, and providing proper guidance for each implemented functionality.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to launch the project on time before the semester started in May. We also had time for testing the MVP version with 30 students before presenting it to universities. The platform was well developed as we expected and we have attracted four universities to use the platform. Currently, over 100 students are successfully using the platform and enjoying online classes.

Thanks to the team, we also successfully set up an E-commerce platform, so the students can buy courses they are interested in.

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

The team used the agile development process, so we had asynchronous daily standups in Slack, daily calls with the team and status check calls with the project managers. The team used a variety of tools to track teamwork like Jira where team members communicate and prepare technical and user guides for the implemented features for the product team.

After preparing the first iteration of the features the development team participated in the demo which was really helpful since we could ask technical and user perspective questions from the developers directly. The documentation was assembled in Confluence, and it was all structured well.

I would like to also mention that managers were open to discussing feature requisites, debating their necessity, and exploring from different perspectives without any infringement on business values.

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

Communication and constant support made our experience bright and thrilling with Mad Devs. We were always sure to get help and guidance on the features and discuss our worries and plans. The development team and managers were always open to providing their expertise, consulting us, and discussing the project features from different perspectives.

It helped us to stay focused on our goals and see the bigger picture.

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

As the project was based on the Open edX open-source code, we expected most of the features as part of the Open edX basic setup. And only in the middle of the development, we realized they weren’t. I wish we had done thorough consultation with the experts.

I think Mad Devs should take into consideration including more consultancies from the very beginning of the project

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the co-founder of BandPay LLC. BandPay is a milestone-based payment platform that takes on the duties of a project manager, a lawyer, and an accounting officer, enabling people to run their businesses effectively. This service is well suited for artists, musicians, designers, freelancers, and businesses that choose project-based cooperation.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Mad Devs, and what were your goals?

We wanted to implement a while-label milestone-based payment platform to help musicians to manage their deals with customers and ensure that the funds are reserved upfront. We wanted to develop an MVP that has all of the following components:

• A landing page
• iOS & Android mobile apps
• Platform engine + payment processor
• Proper infrastructure to host it all

SOLUTION

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

We had some poor experiences with several previous teams and decided to search for a dedicated team from a different region. We found Mad Devs a year before this project. What inspired us is that they had a call with us to listen to our plans and wishes and then asked a lot of questions for clarification and gave advice. We decided to continue working with them since they have offered us a really good development team and advised on billing solutions that were perfectly suited to us. The price was attractive as well.

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

The team described the project steps and technologies very well in their case study, which was published with our approval. https://maddevs.io/case-studies/bandpay. If I sum up, we had several project phases:

1. Proof of Concept Development. Here we tried to understand if we can actually build something we want and how it would work.
2. MVP Development. At this stage, we already knew that PoC works, and we identified all the needed features to be included in MVP.
3. Major App Release happened when the pandemic started, and for us, it was not as successful as we expected. The team did a really good job making all the needed actions to release the apps
4. Further features building. This phase was dedicated to implementing features that early adopters requested, and we thought would be a good fit for our app
5. Supporting Phase. In this phase, the team was minimized, and we were only fixing the leftover bugs and observing how users used our platform. As for the technologies used, we decided to build the engine on Golang, the applications were built using Swift & Kotlin for corresponding platforms, and we used React.js to build the frontend. We decided to integrate Stripe & Stripe Connect instead of building our own billing and used Heroku as our hosting provider. Designers used Figma for prototyping and UI/UX development

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

We worked with a large team from Mad Devs that varied depending on the project phase:

• 2 Delivery managers. They were responsible for the end-to-end delivery of the project. Since it was a long term project, we started with Tamara and finished with Anatoliy
• 4 Tech & team leads for backend and mobile team who helped us implement lots of complex solutions and build robust architecture.
• 6 Mobile developers to implement iOS & android apps. On average, we had 1-2 developers for each platform during its implementation
• 1-3 Frontend developers to implement different desktop components of our system
• 1-2 DevOps specialists who set up infrastructure in Heroku and helped us manage our existing AWS accounts
• 3 project managers who helped the team to organize work properly in different phases of the project. We had 1 PM at a time for different stages of the project.
• 1-3 UI/UX designers to develop a proper design for user interfaces and user journeys. With different project phases, more people were involved because of our diverse demands. The team did a really good job staying in touch all the time and helping us build the platform we wanted for our users.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The major outcome for us was our platform launch. We were able to see how users interact with our platform and how we can use it further. We transitioned over $1 million between different accounts. From the development standpoint, we have got the following artifacts that we can further use:

• A large codebase (for backend, mobile apps, frontend, and infrastructure) with all the necessary readmes and tests
• Vast documentation on how the project works and how the platform really operates
• JIRA workspace with all the tickets and documentation in place
• Figma project with all the apps screens and prototypes
• Fully documented Stripe Connect integration
• A lot of project reports from the very beginning of the project with descriptions of the results, obstacles, and achievements.

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

We used the agile development process, so we had asynchronous daily standups and had a two-week sprint cycle. They’re held accountable for the work they’re committed to in a sprint. We use a variety of tools to track their work, like Jira, where the team not only reported the status of tasks but also what they had actually done for those in the form of short worklogs. Usually, the whole development team participated in the demo which was really helpful since we could ask developers about their work directly.

The documentation was held in Confluence, and it was all sorted well. We have had monthly meetings with Delivery Management to understand where we were and what to expect in the nearest future The majority of team members had good English, so it was not a problem for us to communicate with the whole team in one common channel

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

Their transparency and willingness to help were at a very high level. We did not expect so much dedication and effort. We were always sure they would not give up and would finish the work so that we can present it to the users.

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

At the very beginning, we should have conducted more research and planning, yet, since we thought we did not have much time, it was not done properly. That caused some issues for further development, which we had to resolve as we went

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the former CEO of Topica Group, one of the largest ed-tech companies. We provide 3-4 products. One product is an online learning platform for working professionals, which functions as a marketplace for professional skills and hobby education. 

The second product is an English online tutoring platform where students English skills online. The third product is an online Bachelor degree platform. We partner with top local universities to provide online Bachelor’s degrees for working professionals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mad Devs?

We needed to fix business and technology issues. During my first 3–6 months as a CEO, we found our in-house engineers couldn’t handle the problems. We needed outside expertise to help the team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The first engagement with them was to help us bring stability to the products. We had a lot of crash cases and it wasn’t stable. The code was poorly written and not very well-documented. The customer journey integrations with the third-party apps were almost impossible.

They conducted a complete audit of the technologies,  identifying a backlog of short-term and long-term problems. They worked side-by-side with our in-house team to deal with all the bugs and issues. The teams returned to us with critical root issues. That ended July 2020.

The second engagement involved building a completely new unified learning platform to bring together the best features from our three existing products. We needed to bring in Mad Devs to make sure the development ran smoothly. 

What is the team composition? 

There were about 5-6 key positions including a project manager. They filled all key positions such as the project manager, Android lead, iOS lead, full-stack developer, UI/UX, and DevOps. There were more than 20 engineers involved in filling our 5-6 key positions over time.

How did you come to work with Mad Devs?

I’ve known the founder, co-founder, and CTO for a long time. I worked with them on a project before. The quality provided in the past was amazing. They take full ownership of the code while being very meticulous and process-oriented. They make sure everything is well-documented. It’s very clear and transparent, which made it easy for us to transition over to their services.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $15,000 each month for the first engagement and $20,000–$25,000 per month for the second engagement.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from March 2020–January 2021.  

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

From the beginning, they gave us all the lists of concerns and risks for potential problems. That is one of the main reasons we had to delay. Their findings led to changes in business requirements. The engineers did a good job. Things would’ve been very difficult without their help.

The second project was complex. It was a project to unify the three platforms into one single solution. It brings in a bunch of new unique features to enhance the learning experience. It’s a good product.

How did Mad Devs perform from a project management standpoint?

They were very transparent with how many hours they worked and what tasks they were doing. We had daily and weekly meetings. With their help, the project was well-run and followed best practices. They used Jira and Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Mad Devs stand out in terms of quality and transparency. They fully disclose what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. If they didn’t understand something, they told us immediately. They don’t overpromise. I trust their opinion and advice fully. When they don’t agree with our stance, they let us know and have reasons behind their thinking. Understanding our reasoning is very important to them. They don’t want to do anything without understanding it.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I recommend that they build their presence further. The complexity and way we managed different teams from all over the world sometimes added unnecessary complexity to the project. I would have liked to bring in Mad Devs alone.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s important to work with them on business requirements and product understanding. They need to understand the business goals, strategy, and context of the product rather than just pure technology. Otherwise, you won’t maximize their potential. For collaborations with an in-house team and the Mad Devs team, the roles need to be very clearly defined. They always mention it in the beginning. They ask who’s working with them, why, and what their roles and responsibilities are.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a technical consultant for the Sir John Monash Centre within the Department of Veteran’s Affairs for the Australian government. It’s an interpretive center based in France that tells the story of Australian involvement in the western front during WWI. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mad Devs?

Over the course of our engagement, we've had two contracts with Mad Devs. One was an enhancements contract for our software that’s pivotal to our operations. The other contract involves maintenance.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our software was written in custom Golang code. Although we provided backend briefing documentation, the main documentation was the core Golang code. The software was originally written in a reciprocal process, meaning it had a lot of redundant code.

Mad Devs made many changes to the code to clean it up. They essentially audited the system and brought its maintenance up to speed, ensuring it was current with all of the external inputs. That was the bulk of their backend work.

Their team also implemented several enhancements to the frontend for content delivery too. We initially had no way to update content because it was locked into an extension in the Golang code. Mad Devs separated the two items, and that allowed us to update multimedia content.

They also manage the iOS and Android applications that operate our audiovisual system. Their team takes care of their maintenance. 

What is the team composition?

In the beginning, there were about 10 members of Mad Devs’ team working on our project. Now that the enhancements phase is over, there are only 4–5 people working on it. The team includes Golang developers, iOS and Android specialists, and a project manager.

How did you come to work with Mad Devs?

We searched worldwide for a team that could handle all of our technical infrastructure’s components. As it was an Australian government tender process, we had an open expression of interest. Mad Devs was one of the few companies that could provide iOS, Android, and Golang developers.

How much have you invested in them?

The total value of the contract is around $720,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement began in November 2019, and it’s ongoing. Our current contract ends in December 2024.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their service desk must meet response times, and Mad Devs excels with their response times in general. When we need them, their team is always available even though we're working across three time zones. Although we’re working across a 24-hour spectrum, we’re always able to reach them via phones or tickets.

Mad Devs always meets their deadlines, which is, unfortunately, rare with contractors. Their team keeps me up to date on their progress against deadlines. That’s another valuable metric.

How did Mad Devs perform from a project management standpoint?

Mad Devs came on board with a platform called FMX. It’s a facilities and maintenance platform that we use as a ticketing system. We also use it for asset and inventory maintenance. They’re actively engaged with that.

We needed a Waterfall project management system. Mad Devs also works in an Agile methodology, but we tend to avoid that in the government.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m most impressed with their technical capacities. They have a great network of consultants. If you come to them with a project that requires specific skillsets, they might have 80% technical capacity in-house. However, they will likely know consultants and bring them on board to meet all of your requirements.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

I haven’t found their performance lacking in any area. I can’t think of ways for them to improve at this time.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Before engaging them, do your homework and know your requirements for the end product.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of technology of a marketing company. I’m responsible for product development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mad Devs?

We were short of resources and needed someone to help us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Mad Devs found a couple of developers for us at the beginning of the engagement. We implemented one project and then decided to increase the number of developers on their side. They’re involved in all the projects we currently have. The main project is the website. Their team helped improve the performance of the website. They also built tools to help us to manage the website and sister site. They use Python, Django, and some Golang.

What is the team composition?

There are a couple of project managers that I work with.

How did you come to work with Mad Devs?

We contacted a few companies, including Mad Devs, who are listed on Clutch. We gave them requirements of what technologies they should be familiar with and Mad Devs was the perfect fit.

How much have you invested with them?

We invest $700,000 a year.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement started in June 2019 and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The website performance increased as well as its reliability. We were able to build more tools for internal needs.

How did Mad Devs perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate via Jira and Slack as well as have calls three times a week.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re responsible. Since they work on other projects, they share that experience with us. We know what’s trending and how things are usually done.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing I’d have them change.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You need to spend a lot of time communicating to them and explaining requirements. Answer questions that they ask. You’ll have to do work on your side to support the project development as well.