Montevideo Labs

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the lead principal engineer for cloud based data science and engineering for one of the largest financial services companies in the world. I manage a cross functional multi-discipline worldwide team of engineers supporting major client loyalty programs. I have a huge mission and a very small internal staff to support infrastructure, as well as codebase with multi-regions and ENV's for development, pre-deployment and staging We required additional engineering staff to help support our ever increasing demands for our services. Our systems are highly scalable but require support and maintenance to maintain proper SLA.

For what projects/services did your company hire Montevideo Labs?

Initially the team was asked to work on upgrading and stabilizing one portion of our infrastructure. As we gained confidence in their capabilities we have expanded their responsibilities considerably and Montevideo Labs team members are providing excellent support in all areas. Specifically though by tech, support AWS tech stack, EMR, Hadoop, Spark, Elasticsearch, S3, new tenant deployments, entire infrastructure upgrades, and much more.

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

Personally, I did not make this selection, the relationship was established, and resources already assigned when I was brought into the project to initially manage and oversee the first infrastructure stabilization effort. That being said, since that time, I have certainly advocated and championed them internally as being absolutely key members of my team.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We have around 10 engineers that I am aware of, maybe more, assisting us at present. On my team specifically, I directly manage 4-5 and I interact with all others through various squads they are assigned to in data engineering. We use Agile and JIRA so we follow all those best practices with documentation, workflow, ceremonies, etc. Montevideo staff are active, present, thoughtfully contribute, help adapt to JIRA and to GIT (they know more than me).

Montevideo Labs has provided us with true 'team members' these are not just hired guns, I TRUST them, they care, they are respected throughout my company, and they are dedicated to our success as well as Montevideo, and truly are part of our path to success. We form personal relationships, we all learn from each other, in the end I think the best thing I can say is that hiring Montevideo Labs has made us all better engineers.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

I've not had to interview any of Montevideo Labs resources, there has been no need. Maximo understands and hires the best and the brightest, we have seen that for ourselves, and if there ever was an issue I'm sure it would be resolved quickly. As it stands now, we are greatly saddened when assigned Montevideo Labs resources grow beyond the challenges we offer and move on to other challenges. We, of course, wish them well but so far these are great, talented, and wonderful people to work with, I'd hire them all if I could.

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

Many, and again you could say they have been involved with 30 or 40 different 'initiatives' as part of this engagement, each one varied, difficult and complex in their own way. This team is constantly recognized internally on our call out Slack channels for their work and how their work, or responsiveness, helps other teams get unblocked in the company.

Many emergency EMR or ES cluster rebuilds under pressure and other infrastructure deployments happily dealt with even when off hours. They were even called out by the Agile coach leaders for helping to come up with better ways for our company to use JIRA. Always thinking and not afraid to bring up new ideas or approaches.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Excellent, personally no issues whatsoever.

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

Maxio and his ability to find superior talent. He is not only a top-tier engineer he knows how to find the right balance between technical skills and human potential and so far no bad apples, all have been absolute superstars even as they are just starting their careers.

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

No, I think you got it right.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am an engineering and product management executive at an advertising technology company.

For what projects/services did your company hire Montevideo Labs, and what were your goals?

I have been working with Maximo Gurmendez and his team continuously since the formation of Montevideo Labs in 2016. We have hired them to augment core teams with skills in data science, machine learning, data processing, and devops.

How did you select Montevideo Labs and what were the deciding factors?

Montevideo Labs' engineers fit the skill profile and cost profile that we needed for the project.

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

The team produced machine learning job chains, big data workflows, handled various devops projects for CICD, and real-time software for advertising auction evaluation. Technologies used included Java, Scala, Python, R, Spark, Hadoop, Hive, and many AWS technologies.

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

Approximately 15 engineers at junior and senior levels.

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

The team has produced continuous improvement to core services, such as an 80% reduction in costs for machine learning job chains, improvements in time to deploy, and improvements in product operations.

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

The has excellent communication skills in video conferences, wiki, slack, or email.

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

I have known the founder of Montevideo Labs since 2009. Maximo Gurmendez is a brilliant engineer with an unparalleled work ethic. He has surrounded himself with a highly professional team. He has never stopped learning and improving himself and his team.

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

no

Please describe your company and your position there.

Indigo Ag is a software platform for the agriculture industry. I am a Sr Dir of Engineering

For what projects/services did your company hire Montevideo Labs, and what were your goals?

We had to add many data pipelines to move data into our data lake.

How did you select Montevideo Labs and what were the deciding factors?

Through a referral and the fact that they had skills in platform/data engineering

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

The project was more staff augmentation to our data platform team. The MV labs team added over a hundred data sources to our data lake.

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

6 platform/data engineers.

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

It has been a huge success, customers of our data lake are very happy with having access to so much data.

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

They were very good, but we handled most of the project management through our agile software development practices.

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

They're smart and collaborative engineers that spoke English really well.

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

Longer lead times for them to hire senior engineers.