Netguru

What was the scope of their involvement?

They took over the management of the site. We hadn’t done any development work for about a year, so they gave a lot of advice about things we should be updating, like new versions of Ruby. They did that initial review to pinpoint main concerns. At the same time, they allowed me to make comments and request some of the things I was more interested in, like the features and everything we ultimately wanted. It was a balance between the two processes. They took on everything and we started from the beginning in terms of objectives.

We totally changed the flow of our signup process, including all the data fields that we collected and had structured into profiles. We did lots of work on reporting so that I could actually extract the information I needed in order to run the business well. It was a whole different way of looking at the data.

We also added various payment methods. We added description options, bundles, and did an overhaul of some of our regular scheduled emails, optimizing and speeding them up. Netguru did lots of refactoring.

There was tons of old code that they audited, picking and choosing what was worth keeping. They made the software a lot simpler. Prior to working with Netguru, we didn’t have automatic tests or scripts. So after each feature, they put in place automatic testing. Now, instead of us having to manually test, those key features are automatically tested to see if anything is broken. They focused on the user, especially making sure nothing broke during the payment process. We are now having a bit of a break from development and they are helping with maintenance.

What is the team dynamic?

We had two senior developers, one junior developer, a designer, a project manager, and a tester. That was the maximum that we had at any given time.

They have a rotation policy at Netguru. After a certain period of time, the lead developer will be changed so that everything is seen by more than one developer. This method ensures there’s more than one person working on the code, giving a different perspective. We had a project manager that I couldn’t stand, but she left the company, so we ended up with a new one. There was also always a backup project manager that knew the project to a certain level, which was useful. If someone was on a day’s leave, the backup person would always be available.

If we wanted to add or remove anyone on the team on short notice, that was always very easy for Netguru. An in-house team would’ve been a different commitment. I like the flexibility, the availability, and the cost savings of office space.

How did you come to work with Netguru?

I spoke to various freelance developers and contractors; I was looking at all the options. There was one other remote company I was considering, but they didn’t compare when I spoke to them about how they operated. Wiktor [Schmidt, Co-Founder & CEO, Netguru] reached out to me via email just in time, told me a bit about what they do, and we began the engagement.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2016 and the work is ongoing.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The specifications already existed, and most of our goals were already outlined, but they helped improve some things. Regarding security, they helped us a lot. The previous system could easily be hijacked by a third party, so Netguru had to improve the entire thing. They even found some security issues we hadn’t seen and didn’t understand. They showed us what the problems were, how to fix them, and they did it all the proper way.

Netguru first developed the Android version of the app, and it’s been on the Google Play store for about two weeks. We’re still adding some features, and we have plans to make an iOS version.

For the next financial round, we don’t plan on hiring our own developers. We’re going to use Netguru for that phase.

What is the team dynamic?

There are four developers, one project manager, and one QA. Our CTO talks with them every day.

How did you come to work with Netguru?

Our previous partner wasn’t working out well. The programmers were located in Peru, and we needed something closer to improve communication. Some of the code was even written in Spanish, which none of our team or clients spoke.

We wanted to get to know the developers and meet with them from time to time. We requested proposals and interviewed four different coding agencies. We’d had a past project with Netguru, and I knew they were good, so we decided to hire them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2017, and the work is ongoing.

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

Netguru's expertise and development resources have been key in building a number of SMS [short message service] and MMS [multimedia messaging service] solutions for us as well as seriously fleshing out the infrastructure of the systems we're building right now. Essentially, Netguru is involved in every aspect of our development.

Our solutions are data-intensive applications. Right now, we're within the proof-of-concept phase, developing our prototype and testing it through beta users. We plan to do a lot of work on scaling the application and better handling potential load increases.

Right now, we have a team of three people from Netguru, including one developer, one quality assurance resource, and one project manager. Netguru has an interesting approach, allowing the client to work with them in any way they like. Netguru would have preferred to have a small team with a project manager, allowing me to interface with that manager. I know that this approach has been successful, but I wanted our development resources to report directly to me, skipping the project manager. I wasn't terribly interested in allowing the quality assurance tester into the codebase, given that we're developing a financial application. Netguru was perfectly happy to accommodate this.

How did you come to work with Netguru?

I had been the vice president of technology at another startup. My predecessor there was a Polish person who ran a small team. I had the task of evaluating everyone in it in order to see how we could work together. I came to find that our Polish team was made up of solid developers who were doing good work, so I increased the size of their involvement. When I moved to my current company, I needed a back-end team, and started looking for another Polish company. I took into consideration both cost mitigation and the overall superior skills of Polish developers, compared to Indian or Chinese ones. I also found it significantly easier to work with Polish developers in terms of accent, which makes a large difference when doing remote work, relying almost exclusively on voice communication.

I found Netguru out of my search. I looked at seven or eight companies in total, which were offering Ruby on Rails consultation work remotely. I interviewed them, spoke with their developers and eventually settled on Netguru. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with Netguru in March 2016.

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

We use netguru as an external development resource. Many of our projects are confidential due to the fact that we work with large financial institutions. We often spin up business ideas, which remain in the research and development phase.

The first project we worked on with them was a consumer finance product targeted at the European market. We worked with one of the senior developers at netguru and assigned some development resources on our side, too. The person assigned by netguru was very impressive in terms of the code produced. Working with external talent can come with some uncertainty in terms of what their contribution will be – beyond extra manpower. The senior person had a good, in-depth understanding of the programming language. He was able to take our existing code and ideas and interpret them into very high-quality results. He unbundled and rewired some of the underlying classes in order to make things work properly.

We worked on a subsequent project that revolved around a more agile media space. They performed very on that project, too.

We work together on an engine, rather than simply doing web development. There are many algorithmic processes involved in this.

We've employed three developers from netguru at peak capacity. We're a technologically adept company so, even though there were project managers assigned for both of our projects, I preferred to work directly with the development team and the senior person, especially. It was easier to use a more technical language in this way. We may be an atypical customer in this regard.

How did you come to work with netguru?

We looked at a number of Ruby on Rails development companies in Europe, considering both United Kingdom-based companies, which can be extremely expensive, and ones in Eastern Europe. We narrowed our search down to Poland due to their proximity to Berlin, where we had an office. We considered three companies in total. netguru won the first impression. They proved to have a very reasonable, systematic way of producing quality code and seemed to be more switched on than the other companies.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working with them since 2014.