Pattern Match

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am co-founder and CTO, also taking a big role in terms of product.

For what projects/services did your company hire Pattern Match?

• generate a first proof of concept in order to estimate the effort needed better
• get some technical help on short-term issues
• technical assessment with Infrastructure/ SRE/ DevOps engineers we want to hire

What were your goals for this project?

Valid PoC in order to cross check it with other agencies or AWS. Having a written down plan of basic infrastructure and services we need.

How did you select Pattern Match?

Recommendation and reputation. We found good reviews on the internet. An open workshop was the first touchpoint with Pattern Match; we went for Pattern Match as one of our advisors gave us a strong recommendation.

Describe the project in detail.

The first part of our project consisted of generating a broad overview plan (around 3h). The outcome were three draw.io infrastructure plans: one for showing all the services involved in our internal data flows, one for networking and compute services and one for security and logging.

What was the team composition?

We only worked with Wojciech Gawronski.

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

We got a much clearer picture of what has to be built in terms of infrastructure. We could then estimate better what ressources we need and this changed our hiring plan for the future. Originally, we wanted to hire a Senior DevOps/ Infra Engineer in Q3/Q4 2021, now we are doing it in Q1 2021 as we fully understand the importance.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Highly effective. Wojciech is very experienced in AWS and could adapt quickly to our needs. He also could resolve our issues quickly. As the project only involved Wojciech, the communication could not have been more direct.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We were impressed with their knowledge. We cross checked the output with Solutions Architects from AWS directly and they would not provide a different solution.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The capacities at Pattern Match are at the moment quite tight. They are compared to other agencies more expensive but you get a very good value for it.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of a platform that helps to solve cybersecurity issues by providing second-factor authentication solutions.

For what projects/services did your company hire Pattern Match?

We needed the assistance of Pattern Match to analyze and discuss challenges concerned with Amazon Web Services.

What were your goals for this project?

Consult standard configurations of AWS as well as our own approach towards web services management.

How did you select Pattern Match?

We have decided to cooperate with Pattern Match after strong recommendations from one of our employees. We knew that Pattern Match team members are the experts in Amazon Web Services and they will meet our standard and expectations.

Describe the project in detail.

We had begun by answering a few interview questions about our platform and the challenges we face with AWS cloud. A few days later we had an online consultation where Pattern Match expert explained us step by step how to solve the issues with AWS. It was a very insightful meeting.

What was the team composition?

one expert from Pattern Match.

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

Solutions suggested by Pattern Match allowed us to create the right configuration of the AWS cloud. Thanks to it, we were able to set up services on our platform in the right and secure way.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Communication between us and Pattern Match was very satisfying. Their approach is transparent. They responded to our request very fast and managed to finish everything on time.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We were strongly impressed by Pattern Match competencies. They really know what they are talking about and are able to explain everything in a detailed yet simple way. They are also very well responding and focused. Always ready to support us with each and every of our inquires.

Are there any areas for improvement?

So far we haven’t identified any areas of improvement.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder of Kaiz App. We supply continuous improvement software for corporations and their employees. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Pattern Match?

We needed help with AWS setup and maintenance. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

They did our whole AWS setup and configuration. We asked them to audit it, advise on the best setup, and set it up correctly for what we do.

What is the team composition?

We have worked with one main person from their team who is in an engineering type position.

How much have you invested in them?

I don’t know the exact number but it’s between $10,000–$20,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in April or May 2020, and the work is ongoing.

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

The quality has been very good, and we are very happy. They missed a couple of things, but I pointed them out and they fixed them the same day. It has been very good and better than expected.

The page load speed improved, but I think the security configuration improved most of all. We can tell that they are very, very good at what they do.

How did Pattern Match perform from a project management standpoint?

I don’t think it is so good, but to qualify that, we weren’t sticking to exact deadlines. We have been flexible; unplanned vacations crop up and something moves from this month to the next.

Not everything is carried out to the original plan, but we aren’t troubled by that. We were comfortable with the timeline and weren't obsessive about completing the project on a particular week.

We use Jira. I have a lot of project management experience, so we use Google sheets in place of Excel for planning as well. We also have our planning tool in our own software.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are very specialized. I think there are 20 of them, and 17 of them are experts with at least 10 years of AWS experience. Through working with them, it’s clear they’re very competent, so we are very pleased with that.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They haven’t done their part in tracking the project against the plan. They have a list of activities to complete and they will tell me when they are complete. However, I need to have a clear view of what was completed, the time, and what is remaining from the time allocated in June and July.  

It isn’t a massive deal, but it would be better if they did that without charging me per hour for that information. For me, it isn’t the core work that needs to get done, it is the overhead activity.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I wouldn’t hesitate to work with them. They are very good at what they do and they’re good at hiring experienced professionals. I would go ahead and hire them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of research and development at DTiQ, a company that provides services for quick service restaurants (QSRs). We audit loss prevention and quality of work services. We use our technology to help our customers improve their processes.

What challenge were you trying to address with Pattern Match?

We needed to change the architecture that gathers data from the customer side. We were looking for a partner who was experienced in AWS.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We designed the architecture and selected the proper services to use. Based on that, Pattern Match did the cost simulation for the design of the architecture. We process a lot of data and need to be sure it doesn’t cost us a lot. 

They helped us with automating our costs in this area. The new architecture is stored in the cloud. We also engaged them in another project last month.

What is the team composition?

In the beginning, we had some workshops with 2–3 people. Now we have a single point of contact, Wojciech (CEO).

How did you come to work with Pattern Match?

I did some networking and we selected Pattern Match after interviewing them and seeing that they were cloud experts. We talked to one other company as well, but they weren’t very flexible.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent $30,000–$40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2019, and our engagement is ongoing.

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

We can now process three times more data than before and almost at the same price. That was the goal, and it’s the best KPI we can measure.

How did Pattern Match perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is perfect. Pattern Match really focuses on knowledge transfer.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are AWS experts. They’re really straightforward and open with their communication.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything for them to improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Let them do their job.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of engineering for a television measurement and attribution platform. We collect data on television viewership patterns and provide measurements of ratings, impressions, and attribution studies to our clients.

What challenge were you trying to address with Pattern Match?

We hired Pattern Match to assist with our infrastructure as well as database needs.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Pattern Match started by providing one infrastructure engineer who worked in AWS. Then, they added a resource with expertise around databases and infrastructures. Their knowledge of databases was specific to the tech stack that we work with.

They’ve been instrumental in helping us transition to the next phase. Their team migrated our infrastructure from one-off deployments to a clustered set up, which is more resilient and scalable.

What is the team composition?

We work with an infrastructure engineer and a database engineer.

How did you come to work with Pattern Match?

We found them through another contractor. We ended up striking a direct relationship with Pattern Match.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $350,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around December 2018 and our relationship’s ongoing.

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

Right off the bat, we had a great experience with Pattern Match. From every metric that we can gather, we’ve had a successful relationship. They’ve made our infrastructure capable of better performance.

Their team helps propel us forward as far as meeting our SLAs to clients by creating a performance environment. That’s been critical. They’ve stabilized our infrastructure.

How did Pattern Match perform from a project management standpoint?

We use JIRA. They’re excellent communicators. Their team’s direct and to the point, which helps cut down on noise. They’re always available. Their team delivers on time and on budget. Their team’s responsive, business-oriented, and results-driven.

The infrastructure engineer’s remote but we’ve flown him to New York a couple of times. We have a close and successful relationship. They’re open, which makes it easy to work with them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their work ethic stands out. I’ve dealt with contractors for most of my career. They definitely stand out as one of the best. Their expertise is valuable and relevant to our work. They also have strong communication skills. They expressed much more of an interest in our company than any other contractors.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing I can think of right now. It’s been a pleasurable work experience and we look forward to the years to come.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure what you’re looking to do is clear to Pattern Match. They want to understand the business side of a project. That helps them do their job better. Make sure they’re aware of the direction in which the business is headed.

Please describe your company and your position there.

HRS offers you holistic solutions for the whole value chain of hotel procurement: you are supported with comprehensive benchmarking data, consultation and services for strategic hotel procurement and automatic processing of bookings and invoices, thanks to innovative payment and invoicing solutions.

Moreover, HRS creates necessary transparency through the continuous analysis of travel behavior and highlights opportunities for optimization and significant saving potentials. - I am the Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

For what projects/services did your company hire Pattern Match?

Modernize and refactor a tech stack of an online travel portal. Transition into the cloud (AWS).

What were your goals for this project?

After the merger of hotel.de into HRS, direct all traffic from former hotel.de to the new stack (AWS, Java, React). New stack serves as a blueprint for other HRS products and portals.

How did you select this vendor?

By recommendation. Because the project was of such strategic importance it was essential to choose a result-driven partner who was equally commtted to our goals.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The project was to rebuild our tect stack based on AWS. In particular we needed a reliable partner with profound experience in AWS, Kubernetes, Containers, and Serverless.

What was the team composition?

Pattern Match contributed about 30-50% of the workforce of the project. Particulary, they brought AWS expertise (AWS, Kubernetes, Containers and Serverless) into the team.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

The project was delivered in time and budget. After having 100% traffic shifted to the new stack we can state that there are no disturbances whatsoever, no loss of page rank, and page speed has improved. All in all, the entire project was delivered successfully.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Pattern Match was always very hands-on and results driven. On management level we benefitted from close communication and a direct line to Wojciech and Sebastian.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Commitment to HRS. They have the flexibility to cope with varying requirements from our side. Expertise in AWS technologies.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None to mention.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I run a small IT consultancy company based in Cambridge (UK). We aim to offer simple solutions to our clients based on many years of experience and often reach out to our network when required.

For what projects/services did your company hire Pattern Match?

Our current client was in need of some Erlang consultancy and in this case it was better to reach out to Pattern Match as they have much more expertise in this field.

What were your goals for this project?

The goals were to gain a better understanding of a Radius/Diameter service and redesign it to be a stateless gateway.

How did you select this vendor?

Pattern Match came recommended to us via our network.

Describe the project in detail.

As this service was a mission critical part of our clients business we wanted to gain a better understanding of how it worked. Once that was clear thanks to Pattern Match the service was enhanced with: diagnostics via distributed tracing a simpler design (stateless) easier deployments test coverage

What was the team composition?

Pattern Match offered us their leading erlang consultant who was excellent and got to grips with the service very quickly.

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

Within the first week, most of the functionality we required was ready and work began in the 2nd week on some of the nice to have features. Most mornings when we came in there was a Pull Request waiting for us to review with exactly what we needed. I couldn't be happier with how it went and will use them again for sure. The product is due to go into production in a matter of weeks.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was great. The communication was very easy and when pattern match needed to ask questions they did and after only a short while the level of trust I had in their work was very high. We mainly communicated over hangouts and slack.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Having met only 2 people from the company both were fantastic communicators and very professional. For me, their USP is really just how experienced their consultants are. They just get it very quickly and are able to hit the ground running.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing I can think of.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Exlabs is a software solution delivery partner. We work with established businesses around the globe (but predominantly in the UK) on a range of project around digital transformation.

For what projects/services did your company hire Pattern Match?

Exlabs won a contract on a big piece of work where, to our clients understanding, we did not possess all of the skills internally. Pattern Match did provide us with a ready to go team of highly skilled engineers precisely filling the skillset gap.

What were your goals for this project?

To work as one team without any conflicts of interest. Pattern Match helped us to deliver on the requirements within the deadline required.

How did you select this vendor?

We performed a wide search on the local market, as possibility to colocate was an important requirement. Pattern Match proved to be most flexible and credible at the same time.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We started off with introductory workshops and agreed on the high level processes that would guide the project. For the actual kick off, Pattern Match were flexible to meet the end client directly at the UK office. We were confident enough in the skills they demonstrated that we made one of their developers a team leader for one of the products the project involved.

What was the team composition?

Senior Java engineers with an experienced team leader

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

There was honest and transparent communicaton. Challenges, such as shortcoming on our end, were openly voiced and fixed. The project is now able to launch according to the government schedule, meeting the strictest quality standards.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Significant proportion was on Exlabs side. We really valued the openness of the Pattern Match team. 

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Skill level

Are there any areas for improvement?

There is a slight tendency to overengineer above the strict performance requirements, which could also mean the team was overqualified for the job? This was however easily controllable.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a co-founder of a UK based start up.

For what projects/services did your company hire Pattern Match?

We are improving our node.js, AWS serverless + terraform architecture. We engaged Pattern Match due to exceptionally good referrals from their clients. In particular, their referees highlighted the depth of the team's professionalism and deep understanding of AWS, node, architecture frameworks and an ability to dive deep when required. To be precise the referrals came from a Senior Engineer at a Blue Chip tech company and a CTO of a number of prominent start ups.

What were your goals for this project?

R&D & solution provision for a number of areas around node.js, serverless and terraform specifically about synchronization of various software and code updates to robustness of a 100% infrastructure-as-code architecture

How did you select this vendor?

We interviewed a number of service providers and asked them about the various requirements that we need. We decided to have a case study with Pattern Match (similar to how consulting firms hire employees). Pattern Match jumped on the case and within a day was able to solve a particular R&D topic that focused on the latest serverless and node developments.

Describe the project in detail.

We are running a state of the art serverless architecture with 100% infrastructure as code and complex API integrations etc... Our on-going requirements is to ensure that the architecture is kept up to date and perform R&D around ensuring that various elements of the code are up to date and robustly integrate with our AWS infrastructure (for example change management around node.js version updates and synchronicity with lambda functions).

What was the team composition?

The team is comprised of a number of individuals- all senior level engineers with deep knoweldge of AWS serverless etc... Wojciech, the team leader, ensured that the team dedicated appropriate resources commensurate with the task at hand. Exceptionally hands on.

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

Excellent communication and delivery. I agree with our referrals—Pattern Match is a highly professional team that is solution oriented. No BS, just pure execution (but with an architect's mindset; e.g. ability to be in the weeds and look through the trees).

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Excellent

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Communication, agility, expertise, no-nonsense, client focused, solution focused, and detailed

Are there any areas for improvement?

Their challenge is to keep up the good work- there is only one place to go when you are excellent :).

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a hotel accommodation company focused on the business sector. We build software services that enable large companies to manage their hotel portfolios and utilize a corporate booking portal. We focus on building the next generation of technologies for our conglomerate. I'm the head of software development and am responsible for our engineering staff and the software systems we develop.

What challenge were you trying to address with Pattern Match?

We hired them to augment our staff and work within agile methodology to improve our systems.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They work on infrastructure and DevOps, and their team members are spread among the members of our internal team. They migrated functionality from AWS to improve cost savings and operability within our systems. One team member worked on improving our batch processing system to give members better pricing options through AWS technologies and other communication systems.

They’re currently rebuilding the system and website for one of our subsidiaries. That project includes new search elements with Java infrastructure, frontend topics in Node.js, React, and GraphQL. They’re also working on an authentication process with a third-party provider.

What is the team composition?

Five members of their team are distributed among our development teams.

How did you come to work with Pattern Match?

They came through a recommendation from another very capable vendor. We talked with their developers and their CEO and were confident that they were the right company for us.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent around $400,000 so far, and the total spend should be under $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in late August 2018. The relationship is ongoing and will continue through 2019.

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

They're a small company, and they work well together. They take apart problems and find solutions. They've helped our infrastructure move forward, and we've seen positive impacts across the group. They demonstrate best practices and are very helpful to our internal teams. The effect is generally very good, and we think they're a fantastic asset.

How did Pattern Match perform from a project management standpoint?

I talk to the whole team on a weekly basis, including the CEO. We discuss ways to improve the partnership and how to proceed with various projects. I treat the individuals as members of our staff.

Their coordination is excellent. They take part in every form of communication and document what they need to. They make tidy proposals for future work, and I'm very happy with their working process.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're very professional. I've worked with other agencies, and their motivation and professionalism surpass them all.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only thing that could improve at all is a little more transparency, though our communication is already very good.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Tell them your problems and be open with them; they will have solutions for whatever you need. They're very helpful and give good feedback.